All right, take your Bibles and go to Proverbs chapter 3. By the way, we have prayer requested. There was a family that visited and I'll just go ahead. There was a family that visited several weeks ago. They came and wound up, their kids wound up in our Christmas program. He has been in the hospital and just as we were up here, He asked for prayer. He's wound up coming back from the hospital. He's needing help. Prayer. And so anyway, I texted them earlier, let them know that we've been missing him. And then he just texted me and said, hey, been having problems. So anyway, they would like our prayer. So anyway, by the way, Roger, I'm going to beat you on this one a little bit. We can announce it full next week. But we've got a birthday girl coming up. Young lady up here getting ready to have her birthday. And to believe it or not, I mean, she's turning how old? Eighty. They're going to celebrate by going out bike riding. I can't even do that. Oh, man. All right. Well, listen, let's let's spend a few minutes here. I'm looking forward to this. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray in Jesus name. That your spirit would help us to understand the importance of taking every detail of this verse. And applying it. Embracing it and seeing the significance of it in our lives. I pray this in Christ's name, Amen. By the way, Linda, the song that we started out with that you asked for, how many of you have ever heard of Lester Roloff? Okay, Linda, every time I hear that song, I think of him because I heard him sing that. Lester Roloff had an incredible ministry. And I thought it was so cool, after I got out of the Air Force and I went into the Reserves, before I went back to college, I was working at the local airport, and he flew in, he had a Queen Air, and I got to clean it up and everything. And I remember I was dirt poor, but I got to leave $20 on the stick, the control for him. But boy, he could preach. There were several thousand of us in the chapel. There were several thousand of us. No football game ever equaled this. He had been in an incredible, nasty situation with his Yeah, it was a court battle with his... They're in Corpus Christi, the children's homes, you know, and so forth. They had them, I believe, in Missouri as well. So he's preaching. And while he's preaching, somebody comes in from the side and hands Dr. Bob III a note. As he finishes, he's coming off the platform. Dr. Bob comes up, catches him halfway, says, I've got something for you. Came back up on the platform and said, folks, we just got an announcement. The state Supreme Court of Texas has ruled in Lester Roloff's favor. That place came apart. I mean, people were weeping, they were doing the wave, I mean, the whole smack. It was incredible. It was really something. He looked at us and said, sit down. That was him, you know, I just take charge, you know, I just, thank you, praise God and all that. But boy, that was really, that was really something. All right. Okay. One verse tonight. One verse tonight. And I hope and pray it's a blessing. It has been to me. The desire is always that, Lord, as you have spoken to me, speak to others with it. Not because it's me, but it's the Holy Spirit working. One verse, Proverbs 3, 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. You know, We miss, when I say we, I mean Americans right now. We miss some things that we used to have in America. You go back and even back further. You go back to the, you know, the first hundred years when people were coming here and you hear of how God worked. Now, it wasn't all good. I understand that there were people that were here for selfish reasons, but there were also people here for the glory of God. Some of those people helped found in 1636, they helped found the College of Cambridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later on, it would be renamed Harvard, Harvard University. A few rules, just a couple of them I'm going to mention. When we stop and consider just what used to be on this continent for people that were here. It was for the glory of God. Number one, when it came to the students, now this isn't necessarily in order of what they have in their original documents. But first, let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well The main end of his life and studies is this, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. Now think of it, that was Harvard. Went on to say this, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of him." That's Harvard. One more. Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the scriptures twice a day. that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of language and logic, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his tutor shall require, according to his ability, seeing the entrance of his word giveth light. it giveth understanding to the simple." That's Harvard. You know, you stop and you consider here was a place ten of the twelve presidents prior to the Revolutionary War were pastors, were pastors. Over 50% of the 17th century Harvard graduates became ministers of the gospel. They stated this, they believed that all knowledge without Christ was vain. The word that was on their seal, Veritas, divine truth. The motto of Harvard back then was this, for Christ and the church. I've got other things that I could read, but I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead. The point is this. There was a time when Proverbs 3.5 was absolutely woven into the fabric of our nation, at least the attitude of it, the desire of it, the thinking of it all. