Faith Series: The Knowledge of Faith

Faith Series: The Knowledge of Faith

In verse number 5, Jeremiah 17, verse number 5, thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when the heat, or when heat cometh. But her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. And we'll conclude the reading in that passage there in verse number 10 this evening.

There was a little bit of a change in the Bible. There was a little bit of a change in the Bible. There was a little book that Dr. Peacock, Sr. wrote, just a little story called Life's Drama, a little story about his life and ministry experience. And it was never published per se, but it was just, I think we have a few copies of it. But he referenced this passage in there. He said of his ministry and all of his experiences. In all of his experience in the ministry, his heart just kept coming back to this passage of Scripture. That it sums up so many life experiences and things that he had learned in the ministry. That the man that trusts in the Lord will be blessed, and the man that trusts in the arm of flesh will be cursed.

And as I was also thinking back of looking at some things. As I was thinking along this line. Along these lines of faith and what it means to have faith. At Sister Emily Gay's funeral, I had seen in my notes where she had written in the fly leaf of her Bible a quote. And it didn't give any attribution where the quote came from. But I'm sure a preacher said it or something along the way. Or she read it somewhere. But it says, To believe is to exercise faith in the fact that God has provided forgiveness through the death of His Son. This is more, however, than just an intellectual exercise. Belief implies a commitment of your life and heart to the Lord. It means you are willing to submit to His authority and to obey His commands. That's the kind of faith that saves. So I like that. I mean, I like the whole quote. But it implies faith. It implies a commitment of your life and heart to the Lord. Belief implies a commitment of your life and heart to the Lord.

The natural tendency of man is folly. To do what? To fear what somebody else is going to do or say. And to trust in myself, right? Fear others and trust yourself. That's foolishness, isn't it? But the Lord is teaching us to fear Him and trust Him. Right? We saw this morning. To fear the Lord. To trust in the Lord. So this passage, I know our girls, when they were smaller, we learned that verse. Among other verses, Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who can know it? The heart, naturally, our heart, your heart, my heart, naturally is governed by misguided desires, feelings about things, you know, because of sin, isn't it? My heart will, my heart will lead, don't follow your heart. Don't follow your heart unless your heart is following the word, right? Because your heart will, don't let your conscience be your guide alone either. Make sure your conscience is being steered by the word. I mean, thank God for conscience. It will scream at us, but it might, we need a conscience that's trained by the word of God, ultimately. We need our conscience to be, to be, to be healthy according to God's word. Our conscience can, if we just follow our conscience, our conscience can be seared. Our conscience can be damaged in many ways. But don't follow your heart. The heart is deceitful above all things. Follow the Lord. Trust in the Lord.

How do we trust in the Lord? Well, we've got to know what the Lord wants. What is His will? What does He say? Well, we certainly know He's given us His word. We don't have Jesus to walk in here into the room. Not that He couldn't, but He's going to come back one day, but He doesn't just come in and start talking to us. He doesn't write signs in the, write paragraphs in the sky for us to read. He doesn't need to. He's already told us what He wants us to know. And He's given us the Holy Spirit. He's left the Comforter with us to, to guide us into the way of the Lord. And He's given us the Holy Spirit. He's left the Comforter with us to, to guide us into the way of the Lord. And so, as we read here tonight, on the positive side of it, Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. We saw this morning. What time am I afraid? What time am I praying? I will trust in thee. What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. Blessed. That means truly happy. Truly, truly happy.

The man, woman, boy or girl that trusts in the Lord will truly know joy and fulfillment and satisfaction. Even in hard times. Even in dry times. Even in difficult times. Like the analogy is giving us here. Like a tree. Like Psalm 1. Planted by the rivers of water. Bringing forth fruit even in time of drought. But we see that the key here is that the tree is spreading out the roots by the river. In old age we see that it's possible to be, the scripture says, fat and flourishing if we're planted in the right place. If we're planted in the courts of the Lord, right? If you're planted by faith. That's, I mean, this. This is the idea. You're putting down roots in faith in the right, in the truth. In the Lord. Trusting in the Lord. Trusting in His words. Not built upon the foundation of feelings and opinions of others. The fear and the favor of man. Rooted in faith. In the word of God. Not trusting in what you see. Trusting in what you know to be true that God has revealed.

