Trust In God

Let's bow for prayer. Father, we thank you today. We thank you for your great love to us today again, Lord.

We thank you that you care for us. We thank you that you took the time, the effort to write down your word so that we today, in this age, could be instructed through the things that happened many, many years ago, Father. And you preserved it through though many a man, many a person, the devil himself, many demons, wanted to destroy your word.

And yet you preserved it. And here we are, abundant copies in this room, abundant copies in our homes. And Lord, we are grateful for your word this morning.

And help us, Lord, as we reflect on it, as we consider it, that we could be taught, that we could not be ignorant. Paul's burden here is that his writers, the people he writes to, would not be ignorant. And Lord, help us also not to be that way.

Lord, the devil wants to destroy us, to kill us, and to lead us astray. And Father, through the battle here on this earth, through good and evil, help us, Father, to side with you and walk in your ways. Thank you for the grace you give.

And Lord, we pray, I pray, that you give me the right words to say this morning, that it could be a blessing and instruction, and just that you'd teach us and encourage us today. We thank you, Father, and commit this time into your hand. In Jesus' name, Amen.

So we see that the passages that they are referencing here are from the law, the Old Testament, the writings of Moses. And we see that they were written down for our examples. Sometimes we look at them and we see, well, we should focus in on the New Testament and what God has done today, and I mean, rightfully so.

But I'd like to take a little bit of a journey back to a couple of accounts today. And we notice in verse 11 that these happened for our examples. But I'd like to draw your attention to a phrase that Brother John referenced several times this morning in his opening.

He talked about God being faithful there in verse 13. And God, in His faithfulness, what I'd like to, looking up this word, faithful, in this Strong's, another way or another definition that it uses there is trustworthy. God is trustworthy.

And so, that is the subject that I'd like to consider. I'd like to go back and consider two accounts from the Old Testament and go through them. Probably not read the passages necessarily, but at least pull out some verses and draw our attention to them so that we can see that man can trust God.

That God is trustworthy, the way that this verse here says. So I've titled it simply, Trust in God, this morning. And both of the passages that we want to consider are the accounts where the children of Israel pass through water.

The one is the Red Sea, the other one is the Jordan River. And what I'd like to, I guess, draw our attention to, and so this, obviously this theme, I want that to be in the back of our minds, but I'd like to, what I'd like to draw our attention to on both of these passages, the one is the events that happened just before they crossed over this body of water, and the other one, the events that happened just after they crossed over this body of water. And the first passage I'd like us to turn to then is to Joshua.

And in Joshua 4, in verse 21, we will see, it's kind of where we want to begin as far as reading. We'll just go back a little bit and consider what is happening here. We see as Joshua takes control, takes the leadership position, and becomes the leader of the children of Israel, his first task is one of preparing the people to cross over the Jordan River.

And it seems that God, on purpose, led the children of Israel out of Egypt, through a body of water, and into what His plan was a short time after, into the land of Israel. But because of man's sin, it seems like God needed to take them through another body of water, and He goes on a little bit later and explains that, kind of what that represents. But through a second body of water to represent that passing through the water.

And you see that two times. And I don't think it was God's heart necessarily to do it the second time originally, but because of man's sin, He did do it twice. And so we see that as God is preparing Israel to pass through the Jordan River here, as God is preparing Joshua, He gives them some very specific instructions.

He tells them that the priests should go first, and when the priests touch the sole of their feet, touch the overflowing banks of the Jordan River, that the water will stop flowing, and then the Jordan will dry up, and then the people will be able to pass over. And it's interesting on dry land. Two times we see in this passage and in when Moses crosses the Red Sea, you both times see that it emphasizes the fact that the land was dry.

I mean, you just think of a river or a lake, and even if the water parts, I mean, you would imagine that there should be mud down there, but God emphasizes that it was dry in both cases. And we see that here, that it was dry. And then the priests that were carrying the ark were supposed to stop in the middle of this body of water where there was water before, and 12 men were supposed to go and grab each a stone, probably a fairly large rock, and carry it over to the promised land.

And these priests stood there and waited until everyone had crossed over, and then as soon as they were done crossing over, these men moved forward. I believe it was four men. The priests moved forward, stepped out of the water, and as soon as they stepped out of the water, the water started flowing again.

