And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affection and lust. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. We're studying the fruits of the spirit. And the last lesson we got down, we ended up on goodness and we got down to the word faith. Now, faith is the ability to trust God and to be trusted by God. Hebrews 11 chapter and six verse says this, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Now we're to be trustworthy before God and man. We want God to trust us and we most certainly must trust God. Every child of God should be faithful to God Not because the preacher says so, but because that we love the Lord. And that's, you know, we've seen verse after verse in the Bible that tells us we show our love by being obedient. There's a story that I kind of want to go over with you that I read some time ago. I copied it down. I don't know who wrote it, but When Lewis Laws became a warden at Sing Sing Prison in 1920, the inmates existed in wretched condition. This led him to introduce humanitarian reforms, and he gave much of the credit to his wife, Catherine. However, she always treated the prisoners human way, freedom like human beings. And she'd often take her children and sit with the gangsters and the murderers and the racketeers and they'd play basketball and baseball together. Then in 1939, Catherine was killed in a car accident. The next day her body lay in a casket in a house about a quarter of a mile from the institution. When the acting warden found hundreds of prisoners crowded around the front entrance, he knew what they wanted. Opening the gate, he said, man, I'm going to trust you. You can go to the house and see Catherine. They said there was no count taken, no guards were posted, yet not one man was missing that night. Love for one who had loved them, made them dependable. This is a good lesson to us as Christians. If we really love God, we will be trustworthy before God. Now, we can go into that much deeper, but we won't for the lack of time. We know that, I think this is correct, the word trust is used 188 times in 188 verses. It may be used more than once in a verse. 188 times and 188 verses in the King James Version of the Bible. What we're going to do this morning, we're going to look at trust and what it means to us and what it should mean to us as children of God. The subject of trusting God. God allows us to have faith, to have trust. And it tells us that that's one of the fruits of the Spirit, having trust. Now, first of all, trusting God means that we accept God's word as truth and base our life upon his truth. The Bible is most important to us, so we should stay in the Bible as much as possible. We should study as much as possible. Read it to benefit us as children of God. Now, I say this many, many times, just reading the Bible is not enough. We must stop and hear God, what He's saying to us, what He's telling us. He may be admonishing us to change our life in some way. He may be praising us. He may be giving us rules to live by, whatever the reason, that we should stay in the Word of God. Now, let's look at some of the promises God gives us from His Word concerning the subject of trust. Trusting God gives us deliverance. Psalms 22, verses 4 and 5 says this, Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted, and thy debts delivered them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered. They trust in thee, and were confounded. Confounded means bewildered, confused, perplexed. Many more words could be used for that word. But that's primarily the meaning of it. You'll have to excuse me this morning. I took a bunch of sinus medicine. The allergies are really getting to me. And so I might Stammer around, Tom, but pray for me. 2 Corinthians 1 and 10 says this, Who delivered us from great Edea, and doeth deliver, in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us. We personally have to put our trust in God. His promises, and I, When we think of his promises, I'm thankful for that. You know, a lot of times, especially early hours of the morning. I might wake up and. Uh, I found that most of the time I'm in a kind of a negative move, but mind why you do that? Yeah, I think about all the things that that needs to be done. Or I may think about whatever. And it really, I really get troubled. And I found one of the best ways to relieve myself of that problem is go to the Word of God and start reading his promises. Most of my Bibles got a lot of highlights in the Book of Psalms. I thought I'd take the time to go through the Bibles and try to consolidate in the Bible that I'm going to die with. But I've got several Bibles that I use and I'll highlight things, promises from God. And I'll go back and read some of them and I found, man, God blesses me so much from there. So we personally have to put our trust in God and His promises, and I'm forever thankful that He delivered us from the penalty of sin. It's amazing. Manny, was his name Manny? Yes. An Indian that came to church last week, got saved Sunday night. That's a great blessing. But I'm in awe of what the Lord did for us some 2,000 years ago. Trusting God, and we're talking about the subject of trusting God. Trusting God blesses us. The second chapter of Psalms in the 12th verse says, Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. That's a promise from God. If we put our trust in Him, He is going to bless us. That's a promise from God. God keeps His promises. Now blessed is enjoying happiness, bringing pleasure, bringing contentment, bringing good fortune, but most of all, peace before God. Peace between you and God. He can't be in a better place than having peace with God. And that's really when you get right