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding. That Hebrew word that translates trust literally means to lie helpless face down. to lie helpless face down. It pictures a servant waiting for the master's command and readiness to obey. I'll get up. That's it. I'm here. I'm there. Trust in the Lord. Also, a defeated soldier and yielding to the conquering general. That focused on the same thing, meant the same thing. We get the idea when it comes to trust. With all thine heart. Now the word heart there in the Hebrew refers to one's emotions, but more often to his intellect, understanding, discernment. In other words, what the goal of Harvard was at the time. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart." You know, all thine heart can be understood simply as this. Remember what James speaks of? A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. It's akin to it. If you have a heart that's divided, you're going to be, in certain times, you're going to be trusting in one place, but in uncertain times, maybe someplace else. You know, right now, it's easy to trust God for food. It is, isn't it? It's easy to trust God for gasoline, even though it's more expensive. You know, it's easy to trust God for heat. But when things get a little out of whack, it's like, Lord, can we really trust you for this? See, these are the things that I wind up pondering. Now listen, we come here and we worship. I praise God. I loved just gathering this morning. It was great. You know what worship is? Worship is response to divine revelation. Let me say that again. Worship is response to divine revelation. My desire would be this. that Proverbs 3, 5 finds a freshness in our hearts. And suddenly, the person that's up here is immaterial because your heart is what's in the book that's in your lap. Now, we continue to talk about it, but you see what I mean? Worship. is our response to divine revelation. Now, sometimes we can wind up being careless with that. I don't know about you, but I have. For instance, Philippians 4 is a place where we love to go. Verse 6, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And that's good, isn't it? But there's a word that winds up, you know, it winds up slipping out and we wind up not grasping it like we should. Be careful for how much? You see, because when things get tough, and I've been there far more times than I want to admit, I wind up worrying about something. And God snaps me out of it and says, excuse me, preacher. What was that verse that you preached on not too long ago? What was it again? You know, speak it again. Say it again. Be careful for nothing. That means not one thing. Zero. Or as a guy that I used to pour concrete with, he'd say zero with the rim rubbed out. Nothing there. Be careful for nothing. I've used this illustration before. In fact, I go through these a lot. But this one here, it makes the point so well. I remember when I was working at this airport. I decided I was going to get my pilot's license. Anybody here, you've ever worked on getting your pilot's license? You never have? It's fun. Let me tell you. I mean, when I soloed, I thought it was great. You know, it was awesome. So then I decided I'm going to go flying by myself again. So I went up Cessna 152 aerobat. It was great. And the radio went out in the tower at Greenville downtown airport. They could barely hear me. I'm screaming in the radio. I mean, it was bad. But there was one thing that they taught you. Listen, you can look outside, but you've got to be able to read your instruments. because there's times the instruments will save you from yourself when you're looking out and going... Again, I remember we were flying back from Guam. The ocean was so still. I was in the cockpit of that C-5 and we looked out over the ocean. There were clouds out in the distance. Folks, I kid you not, You could not tell where the horizon was. You couldn't. You needed those instruments. And it was daytime. But you couldn't tell. It was so still. And the clouds were out there reflecting off the ocean. So this is what they would do. They'd put a hood on you. So you can't see outside when you're practicing to get your license. All you can see is your instruments. It's this long thing, and you're just watching that. And you're waiting for your instructor to yell at you, hey, you're not doing what you're supposed to do. You know what Proverbs 3, 5 is? It's something like an instrument. You don't pay attention what's going on out there. You trust in the Lord with all thine heart. and lean not to thine own understanding." Just several days ago, a couple of weeks ago I think now, there was a Learjet that crashed. It was down in Southern California. A guy that was in the youth group with me, his name was Dave Hanson, literally lived 200 yards where this jet impacted. I wound up reading about it on his Facebook page. In fact, he was in the Air Force Reserve too. Sharon, do you remember Dave Hanson by any chance? Do you? So we fly into San