And so very, very magnificent event, very, very supernatural thing that took place here. And, you know, how did this happen? God describes it in an amazing way. He says that the waters, they piled up on a heap.

Have you ever seen water pile up on a heap? Or can you pile water on a heap? Well, that's not something that naturally took place. And so God, He caused it, for whatever reason, to pile up and stay there until they passed over, and then once that was the case, they were passed and it flowed again. So very, very fascinating how that took place.

So Joshua 4, as I said, verse 21, it says, And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children, this is regarding these stones that they were supposed to take, shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Then ye shall tell your children, let your children know, saying, Israel came over the Jordan on dry land, for the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up from before us, until we were gone over, that all the people of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that ye might fear the Lord your God forever. So as a testimony for the miracle, the magnificent thing that God had done, they brought these stones, and then as a memorial, the future generations could go back, and the fathers could walk their children there and explain exactly what happened there, God's heart, to pass the faith on to the next generation. It says here, as the Lord did, as God did to the Red Sea.

And this happens, so we'll maybe just pause in this passage a little bit, and we'll flip over to Exodus 14, and just maybe put a bookmarker there, we'll go back to that one a little bit later, and we're going to consider Exodus 14 now, and here we see, verse 1, it says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hathoroth, between Migdal and the Sea, over against Beth-Zephron, before it ye shall encamp by the Sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, they are entangled in the land, the wilderness has shut them in, and I will harden Pharaoh's heart. So here we have a fascinating passage, where God obviously delivered them out of Egypt, you know, the ten plagues, miraculous things took place, God leads them across the Zioni Peninsula, and down to a place where they are right beside the Red Sea, and the way that the Bible describes it here, that they are shut in, and it's a fascinating thought that God specifically led them to this very spot, and there they were, you know, out on the beach, I don't know exactly how much time has gone by, waiting for God to direct them further, and all the while, God has a plan, from a human perspective, from a human perspective, it looks like these people are now trapped.

Brother John asked if we've ever felt like we were trapped, well, these people felt like they were trapped, and the interesting thing that I'd like to point out here, is that God led them here. In this particular place, they came to the place where God led them to this place, and that is where they were trapped. And this is where I'd like to, you know, pull in this aspect of trusting God in this part, where they have followed God's instruction, I mean, up until now, I think fairly accurately, we do see them failing and complaining and different things as they travel on, but I think up to this place, they've listened to God's instructions fairly accurately, God leads them to this place, they are trusting the guidance of God through that pillar of smoke and the pillar of fire, and God brings them to this place, and from a humanly perspective, and you see the people themselves, some of them feel the same way, that God has led them here to kill them.

That is why they are on this beach here now. They are trapped, there's mountains on each side, there's kind of one way in and one way out, and Pharaoh, being familiar with the geography, knows this, and when he hears it, he's like, here's my chance, I'm going to go back and take these slaves back to me and kill whoever needs to be killed and captivate the rest and bring them back, and then they will continue to serve me. And yet, God instructs Moses here, and God says that I will basically, in a sense, deceive Pharaoh, or let Pharaoh think that he'll have the opportunity to catch the people, and then he will magnify his name.

That's God's intention, to glorify his name. You know, in some of our own circumstances, sometimes, as I said here, these people were led to this place. Sometimes in situations that we find ourselves, we lead ourselves into where we are in a jam.

You know, that's maybe the difference in some of the circumstances that we find, but in this case here, I'd just like to point that out and emphasize that God led them to this place. So then we go down to verse 13, and yeah, we could take the time, we could read further, but just for the sake of time, we'll just point out a few verses here. Verse 13, then, and Moses said unto the people, well, just to get the context here, Pharaoh pursues, they see that they're ever getting closer, verse 11 there, they're starting to complain, and he says, you know, the people, some of the people say, are there no graves in Egypt that you brought us here to kill us? And then Moses, obviously, you know, as the leader, I'm sure he feels very responsible, and then he tells the people, fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you today.

So a statement of faith, a statement of trust, you know, when we've been walking in what we feel like is God's will, we're following His direction, and it just seems like we are stuck, then what do we do? Often the temptation is to murmur, like what the people did here, it's to complain, it's to say, did I hear God right? And those types of things, and we get, you know, maybe frustrated or difficult, we find ourselves in difficult situations, and, you know, as it says here, Moses instructed them, fear not, and see the salvation of the Lord. Why? Because they were trusting in God. If you trust God, you will see the salvation of God.