down to it, that's what brings us joy in this life, no matter what happens to it. Several verses in Psalms that tells us about this, a blessing from God because of trust. The 34th chapter of Psalms in the 8th verse says this, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is a man that trusts in him. Going on to the 40th chapter and the 4th verse, it tells us this, blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside the liars. Psalms 84 chapter and the 12th verse says, O Lord of hosts, blessed is a man that trusteth in thee. Jeremiah 17, 7 says this, Blessed is a man that trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. And most certainly in this world that we live in today. I don't know what's going to happen. Looking a little bit better in Ukraine, it looks like. It looks like they may be coming to terms. It's amazing. It's amazing what's happened there in Ukraine. But there may be some improvement. We might see some light at the end of the tunnel as I was listening to the news this morning. I don't know. But you most certainly can't trust the leaders of Russia. They've done a horrible thing there. But no matter what, the Lord is our hope. The Lord coming back and get us is our hope. I heard a preacher from Baxter a couple of weeks ago, talking about what a condition we were in. And he's talking about we surely are in the last of the last days. No man knows, but I think that to be the case also. The Lord's coming back and that is our trust. That is our hope, the Lord, God Almighty. Trusting God gives us hope. Trusting him gives us hope. Psalms 34 22 tells us this. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants. And none of them that trust in him shall be desolate. We as his children are hopeful people. Somebody. Question. Well. Yeah, the thing of it is, here's the thing. People. really paint the word or the lives of Christians with a broad brush. They see some things on TV, they hear some things on the radio, they read some things in the paper, they look through something on the internet, and they cram all that together and call it Christian. Most of the things that I see, especially on TV, is not from God. I see a program after program, and I watch them sometimes to see what's going on. And they're saying, send me money, send me money. And they're saying, in this matter, pledge something and promising that God's going to bless. They'll get a hundredfold return and so on and so forth. Never once in that whole presentation was the gospel given. But they'll say this, they'll say send us money so that we help us send the gospel around the world. What? You're not giving the gospel. So everybody that that word Christian is painted with a broad brush. As far as people's definition of what Christian is, we also are looking at looking at the Facebook a lot of times and we we see examples where the people say they're Christian, but They're involved in some things that's not Christian life. Being a Christian is being like the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, accepting me as your savior, and then patterning your life after him. Psalms 36, seven says this. How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God. Therefore, the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wing. I've had a lot of experience at my age, back when I was a child. I remember, and probably the fortune authors have even seen this. A dark cloud had come up, and a clap of thunder. This echoed. The old mother hen had raised up her wing, and the chickens had stolen her that wing. Somebody told the story of one of the fires, I can't remember which one it was, that a hen was standing and burnt completely up. All that was left of her was her bone skeleton, still standing. But her chicken was alive, because she had them covered with the wings. I don't know if that's true or not, but it sounds like it's a possibility. So that verse tells us this, under the shadow of thy wings, Now how in the world could you be in a safer place? So we have hope as a child of God. We have hope. He loves us. And his love and his grace is shown forth to us, his children. And I'll have a blessed eternal future. So God loves me. Now look at the 71st chapter of Psalm, the fifth verse. For thou art my hope, O Lord God, thou art my trust from my youth. So, trusting God gives us hope. You say, in these troubled times, what's your hope? The Lord comes back and gives me. That's my hope. If I die and go to the grave, I'll go be with the Lord, and He'll resurrect my body one day, and I'll have an incorruptible body. I've got a lot of problems now with this old body. I just barely can't get around sometimes. I can't get up and down. I've kind of made me a thing out of an old crutch. When I'm out in the garden or something, or out on the ground or something, where I can put some steel strong in my arms, but before I can, my arms can help me get up. I won't have that problem in heaven. I'll be like the 21-year-old. Yeah, that's pretty tough on that 21. You know, but that time has gone by. No matter what, my hope is the Lord. My hope is the Lord. Now trusting in people will let us down. I've been let down a lot by people. They I've got this situation right now. I can't I don't know what what's problem is but Try to find out okay, maybe relationship with someone But maybe the Lord show me but anyway, we got this we have this Relationship problem with man is not trustworthy People will let you down. Even family will let you down. But God never will. Trusting in God is an eternal thing. Look at Psalm 118, the eighth verse, tells us this, it's better to trust in the Lord than to put your confidence in man. So when you start thinking about the worldly