Antonio one time. And we're on the C5, and right behind us came in a C141 out of Southern California. And I'm standing there in base ops, and all of a sudden, Dave Hanson is in front of me. He was the navigator on that 141. I asked my captain, hey, can I stay with this guy overnight? We talked for eight solid hours. It was so cool. It was so great. But anyway, I heard, it was so sad to hear, I ran into it accidentally, they put on the audio of the pilot in that Learjet. And what they figure is he got distracted. He's coming in. It's dark. But he's, you know, he's flying there. He's supposed to be flying IFR. But he wound up looking outside. And you hear this guy. He's talking back, you know, no problem. And all of a sudden he is screaming and cursing and screaming and cursing and silence. They're thinking because he's looking outside. He lost. He got all discombobulated. He got confused. When we get our eyes off the Lord, we get discombobulated. That's got to be a Bible word somewhere. You know, it's got to... This is the point. This verse ought to be our focus. when it comes to the challenges of what we face in life. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Now look at the verse. Take a look at it. The first part of the verse speaks of you and I being commanded to do what does not come by nature. It is not within our nature to trust in the Lord with all our heart. It just isn't. Now, it's in the supernatural, that which God gave us when we were born again, but it comes only by a determined desire to walk in the Spirit. The second part of the verse tells us to stop doing what comes naturally, what does come naturally. Lean not to thine own understanding. Now I'm a champ at that. I want to ascertain what's going on. I want to give my opinion. I want to check this out. But we are not supposed to. Israel fell into this. And instead of trusting their God, they wound up trusting the gods of the nations around them. They were physical gods. There's an idol right there. No, that's not what we're supposed to do. You've got to ask yourself, what or who do you really believe? David said in Psalm 40, blessed Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust. There was a woman, young woman by the name of Ann Steele. She went through a lot in her life. Her mother died when she was three. When she was 19, she suffered a severe hip injury, left her invalid. She fell in love, was engaged to be married. But the day before the wedding, her fiance drowned. Later on, she penned this hymn. Father, what air of earthly bliss thy sovereign will denies, accepted at thy throne of grace, let this petition rise. Give me a calm, a thankful heart from every murmur free. The blessings of thy grace impart. and make me live to thee. I love the story that Vance Havner told of an elderly lady. She was disturbed. She was going through a lot. And I'm not picking on elderly people. I are one now. But she had, you know, she's looking at stuff she's going through, real and imaginary. Finally, somebody in the family said, Grandma, we've done all we can for you. You'll just have to trust God for the rest. And her reply was, Oh my, has it now come to that? Think about that. You'll get it here pretty soon. Again, worship is our response to divine revelation. Worship true deep worship can take place after you get in your car tonight and you're going home and the old guy has shut up you're meditating on the verse and all of a sudden it's like oh my soul yes because there are times and many if not all of you know this there are times when in the secrecy of your heart God takes a verse nothing is said But suddenly the truth of that verse sinks so much deeper. That is what I desire in my life with this. That's what I desire for all of us in this. Now, we can wind up doing this. We can wind up going, you know, instead, I'm going to go to the second part of the verse. And you know what? I'm going to trust my experience. Well, praise God. Many of us can look back and we can say, you know, we've got the experience of this. We trusted God for something and he came through. But there are times people will go through something and they're not fully convinced that God was fully engaged. and they will trust the experience that cast doubt on God rather than his word where they put the blinders on and say, I'm trusting the Lord. That's it. It just doesn't matter. There's also expectations. By the way, who was it that preached the message here years ago on expectations? S.M. Davis. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Look that up. That's a good message. That's a really good message. We look ahead and it's like, OK, Lord, if you're blessing me, this is what you'll do. And he goes. You haven't learned, have you? Yeah, but but Lord. No, he says no, but child. And then there's another way, you know, externalism. We desire, we decide, you know what? I'm going to go outside the will of God. I'm going to do things my way. I told the Lord, oh boy, you don't do that. I told the Lord I was going to be married by the time I was 22. There is a Greek term for that, stupid. absolutely, positively, off the charts, nuts. And so I got engaged. And two days before the wedding, it got broke off. I told her dad told me, Mike, in two years, you'll thank me. It was a