Continue on. Which he will show you today, for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. So God pronouncing the judgment upon them.

Verse 14, the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. 15, And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me, speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward, and then he instructs them, Moses, to put out his rod, and the sea will be divided. Notice what he says.

Verse 13, he tells them stand still, and they will see the salvation of the Lord. Then in verse 15, he says, Why do you cry to me? Move forward. Don't just stand there and do nothing.

Do what I've instructed you to do, and move forward. God doesn't stop here. He continues to explain his plan.

And then there we see a mighty parting of the waters, and them passing through. What we see here, I don't know if it's maybe not described. The word might not be here.

The water is parted, and the scripture says that this water was congealed. And that's an interesting thought. It's the way a liquid turns into a solid, you know, when you make jello or maybe cement.

You know, it's a liquid, and then as a period of time, it hardens. And that's what God says happened here. The water divided, it congealed, and basically there was a wall of water on each side to prevent it from falling down.

And God granted a great, great deliverance to these people. Verse 18 then says, And the Egyptians shall know, God is still speaking here, that I am the Lord when I have gotten me honor upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. So that seems to be the intention there, that God would receive the honor and the glory by destroying their enemies.

We see in the next chapter, in chapter 15, the song of Moses here, and Moses rejoices over the victory that God has wrought over them. And then in verse 8, I mean, we could read the whole passage, but we won't today. Verse 8 there it says, And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upon as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

And so there it is. Again, an interesting term, that water can be piled on a heap. And yet that's what God did.

So what I want to emphasize here, I hope you notice this, the fact that the trusting in God that needed to take place here was before they crossed through the water. So they trusted God, God opened the sea, they could pass through, and then the Egyptians were drowned. Now turn back to the passage there in Joshua, and continue kind of where we were, where they passed through the sea, they set up a camp in Gilgal, just inside the promised land there.

And then we have chapter 5 begins, and this is an interesting verse here. This is a verse that the Israelites possibly would have had no idea about. I think they knew that God was moving mightily, they knew that God was starting to put his fear on their enemies, but this is something that most likely Joshua would have heard later on as testimony.

It says, And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of the Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was their spirit in them anymore because of the children of Israel. And I want to just emphasize that a little bit here, because when God is doing a work, and he's doing a work on a bigger picture often than just in our own lives or in our own hearts. Sometimes, if you're like me, you have a bit of a narrow focus and you're kind of thinking of what God is just doing in your own heart or in your own life, and you're missing sometimes what God's doing around.

And so here, God is working not only that he's bringing the people of Israel over safely, but he is also putting a dread or a fear of himself into all the people around there, into the Canaanites, into the various different tribes that live there. And that's important, but notice that most likely the Israelites were not completely aware of what was happening, that fear was being put into them. And the reason why I'd like us to notice that here is because, again, God is working on the big picture.

He isn't just focused on us per se. So then notice what Joshua here gets instructed to do. Verse 2, At that time, the Lord said unto Joshua, Make these sharp knives and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.

So that's an interesting thing. He goes on to explain that the children of Israel were circumcised in Egypt, but then when they left, they failed to do it in the wilderness. The instruction of the law was that they were supposed to be circumcised, and they failed.

And here now, they have just entered the promised land. They have just entered. They've made camp.

They're surrounded by enemies. So very, very important facts. They're all surrounded by enemies.

And God instructs them to circumcise everyone that is not circumcised. And Joshua looks at this thing, and I wonder if he was tempted to question this command. Like, God, what are you doing? I mean, here we are.

We're just... We're in a very, very vulnerable place. And maybe you don't quite understand why this is so significant. Remember what happened in Genesis 34 when Hamar defiled... I think it was Hamar.

Hamar defiled Jacob's daughter, Diana. And Jacob's sons deceived the people there of Shechem. And they basically said, if you get circumcised, then our children will marry your children, and your children will marry our children.

We'll intermarry. We'll join our tribes together. And then they said, well, if you circumcise, then we'll do it.