condition we're in, I don't expect it to get better. The Bible tells us it's going to wax worse. I don't expect it to get better. There may be some reprieves. We had some reprieves in recent years. I'm telling you right now, I don't have people of low income just barely getting by before all of this happened. How are they going to get by without starving to death? I'm talking about people either buying medicine or buying food. Now that's a few years ago. Now they're getting less money because everything went up. You know, they talk about we're not taxing the middle class or the poor people. Yes, you are. When you raise the taxes anywhere, it's going to raise the price of goods. So who's paying for it? So we're in bad shape financially as a country. people in this country. But I don't expect it to get any better. Now. If you if you don't think things have went up, those people are burning gas and at home. Eight and a half of gases with gas bill prior to last year. Don't think things are went up. Check your tax records for last year and what you were this year. And so on and so forth. Things are getting out of control. But I don't trust man will fix that. Matter of fact, I expect it to get worse. I expect maybe these high food prices will stay around forever. Now, when all this, if we ever get to the point that the energy don't have any, have any presence over how much the food is going to cost, I don't think the food is going to go back. I think it will stay where it's at. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, but that's the way I look at it. But man will let us down. So I don't expect someone to come along and fix the problem. Maybe it'll get a little bit better. Thank God for that. But God will never fail us. If we trust in Him, He'll never fail us. Also, the Bible tells us in Isaiah 26 chapter and the third verse, it says, God gives us peace. Thank God for the peace that He's given. as his children. Even in looking at the tough situation we're living in today, or whatever might come in your life, he still gives us peace. I'm thankful for that. Isaiah 26 3 said, That will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts us in thee. Everything is not going to go our way. We're going to have troubles in this world. Now there's certain people that you might see on TV or something and say, man, you do this and you'll just live and you'll just live in blessed, blessed conditions. That's not the way this life is. Every one of us, no matter who we are, we're children of God or not children of God, we're going to go through trouble. But God can give us perfect peace through all of that. Now, God also gives us safety. Notice what it says, Proverbs, the 29th chapter and 25th verse. It says, the fear of man brings a snare. But whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. How many times in my life have I trusted people and they failed me? I know one situation where a guy stood up right in my face. I didn't say that. I never promised to do that, or I didn't do this or do that, so on and so forth. This is blacker lies you could be told. But anyway, that happens. Man will fail us, but God will never fail us, and he'll keep us in perfect peace, and he'll give us safety. Now, also, trusting God keeps your courage up. You want to be courageous? There's trust in God for courage. Notice what it says in Isaiah, the 28th chapter, 16th verse. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make haste. Now we, as of God, trusting in His Word and acting upon His Word gives us courage. Remember, and I have to remind myself of this continually, remember anything God promised, He will fulfill. He tells every one of us as Christians to give out the gospel, talk to others about their salvation, give out the gospel. Be concerned, love. Don't you know, when we go about doing that, that he's not going to be there to help us? Sure. He's going to be there to help us. Now, we're not to act upon our own, but we're to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit and dealing with people. Sometimes you can't be too hasty with people, you'll drive them off. Sometimes you have to get it while the iron's hot. Whatever. but let God lead and He will be there with us. And He will give us courage. He'll give us courage. He'll give us joy in following His word and following His command. Now, trusting God gives us strength. Isaiah, the 26th chapter, the fourth verse says this, trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord, Jehovah, is everlasting strength. We have strength. And going on to chapter 30 and verse 15 of that same chapter, it says, for thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest ye shall be safe, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, and ye would not. Speaking of the children that didn't follow, but he said, if you would, here's what's gonna happen. Trusting God gives us a foundation to grow on. Now, I know a little bit about foundations. I've seen some weak foundations that cause structural damage and so on and so forth. I've seen foundations where structures fail because I've seen instances on YouTube and some of those other channels of those kind of situations. But what we're talking about here is he gives us strength if we'll just take his word and build upon where we're at today. Here's where I'm at today. How can I be better? Mind it from God's word. You build on that. You build on it. Hopefully, I'm stronger today as a Christian than I was last year. And most certainly, 10 years ago, because I have studied God's word and acted on some of God's word. And so it's given me strength. And that's what this verse is telling us. Shall be your strength. And God gives us that