And so, let's look in Proverbs 20. 28 together. Proverbs 28, verse 26. Let's look at this verse together. Proverbs 28 and verse number 26. It says here in Proverbs 28, verse number 26, He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. The steps of a good man. We know how they're ordered, right? The Bible tells us that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. David behaved himself wisely. He obeyed God. But he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. Well, that doesn't beat around the bush, does it? That just gets right to the point. If you curse and be the man that trusteth in man, makes flesh his arm, the man who trusts in his own heart is a fool. That really goes against, pop psychology, doesn't it? It goes against positive thinking, so to speak. No, we should not trust in our own heart. We would be foolish to do so. But we are to trust in the Lord with all our heart, right? Lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him. He shall direct thy paths. As we just indicated here, whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. Well, who's the one that walks wisely? Uh, the one who, whose paths are directed by the Lord, right? His steps are ordered according to God's word.

Well, when it comes to faith, David, uh, my brother-in-law David made an observation today as we were talking this afternoon. He said something, and I hope I get this right, but just something simply to the effect that God must look at us sometimes and say, if you would just trust me, if you would just trust me about the future, I, you're, you're sitting here wringing your hands and worrying about things that I already know. I'm not going to tell you everything that's going to happen, but I already know the future. I already see your future. There's, it would be, it would be like, and it is like our children sometimes. Maybe, maybe children at times get worked up over something that we know is not. If, yes, we could understand and we can empathize that maybe this is painful or maybe this is, frustrating or whatever, but it's not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be. It's, this is going to, this is going to pass. This too will pass. In fact, we can already see, we already know from experience of having gone through it ourselves. It's going to be over in just a few minutes. It's going to be over in a few hours. It's going to be, it's going to be passed. And we don't have the omniscience that the Lord has. But we can see there's no need to fret, no need to worry, no need to panic. It's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be,

And the Lord, as was indicated in that, David in that conversation, sometimes we just need to stop and step back and think, what does the Lord, what does the Lord say about this? If we know what the Lord says about it, we can already know what he's thinking about it, right? Because his, what he's written, he means. And what he says is, are the true thoughts of his heart and mind toward us. So, children, lack experience, don't they? They lack experience in life. And that's why it's just the unknown. Well, it's the unknown. Lucas came bawling and crying yesterday. He said, Daddy, I have sunburn. I have sunburn. I said, really? It was still morning. I didn't get sunburned so early in the day. And, and, and, and it was truly giving him pain, but it was not sunburn. It was a blister on his foot.

It was a blister on his foot and it was painful. And I, I explained to him, well, son, that's actually a blister and we can put a band-aid on it. I said, and I understand it is painful, but it's not sunburn. He said, oh, he didn't realize that what it was. He was ignorant of that and just the unknown, unknown of, of, of what that was. Sometimes children are unaware of things that will actually hurt them, but sometimes they might become afraid of things they think are going to hurt them. They're going to hurt them and they're not actually going to hurt them. My brother, I mean, I was afraid of things. Certainly, I was afraid of big dogs when I was younger. I was afraid of heights. I'm still, I still don't like heights, but I was afraid of certain things and there's certainly healthy respect for those things that we need to have.

My brother was afraid of Muddy the Mudcat when we went to a ball game as a child. Muddy is, Muddy's not going to hurt you, especially, you know, with Dad there, he's not going to hurt you, but it was all he could think about. We're in the ballpark as Muddy today, you know. I don't want him to come get me with that big head he's got, you know, and the big tail. Well, those are, those are misplaced fears. Those are childish fears. You know, it's not the dark, even though we, as a child, are afraid of the dark. The dark's not going to hurt you. Maybe you might hurt yourself in the dark, because you stubbed your toe on something, but it's not, dark isn't going to do anything to you. It's just the fact that you can't see what's in the dark that might be the trouble.

And so, that's, the child doesn't have the experience the father and mother have, but when the, they want to hear the comfort and the encouragement or the reassurances of the father and mother, because the father and mother say, it's going to be okay. Don't, don't cry about it. Don't, don't worry over it. It's going to be okay. Trust me. Trust me. I know. And, that brings reassurance. Because, now the child says, well, mom and daddy love me. Mom and daddy know more than I do. I'll just trust them. I'll trust that it's okay. And as long as we tuck you back in bed or we, you know, whatever the case is, then it's going to be alright. Because mama and daddy said it was going to be alright. Right? Right? They trust that they love us and they're telling us the truth.