little bit longer than two years. Because I didn't see him, but I thanked him. And oh, by the way, four years after that. And I'm still singing. And I still tell her, you die on me, I'll kill you. I'm telling you, I'll dig her up and I'll punch her lights out. Look, this is what we got to get. There's a faith side and there's an experience side. Faith says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Experience says, lean not to thine own understanding. That's experience, the experience side. You've got to take the first side and then the experience. You'll see how God works. By the way, Job struggled with this. He struggled with it. I love the book of Job. You go to Job 42 and you realize this is, you know what, I'm seeing you now. In other words, He's getting the first part of the verse. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. And now, you know, I repent in sackcloth and ashes. I blew it. I blew it. There's only one way to look at God's word, preach God's word, embrace God's word. With this. Obedience. We need to look at these verses And we need to say, you know what? This is the path we're going to go. Remember I mentioned this morning, I said, you know, there's a couple of guys, a couple of preppers that sometimes I'll catch on YouTube. So sure enough, this afternoon, I turned that on, and here was this thing the guy just posted four hours ago. So I thought, I'll catch a little bit of this. Folks, it was so sad. He's obviously not a Christian. And he's talking about the potential of what's to come. And he kept saying, I don't mean to keep, you know, I don't want to keep sounding discouraged or anything or a downer or, you know, and so forth. And I thought, you have no hope. You don't. And he's a nice guy. I personally, I'd like to talk to him sometime. But he did say something this, he said, what I find is the first thing that we need to do is establish community. I thought, you know, let me introduce you to the local church. But then, you know, seriously, I really got to thinking about this. God so blessed individual believers because he gave us the local church. That's our community. So here's people, they're getting concerned, and he was talking about this, that there's going to be a far greater reality of the possibility of civil war coming as of the election later this year and then 2024. I wouldn't be surprised. There are people that are pushing hard to divide people in this land. Make things difficult. You know where we can be strengthened and rejoice in Proverbs 3, 5? Right here. Read the book of Acts. They rallied. They loved each other. They were commanded to do so, and they did. And that is going to be part and parcel of us and all kinds of local churches where they'll be gathering and encouraging each other and praying for each other. Folks, there's every possibility that we have no idea of the potential, the potential of what the local church can be like. till those times come, if they do come, and there's every possibility that they can. So we will encourage each other. Listen, I know you're going through it, we all are, but trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding. We'll encourage each other with that. We'll help each other with that. Israel, They floated away. They turned to other gods. Isaiah 29 verse 13, Wherefore the Lord said, For as much as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder. For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." In other words, here's God's people, they're trusting in their own fleshly wisdom. He says, you do that, you'll pay the price. Instead, we do this. We trust in the Lord with all thine heart. In other words, it's time to do what God commands in Proverbs 3. There's an unknown author that wrote this, and I like this. Trust him when dark doubts assail thee. Trust him when thy strength is small. Trust him when to simply trust him seems the hardest thing of all. Trust him. He's ever faithful. Trust him for his will is best. Trust him for the heart of Jesus is the only place of rest. Three points and I'm done. Trust God. He's our stronghold. Psalm 18.2. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength and whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. Psalm 91.2 and Nahum 1.7 say basically the same thing. Trust God. He's the protector. Second Samuel 22.31. As for God, His way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler to all them that trust in him. Psalm 7, 1. Oh Lord, my God, in thee do I put my trust. Save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me. And then lastly, trust God. He will deliver as promised. Psalm 9, 10. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee, for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. And so trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding. You know, I don't know about you, but there are times I have crawled to that verse in tears. Just like others, just like Philippians 4, 6. Just like 1 Peter 5, 7. You know, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. But you know, our God is patient. Amen. And he's, you know, I'm leading you there. Even if you don't trust me, I'm still what that verse says. I still do what the verse says I do. Praise God for that. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,