foundation, gives us a foundation through salvation. That must be the foundation we build upon. But he then wants us to grow and we grow and get stronger in the Lord by reading His word and acting upon it. Jeremiah the 17th chapter, let's read seven and eight. Blessed is a man that trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the water and that spreadeth out her roots by the river and shall not see when the heat cometh, but her leaves shall be green. and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall see from yielding fruit. Now, my total being is in his hand. You know, a lot of people, they kind of make you think that they're thinking they're going to live forever and they're all going to die. And we all are destined for death unless the Lord comes back and gets us before we die. We're all destined for death and we're getting closer and closer. Yeah. I've got friends and neighbors and schoolmates and just going on and on. Younger than I am. You know, usually, you know, men die in their 70s and early 80s and so on and so forth. This was last week. I had a friend that passed away. 82. So we We're thankful to the Lord for giving us life, but we also need to realize that we are going to face God one day. And most certainly a person is not trusting in the Lord and waiting for something to cause them to trust in the Lord. I don't know what that might be other than following his word, following somebody's witness to them, whatever. But anyway, we're all going to die one day. and time's short. It's kind of amazing. I was thinking the other day, and I think I've shared this already, but I was thinking, you know, I used to, I think 2,000 years, boy, that's a long time. And I'm thinking, I've nearly lived for 20 for that. And so, but the life is short. And our being, our eternal being is in His hands. A person that has not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ or in the hand of God. And you know what he said is going to happen to them? That they're going to end up in hell. Now, some of the things that you see on TV about hell and so on and so forth, it paints a different picture of what it's really like. But just think about it. And this happens. But sometimes we don't come to this reality in our mind. Being thrown into a fire that never ceases. Never burning out. No hope! When that behooves us, we get right with the Lord. Yes, sir. And when I talk to friends, old friends especially, I mention that quite often. I say, make sure that you're right with the Lord. Not just telling me you are, but make sure you're right with the Lord, that you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Not trusting on any of your good works. I know there used to be a lady that used to say, And she said, I'm going to be judged according to how I've lived my life. We're going to be judged according to how we live our life, but it's after that we're a child of God. And it's going to be whether or not we what we did for the Lord. We know that the good things will be rewarded and all the bad things that we've done outside the will of God will be burned up. We won't get any reward. But the thing of it is, people's got it in their mind they can live good enough, that they can do enough good things that God will show favor to them. The only way that a person can be a child of God is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, plus nothing, minus nothing, free. I mean, that's the way it is. Trusting in Him for our salvation is what He did on the cross of Calvary. And our eternal being is in the Lord's hands. We're gonna end up one or two places. I may have told this story before, but it was meaningful to me. They said after the Titanic had sank, that they put a sign up, two signs up, in Liverpool, England. And on one sign it said, people known to have lived, and people known to have perished. In other words, The people that's known to be saved, the people that's known to perish. You know, and I thought about that and how applicable that is to life. When we die from this life, we're going to be on one of those lists. Eternally lost, eternally saved. The way you get on the list of being eternally saved is trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as personal savior. Not anything that we can do other than trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. We'll finish up the next time. I'm going to quit there this morning because, well, let me do one more and then we'll see where we're at. Faith, the ability to trust God. Well, it's so important that we trust God. We trust His word. Okay, the next thing that we see in the fruits of the Spirit is meekness. Now what does meekness mean? When you think of meekness, you think of some, you know, spineless type person. That's not what meekness is at all. Meekness is having restraint. Meekness is being powerful and under control. Now, not using one's power in the Lord for evil or for revenge, but the meek Christian does not throw his weight around. The meek Christian is a loving Christian. Now, Matthew, the 11th chapter and the 20th verse tells us this, that meekness, meekness is not weakness. A lot of times people, when they think of meek, they're thinking about somebody weak. Jesus was meek. Let's see what it says about him. The 11th chapter of Matthew, the 29th verse says this, take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you shall find rest under your soul. Lord Jesus Christ. We know how strong he was. He commanded the seas to be still. He commanded the dead to rise. He healed the sick. But yet, he said, I'm meek. and lowly in heart. Moses was very meek, but he was not a weak person. Notice what it says in Numbers, the 12th chapter and the third verse. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all men which were upon the face of the earth. So when we think about being meek, we think about being controlled, restrained, to do God's will, to do good to those around us. And it shouldn't be considered as being weak. You know, following the Word of God, being a person that will yield themselves to the Word of God, the teachings of the Word of God, change their life according to the Word of God, that's being meek. That's being meek. I love in nature, that's meant me, but not in weakness. Next we'll talk about temperance. Now temperance is having self-control, refusing to do things that you actually have the power to do if you want to, but refusing to do things because the word of God says not to do it. That's temperance. That's following the word of God, not following the flesh. You know, a great lesson to all of us. A great lesson to all of us. We all have it. Brother Vic brought this out in one of his messages. We've got a sinning body. We've got a sinning flesh. And it is our job to get that under control. If you let the lust of the flesh outbrew, you're going to sin. And God says that you're not to sin. You're to be led not by the flesh, not by lust, not by the flesh, but by the Holy Spirit. I've said this many times. Probably thousands of times. If you're led by the Spirit and you're following the Spirit, the leadership of the Spirit, there'll not be any sin in your life. But we do know that we as human beings, we yield to the flesh sometimes. And we allow sin to come into our life. That's the reason the Lord gave us a promise. If we confess those sins, he would be faithful to forgive us of that sin. And I'm thankful that he separates our sins as far as the east is from the west. You know, if you go east, you'll never find west. If you go west, you'll never find east. You just keep going around and around and around. That's how far our sins are separated from us. I'm sure glad that they didn't say the north and south. You go north, you go find a north post. Go south, you find a south post. And once you get up there, you be going south. That's not the case with east. You head east, you'll just keep on going. You just keep on going. So, God's word tells us not to do something. We're not to do it. And I know sometimes that we fail. Now this is, when we think about this, let's look at 1 Thessalonians 5 chapter and the 22nd verse. This is toughie, but we need to follow it. Abstain from all appearance of evil. What does that mean? It means probably we don't need to be watching any television. I do. Have to ask forgiveness for it. But I do. That means that you probably don't need to be taking any direction from YouTube. Or the Internet, so on and so forth. There's a lot of evil there. But that verse tells it. That verse tells it. To abstain from all appearance of evil. If we even think there might be evil in it, get away from it. Separate from it. If you think you're going down this road and you're going to run into evil, get off the road. Get on another road. What does that mean? This is an attitude whereby life is searched and to make and submit to the will of God. Make the decision that would be submittal to the word of God. That's what temperance is. Having self-control. All weights and all hindrances that we have need to be laid aside. I got a message I took from one of my favorite writers. Getting rid of baggage. And that's what he's talking about. If there's something in your life that is causing you to sin, get rid of it! All weights and hindrances that might be in our life that would be that would lead to sin. Just get rid of it. That means if, you know, for instance, you might have a boat, and you think, well, I don't have my fish on Sunday. I need to get rid of the boat. It's going to keep you out of God's will. Get rid of it. It might be a bad example, but that's what I'm talking about. Anything that might be there that needs, that would cause us to be singing or pull us away from God. Get rid of it. Now this is the opposite in the majority of lives. Well, I got this and I paid a lot of money for it and I'm going to use it. Or I bought this getaway and I'm going to use it because I spent a lot of money on it. But if it leads to not pleasing God, we need to get rid of it. Now, every, every child of God is commanded by God to render their lives as a living sacrifice. We all know the scripture, Romans the 12th chapter, first two verses. It says, I beseech you therefore, brother, by the mercies of God, that you present your body to live in sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now, we just came out of Bible conference. A lot of effort, a lot of effort by many people, most of the people of the church was put in to make the place as spick and span as we possibly could. Get things in order. Apply that to our lives. We need to get our lives in order. Because the Lord's coming back. We're standing before the Lord. He expected of us. As a matter of fact, He commands it of us to give our lives as a living sacrifice. Now, These things that we read about here cannot be counterfeited by an unbeliever. If you're going to please God, if you're going to get your life in acceptable and perfect will of God, you must be saved. No unbeliever cannot taste of that. It's absolutely impossible for an unsaved person to possess all the fruits of the Spirit. Now they may try to, and some people might convince you, but notice that these are not fruits. This is fruit of the spirit singer. And only a born again child of God can partake of. You don't get one and then another. God expects them to be present in all of us. all of the fruit of the spirit to be present within all of us.