Isn't that the same thing we're doing we are to do with our heavenly father? Isn't that why we read his word? Isn't that why we pray to him? What time I'm afraid? I'm going to trust, I'm just going to trust in the Lord. And that, I will experience the blessing that comes by purposely leaning on the everlasting arms instead of leaning upon my heart. My heart needs to be leaning on the word, as the hymn says, the written word of God. And so that's, that's the pattern that God, I mean, everything, everything that God has put in this world, whether it be human relationships, agriculture, all of this, if you stop and really look at it, every little fine detail, even gives us examples of it in his word, it's all pointing back to our relationship with him.

It's all teaching us about what our relationship to him is supposed to look like. You know, so as we see this, we need to be, need to ask the Lord to help us not to live by how our heart feels about it or what our eyes say about it, but what you say about it, Lord. And so, our children, as we tell them, you just need to trust me, that's what the Lord is telling us, isn't he? It's just so sweet to trust in Jesus just to take him at his word, just to read him, just to rest upon his promise, just to know, thus saith the Lord. That's what he wants us. We just need to know. Faith is not about feeling our way through this. Faith is about knowing that God has already told us what it is and how we're to think about it. Another verse of that hymn says, I am so glad I learned to trust thee, precious Jesus, Savior, friend.

And I know that thou art with me. There's that word again, know, right? I know that thou art with me, wilt be with me to the end. Surely, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Not because I, some days I might not feel that, but I know it. I know it based on the promise and I need to stand on the promise of the promises of God. I shared a verse that I had, I was reading something earlier that someone else had sent me and it gave the scripture reference Psalm 34, 17. So, let's turn over there. Psalm 34, 17 says this. It's along those lines of knowing. In fact, the little thing that was sent, it had the scripture reference Psalm 34, 17 and it says, God hears you. God hears you. Psalm 34, 17.

Tell me if that's not what this is telling us. Psalm 34, verse 17 says, the righteous cry, the righteous cry, not just anybody, but the righteous, righteous by faith, right? And the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles. So, when the righteous cry, what does the Lord do? He hears. God hears you. Don't need to cry louder. You don't need to cut yourself like the prophets of Baal did. You just need, what if we ask anything according to his will? We know that he hears us. And if we know that he heareth us, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. We know if we just simply come to him in faith on the basis of his word, he will not turn us away. He will hear us. He knows even before we ask, but wants us to come to him in prayer.

I mean, have you ever felt like, do you ever have the feeling, you pray, but it's almost like you feel like, I need to do something. I need to do something to work this situation out. The feeling at times can come to us and we even allude, we even, without even thinking about it sometimes, we say, well, all I can do is pray, right? I think we know what we mean when we say that, but at the same time, we don't want to diminish the power of prayer. It's not all we can do. The first thing we should do and what we should continue to do is to pray. There's situations, you can, sometimes, you can make the situation, most times, you can make the situation worse by trying to work it out when God has put us in a position just like he put us in a position. Just like he put the children of Israel up against the Red Sea.

They couldn't go back. They couldn't go forward. They could only look up and say, Lord, help us. And God wants us then when we're in a position where there's nothing we can do. A husband who has a wife with cancer, a wife who has a husband that has a bad condition that they're in and I want to fix this. There's nothing I can do to fix it. Lord, I'm calling upon you in faith. Touch my husband. Touch my wife. Heal or give me the strength to take care of this sick one. Whatever the case may be. There's nothing we can do humanly about it, but we might say there's no help in earth below. But the Lord knows and he will provide. He will supply all our need according to his riches and glory. But we must look to him. We must trust in his word, not trust in our own feelings.

As the text told us tonight, the cursed is the man that trusteth in man that trust in the arm of flesh will be like the dry heath in the desert will be just like the proverbial tumbleweed. No life dried up without any sustenance of the Lord. Well, there is a blessed life that can always be seen even in hard circumstances can be seen in the Lord. Always rejoicing. Rejoice evermore. We've seen that. Rejoice evermore, Paul told the Thessalonians. Pray without ceasing. I remember the words of the hymn by James M. Gray. He said, once it was the blessing, I wanted the blessing, but now it is the Lord. Once it was the feeling, now it is his word. Once his gift I wanted, now the giver own. Once I sought for healing, now himself alone. Once t'was painful trying, now t'was perfect trust. Once a half salvation, now the uttermost. Once t'was ceaseless holding, now he holds me fast. Once t'was constant drifting, now my anchors. Cast. We need to put those roots down in the word of God, don't we? We need to put those roots of faith into God's word more deeply. When the winds of testing and trouble and fear come, I think I shared at Breckenridge this past week, those little plants we were growing at the house, we started some of them back in February. You put them out, they need to be tried. They need to be hardened off to the temperatures, but also they need to be exposed to the sunshine gradually more and more. They need to be tested by wind.