So they did. And then three days later, Levi and Simeon, I think it was, went in and killed all the men, killed the entire village. Why? Because three days later, all the men were sore.

And therefore, they would have been at their weakest spot physically and their most vulnerable spot. And hence, they were an easy target. They would have been less resistance.

And God would have been... Sorry, these boys, these young men would have had the opportunity to kill them much, much easier. And so that is the exact situation that the Israelites are finding themselves in here. So they're at their most vulnerable spot.

I mean, if you think of it, if they would have done this a month earlier, on the other side of the Jordan, they would have... They just went through that whole thing with Belpior, the sinful thing that happened there. Moses was still alive. And they had just defeated Amon there and taken some of the land.

And so they were at a pretty good spot militarily and protected on the other side of Jordan, preparing to invade Canaan, preparing to cross over. And so they were at a pretty safe spot there. But God, for whatever reason, decides not to do it there.

He first commands them to go over the Jordan River and then they set up camp among their enemies. And there he tells them, make yourself so vulnerable that if the enemies attack, in essence, you will be destroyed. Make yourself that vulnerable.

Now, Joshua, I mean, maybe he... God told him. Maybe he was aware of it through... I mean, I think part ways he was based on the harlot's report there from Jericho. Maybe he was aware of that.

But whatever... I mean, all the things that he knew or didn't know, I'm not sure. But whatever the case, he decides to trust God anyway. And he has found in his experience, being Moses' right-hand man for many years and now taking this position, he has found that God is trustworthy.

That God is trustworthy. And so God says, make these sharp knives. Joshua says, people, get ready, get your sharp knives.

And there seems to be, in Joshua's life, a very, very commendable man, there seems to be no hesitation from him as far as obedience. He fully trusts God. God tells him to do something.

And Joshua, in a trustworthy way, responds and does exactly what God wants him to do. And so there they are at a very vulnerable place. God has, however, been working in the background and put this fear and this dread in the people's hearts that they probably were very, very uncertain what these people are going to do now.

Here they are, this group of 2 million people or so, and, well, yeah, 2 million, maybe 1.5 million, whatever. And they're there camping, and the people around are wondering, what is the next step? And then you have, I mean, the mighty overthrow of Jericho in the next chapter, which we're not going to go into. But just think of, again, in both of these scenarios, I just want us to observe the aspect of them fully trusting in God.

They were in a place where they trusted God completely in what they had. The way I have it written down here, the aspect of faith was first. Faith brought them to a place of trusting God, and that brought them to a place of action.

I wrestled, as I was preparing for this, I wrestled with, you know, this is so much like the word faith. You know, faith is so much intertwined in this word trust. And so I wrestled with the idea of, do I focus on the faith part, or do I focus on the trust part? And I chose instead to emphasize the trust, the trusting part, because God is trustworthy.

And when we look at it, there's, I want to say, hundreds of verses about us commanded to and examples of us trusting God over and over. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord.

And we'll look at some of that here as we go further in the message. So trusting and faith, obviously, are intertwined and very, very close, but yet separate as well. There's a bit of distinctions.

So trust would be a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. So trusting in God, the firm belief, the faith, and that God is who He says He is. So let's consider a little bit some risks to trusting God.

You know, a risk is a situation where we are exposed to danger. Any of us at work, especially in the construction field, they're constantly telling us that, well, do a risk assessment to see what the danger level is. And so we're faced with risks all the time, and trusting God has a risk to it as well.

There's a risk to that, and maybe in some ways we could say that it's a risk from a fleshly, from a humanly perspective, but it's still a risk. And, you know, a few risks that I have here, I probably by no means have them all. I'd be very welcome to hear some of your comments on any of these things during the sharing after or this afternoon.

But one thing, one risk, the first risk that I have here, again, by no order of importance per se, but God will lead you into some uncomfortable situations and circumstances. Now notice I emphasize the fact that God led them, led them to the camp, led them to this place here. And God will lead us, too, to places where we feel like, why did God do it this way? Why did God allow this? And this is the risk of trusting an almighty God.

God does things differently than we sometimes think He should. And so He leads us into some very uncomfortable, maybe unpleasant circumstances, and then He says to us, are you still going to trust Me? Are you going to trust Me? As I said, some of the jams that we find ourselves are self-inflicted. Others are that God leads us to.