There was that project out in Arizona some decades ago where they did a test of what it was going to be like if they could sustain life on the moon or something like that in sort of a terrarium type enclosed place that could receive sunlight but wouldn't be exposed to the harsh elements of bees. They were being on the moon or on Mars or somewhere like that. And they were testing it and they were growing all kinds of plants and trees and stuff in there and they said for the first, what was it, maybe 18 months, two years, the trees, the saplings they planted did all right. But once they got to a certain size, they noticed one by one they just started falling over. And it was because they didn't have any good roots. They just started falling over under their own weight. And they realized among other factors they needed wind.

They needed wind because the wind was actually crucial to strengthening the formation of good root systems for those trees. And in the same way we, our faith, as we said recently, it has to be tested. It can't just be, we can't grow we can't grow in our faith in a bubble isolated from trouble and from tests. We can't grow like that. It might appear that we're growing but we're not actually, you know, we're not actually growing as the Lord would intend us to grow. So, how do we grow? When we go through the trials we find out, Lord, I'm afraid. Lord, I'm worried. Lord, I'm this. Lord, I'm that. Lord, I'm needy. Lord, I'm weak. And he says, that's okay. I've got the supply for you. That's okay. I've got the answer. I've got the wisdom for you. You call to me. I hear you. I know your need. I know your situation. It's not taking me by surprise.

And God gives us what we need. He gives us the encouragement that we need. He gives us the strength that we need. I think of Isaiah, how he said in Isaiah 12, verse 2, Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid, he said, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song. He also has become my salvation. Gladness comes to our hearts when more and more when we learn to trust God in a variety of different situations. Gladness, blessedness. Have you ever felt how, you know what it feels like to be so miserable when you know you ought to trust in the Lord, but you're not trusting in the Lord about it. You're instead, you're just kind of griping and murmuring and complaining and you're thinking, boy, I'm really making life miserable down here for myself. You know, a child in panic or in fear and they're just, they're unconsolable or they're un, they've just lost it, we might say. They're having a breakdown. No, we need to calm down and, and trust in the Lord. Sometimes you have to with your children, you just have to get right in their face and say, it's going to be okay. Calm down. Calm down. And sometimes the Lord has to do that with us. We, we get worked up or we get, we get anxious or we get any number of things. We get, we lose, we lose sight of Him and we get our eyes on the circumstance. It is, it is good to trust in the Lord. It is good to learn. We need to, we need to get, how can I put this?

When we, when we get put in test, I need to learn how to quickly, more and more, I need to be, I need to, I, my knee-jerk reaction in every situation, I don't know if knee-jerk is the word I'm looking for, but my immediate reaction should be, Lord, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to trust you. I'm going to trust you in this situation. I'm going to trust your word. There's never, there's never a situation where I should not be giving thanks to the Lord. There's never a situation where I shouldn't be rejoicing in the Lord. There's never a situation where I shouldn't be praying about it. So, I don't know. This is a new path. This is a new circumstance. But, I need to trust you instead of becoming frustrated with the trial. Well, that's what patience is, isn't it? The trial of your faith worketh patience. Patience is what the Lord is wanting to, is wanting to do.

So, that's what we produce in our lives. So, back in our text here in Jeremiah 17, we read here that the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is, Isaiah just said, the Lord is my strength and my song and has become my salvation. The Lord is my hope. He's the one, my expectation is from Him, right? My expectation is not from Washington or even from my loved ones, from my, you know, from my bank account. My expectation is, is, is, it comes from the Lord. He says, that man that trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in the Lord, or whose hope the Lord is, he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river. We need to think God's word. We need to breathe in God's word, so to speak, by faith. We need to, we need to receive it with meekness and then we need to breathe it out in prayer, right?

We need to breathe out prayer, which is, when we pray to God, we need to pray what? We need to pray His word. We need to pray what He's told us to pray. The manner of which He's told us to pray. We need to pray based on, Lord, what you have said in your word and that's, that's trust. We know, we know, we know what we ought to pray because God has told us what He wants, how He wants us to pray and told us what He will do. I remember, I remember how the psalmist in Psalm 42 said, why art thou cast down on my soul? Why are you, why are you having a pity party? Why are, why are you so despondent? Me? Why am I so despondent? Hope thou in God. He said, for I shall yet praise Him. I haven't seen how He's going to win this battle, but He's going to.

I will praise Him as He says, for who is the health of my countenance and my God. Well, we can, we can, a happy face can turn into a grumpy face in a short while, can it? If we're not looking at the Lord, if we're not keeping our eyes upon, upon Him. The psalmist also said in Psalm 119, verse 49, Psalm 119, verse 49, Psalm 119, verse 49, verse number 49, he said, remember thy word unto thy servant upon which thou has caused me to hope. That's praying the word, isn't it? Remember what you said, Lord? Don't, don't forget that, Lord. Remember it. Honor it. It's like taking the, taking the gift certificate or the gift card to the store and saying, this is not expired. Honor it, you know, and God's word never expires. His word is redeemable at any time if we come to the throne of grace with that, with what he said.

This is my comfort, the psalmist says, verse 50, in my affliction for thy word hath quickened me. This is my comfort in my affliction. The word of God quickens, makes alive the heart, blesses the heart, you know, deal with me bountifully out of thy word that I may live and keep thy commandments, the psalmist would say. Deal with me bountifully. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Not just read it, but take it to heart and say, yes, that's what I need. When somebody's discouraged, have you ever shared a scripture with them? Have you, when someone admits to you, you know, I'm battling with depression. I'm struggling. I need your prayers and you, you know, maybe, or maybe you just sense that they are. Maybe you see that they're, they've not been in church or they've, that you know they're going through something. You may not know the details of it and you just share something with them. And I know even others sharing things with me. I think of, you know, Brother Stewart, one day when I, I was going through something, he didn't even know I was going through it, but I, I think I've told you about it, Sister Donna. Brother Stewart was, called me on the phone and he was just, he was just sharing something about the goodness of God with me that day and I thought, I mean, I, it was all I could do not to bawl my eyes out on the phone when he was, when he was talking to me. He had no idea I was going through, this was probably two years ago now.

And, and just as he spoke and just that tender, you know, Brother Stewart, I mean, just such a tender heart that he has as he was sharing that, I thought, Lord, I needed that reminder today. I needed that. And, what a blessing, what a blessing it is. Even when God brings reminders through other saints and, and through, reminders of his word to us in that way. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. And when you see somebody else trusting the Lord, like I saw Brother Stewart that day, I heard him, you could tell he's trusting the Lord. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord for he shall be as that tree like we read in the Bible. And then, you know, once again, the reminder that our heart, we can't, we can't depend on our own heart. Our own heart, even our eyes, what we think we see, no, trust in the Lord, trust in his word.

My heart must be leaning on the word. I must, I must put down the roots of faith deeper in the word of God. We might say, well, it's getting dry out here. Well, just those, those roots need to go deeper looking for more water. It's there. It's there if we'll just depend upon the Lord whatever time, whatever we may be facing. Every, every truth we need for every trial we'll face, we'll ever face in our lives is found in the word of God. Even the Psalms, I think it's been said before, all the way from the cradle to the grave, there's something found in the Psalms for every situation, isn't there? Something in the Psalms alone, not to say, not even to speak of the rest of the word of God. There's something in the Psalms for every experience we'll find from the cradle all the way to the grave.

May the Lord help us like our, we talked about the children. May the Lord help us to know, you know, to know by faith we can trust. Not, not, not to feel what the heart is saying at the moment because the heart can mislead us. To know what he says and with our heart to know what he says. But to rest on what he has told us in his word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these reminders from your word tonight. We, we don't want to be dried up like some dried desert plant. Lord, we don't want to be, we don't want to be spiritually malnourished because of our little faith. If we're, if we're not trusting you, how can we point anyone else to trust in you? How can we be a blessing to anyone else unless we ourselves are knowing and experiencing your blessing in our lives?

So Lord, may we be, as we even saw last week, that, that need to be nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine. Help us to be put in remembrance daily. Help us to be in the word daily so that we can, we can, we can, we can grow. And we, and we can be like that tree that will not even be fretful when the drought comes because we have been planted by the river, the rivers of the water of, of life, of your provisions. And so, may others be able to see the fruitfulness in our lives and, and know that it, it's not us, but it is the Lord on whom we rest. It's the Lord who, from whom strength we draw our strength to face the trials that you've put before us. We pray these things tonight. Help us this week, Lord, as you work in our lives to put down deeper roots in your word. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.