Joshua was first led, led the people over the Jordan River, then commanded them to be circumcised, which we already considered. Now, another example of this, another risk, is the fact that Jesus, when He went into the wilderness to be tempted, actually He was led there by the Spirit. Matthew 4 and Luke 4 both emphasize that.

It says, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Luke 4 says, And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So even though, maybe put it that way, even though Jesus was led by the Spirit, He was full of the Holy Ghost, He was led into this place of temptation.

In a way, a very difficult time for Christ, much different things that He faced, and yet we see that because He trusted God, not just in the aspect of being led into it, but throughout the entire ordeal, He relied upon God and His Word, His Heavenly Father and the Word. He came out victoriously. He came out proven and taken and grown in His experience.

You know, an example that I came across is the aspect, you know, God seems to bring people, bring us to situations to test us and an example is if you have a rope, if I had a rope or we hang a rope from a tree or something like that, and on that rope, you know, you can look at it and it appears strong. You know, it looks like, by all appearance, you look it up and down, it looks like a nice strong rope. And yet the only way that you can really test it if it is strong is by actually applying some type of weight to it.

You know, when that weight is applied, then the test actually shows if that rope is strong. And I think God works that way in our life. The trials that we face, you know, they're not there to destroy us, they're there to cause us or to bring us to that place where we will trust God more and rely on Him more.

Okay, moving on to some benefits of trusting God. So the first one that I have here, I think when we trust God, God is glorified. I think that's very, very important.

Ultimately, God wants, I think the end goal, the desire of God is that God would receive the glory. You have the glory of God throughout the theme. It's a major theme throughout the Scripture.

See it from cover to cover that God would receive glory in all that He does through creation, through yours and my life, through everything that we experience and see. We also see that another benefit is that we would see God's blessing when we trust God, we see God's blessing in our lives. We read the passage in 1 Corinthians 13 and there it said that even though all the people went through the water, thinking specifically of the Red Sea there, they all went through the Red Sea, everyone that did, you know, the Egyptians were covered, but even the people that mourned and complained just, you know, hours earlier, they too went through safely.

However, it goes on there and it says that with many of them, God was not well pleased. And so, the idea of trusting God, not just once, but in every situation that He brings us to, God will bestow a blessing upon us. The opposite of that, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but the opposite of that is, you know, the curse.

And those that murmured and complained obviously died or were judged. So the blessing of God on those who trusted God. Another example here that just came to me now is Joshua and Caleb.

You know, they trusted God that God would bring them into the Promised Land and they were the only two out of the 12 spies and they trusted God and God blessed them to the place where they still inherited the very piece of land that they walked on. I believe it was Hebron that Caleb received, I think it was. Caleb said, that's the land that I want.

And God blessed him with that. Yes, it was many years later, but it was the blessing there. I think another benefit is that we can see God's intervention, God intervening on our behalf.

You know, just the idea of us, you know, coming through a trial and seeing God's hand intervene is a blessing on our lives and on our, just again, brings us to the place of bringing glory and honor to God. We also see God's salvation, maybe similar to His intervention, but in Exodus there, it very specifically said that God, just stand back and watch the salvation of God and that God brought salvation to them. We also see that we experience another benefit of trusting God.

We see that we can experience God's protection, God's protection upon our lives. We need God's protection. Job had the hedge of protection about him.

And when we trust God, there's that hedge of protection that gets pulled away when we rely on our own ideas, on our own wealth, on our own humanly wisdom. Then that protection of God withdraws. You know, Satan's accusation to God was the only reason that Job serves you is because you protect him and you don't let anything bad happen to them.

And so occasionally, God seems to pull back that hedge of protection and allow some things. And then you and I have that choice of will we continue to trust God as this storm comes our way or this difficult situation comes our way or will we murmur and complain like the Israelites did. So God has that protection on us.

And we see that God does not allow more than what we can handle as well. A very, very comforting thought. The New Testament describes Jesus in Matthew 23 37 and Jesus says that he would have wanted to gather the people of Jerusalem under himself, under his protective wings the way that a hen does her chicks.

Now that's God's heart to pull all his under him and protect them and take care of them. So there's a benefit of trusting God completely. So what about some excuses for not trusting God? I maybe just have one or maybe a couple but not very many here.

One that I want to draw our attention to is another passage here out of Joshua 17. And in Joshua 17, some time has gone by, the land has been divided and the different individuals, the different tribes have gone in to move into the territory that God has given to them. And what we see here, we see a couple of them, a group of, I think it's Joseph's, the children of Joseph in verse 14.

I'm not going to read it per se. I might point out a phrase here or there. But the children of Joseph, they are upset with Joshua.

They say, we're a big people or we're a lot of people and so why did we get such a small piece of land? So they're kind of upset with Moses. Like, here we are, why did we just get one lot when we're so many people? And Joshua says, he gives them some woods there, they should go in and take that, things like that. But what we notice from them is the fact that they themselves actually give an excuse.

Verse 18, it says, but the mountain shall be thine for it is a wood and thou shalt cut it down and the outgoings of it shall be thine for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites though they have iron chariots and though they be strong. Sorry, I should have just pointed out verse, it's in the middle of verse 16. Their excuse was, the hill is not enough for us and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron both they who are of Bethsaan and her towns.

And so the reason why they're stuck in a smaller portion is because they do not trust God and do not go down and take this land that God has given them. And why do they not go down? It's because they have chariots of iron. That's the reason they don't go down.

They're too strong for us, in essence, is what they're saying. And what happens in our lives too sometimes is we find ourselves in a situation where we don't trust God. God tells us to do something and we see this huge obstacle to us looks almost, looks too big and then we complain to God that he doesn't take care of us or doesn't provide for us.

And meanwhile, God had told them and we look at the enemy and look at how strong he is instead of turning our eyes to God and saying, I will trust God even if they have chariots of iron. And Joshua here told them that even though they have chariots of iron and though they be strong, you go down and get that land it's been given to you. So excuses come up where we look on and things look too overwhelming.

And what is that? Simply put, I think it's unbelief. We have, we look at situations and they look too big for us. We don't trust God.

It's unbelief showing its ugly face in our lives, in our thoughts. It discourages us and we become overwhelmed. Instead of refocusing on trusting God, we give the excuse.

We find some legitimate reason why we should not trust God and do what he says. Instead, we should refocus and say God said this, I will pursue it even though I don't feel it or even though it looks overwhelming, even though it looks difficult, but I trust God. God is trustworthy.

Emphasize that. God is trustworthy. So there's one excuse that we see, reasons that we give and I'm sure there's many, many more.

Moving on here, what does the Bible say about those that don't trust God, that don't trust God, consequences of not trusting God. Jeremiah 13. Now remember Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is the weeping prophet. Jeremiah is on the world scene during the time that the people of Israel are in a very, very sad state spiritually and hence they're divided. They're suffering.

Many, many difficult things are happening and eventually, I mean, as the book of Jeremiah goes on, you see the destruction of Jerusalem, but this is what God says in verse 25. This is thy lot, the portion of thy measure from me, sayeth the Lord, because thou hast forgotten me and trusted in falsehood. So they took their trust away from God and put it into something else and the Bible calls what they put their trust in as falsehood and the lot that they inherited from that was destruction and ultimately God's judgment.

So that's, I guess, what we would also inherit. That would be our lot if we take our eyes away from God and not trust Him. Jeremiah 17.5 says, Thus sayeth the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord.

So that man is cursed. Psalm 146, verse 3 says, Put not your trust in princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. So all the things that people, the aspects of consequences of not trusting the Lord.

And he that trusteth in his riches shall fail or shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch. So in closing here, just one illustration, you know, a child, actually, I got a few things here before I close. This illustration here, you know, a child that's crossing the street, a small child, he doesn't understand the traffic laws.

He doesn't understand how, you know, the speeding or the danger of what happens. He simply reaches up, holds his father's hand, and he is safe as they walk across the street. He doesn't understand, but he trusts in what his father does.

And all he's concerned about is holding, trusting him who does understand. And that is the place that God wants to bring you and I. When we do not trust the Lord, peace is lost. Isaiah 26 says this, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.

Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. So when we do not trust the Lord, peace is lost, anxiety increases, direction becomes unclear, obedience weakens, joys fade, growth stalls, but when we trust Him, blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. One more verse here out of Psalm 37.

It says, Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.

May God add His blessing.