The book of Proverbs, the book of Proverbs, if you can, in chapter number three, Proverbs chapter three. And we're going to read in verses number five and six, very familiar passages of scripture. And I trust that this message will go with this morning's sermon on troubles, how to handle hardships. And tonight we will preach a message entitled trust in God, trust in God. It's a trusting relationship with God. Trust in the Lord, it says, right? With all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Let's read that again. Let's read it again. Look at it, Proverbs. If you don't know it by heart, make sure you look at it. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him. and he shall direct thy paths, okay? And a very important passage of scripture, very, very important, and let's ask God to bless our time together. Father, I pray that you'd, Lord, you know the need I have, the dependence I have upon you to preach what you have written here for us to take, Lord, that you're trustworthy, and I pray, God, that you would help us to learn what this means in a practical way. Bless this time together, for it's in Christ's name we pray, amen, amen. I once preached a series of messages. I preached it to the young kids. I preached out of verse number one and two. The title of the message was Forget Not. You see, it says, my son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. From verses three and four, I preached a message called Forsake Not. It says, let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them upon thy neck, write them upon the table of thine heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of man. In verses five and six, I talked about follow not, meaning lean not on thine own understanding. It seems to be that the messages in the chapter, the Lord is teaching by negatives. by negatives. And what a great tool that is. We have an idea that all we want to do is teach by positives. Just be positive. Well, the Lord spent a lot of time teaching by negatives. In verses 7 and 8, we have, Be not wise in thine own eyes. So I had a message called, Flatter not. Flatter not. We flatter ourselves. What's the answer? He says in verse 7, Fear the Lord and depart from evil. You know, we gotta really scold ourselves sometimes because we really think we know something. We do, we really think we know something. And the Lord says, hey, quit flattering yourself. Fear God and do what God says. Verse 11 and 12, we had this idea of fault not. And it says, my son, despise not the chastening of the Lord. Don't find fault in what God does to bring you back to Him. You know, if you live in disobedience to God, don't be surprised when the chastening hand of God comes. Expect it. The Lord says to expect it. In the New Testament, we find these passages. They are quoting from here. This is the source. It says, despise not the chastening of the Lord. He says, neither be weary. How does it say? Neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth. even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." And so don't find fault with God when He chastens us when we stray. You're going to say, we're not going to tithe. Okay. But don't be surprised when it doesn't work out. You live in disobedience to God. You're going to gossip? Well, then don't be surprised when it doesn't work out. And don't find fault with the Lord because of, really, can I say this? Don't find fault with the Lord on anything. That's a dangerous place to dwell versus you go all the way down to verse 21. We have another section of negatives and it says fail not was the sermon of my son. Let not them depart from thine eyes talking about keeping the word and its value in your life. So don't fail to memorize, keep and follow. the Word of God. And then one more in verse number 25 was the sermon, Fear Not, where he says, Be not afraid of the sudden fear. The Lord isn't the God of fear. He's the God of faith. All right. And if you're living in fear, you're living by feelings and feelings need to be thrown away. on the side in exchange for the faith and trust in God's Word. Now go back to 3, 5, and 6. Interesting chapter. I just wanted you to see that God has a treasure of truths through every part of the Word of God. And we should be excited to really feast on His Word for our Christian souls. But you look at this passage in 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord. Now, what you're looking at here is really a command and then a reward. Now, that's kind of common in the Proverbs, but it is true nonetheless. So we trust in the Lord. And what does that mean? We're going to talk about that in a minute, but it's not something as an option. It's given as an imperative. If you're going to succeed for God, you're going to learn to trust in the Lord. You know, we have things that bring fear in our lives. whether it be fear of running out of money or funds, or fear of disappointment of people, or fear of the future, fear of change, fear of the government. Fear, whatever fears, the devil seems to be endless in his ability to bring new fears. Fear of our children turning out for God. Fear now of grandchildren, in my case, turning out for the Lord. You can fill your life with fears, but the Lord has not given us the spirit of fear. but of power and of love and of a sound mind, 1 Timothy 1.7. And so we trust. Trust is the opposite of fear. Trust is really the Old Testament word for a New Testament word called faith. Where it says in Hebrews 11, we know that's the chapter about faith. But he says, especially in verse six of that chapter, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So the concept there is, you're not getting anywhere as a Christian without faith. Exercised faith. Faith is not an abstract where you say, I mentally assent to certain truths. It's an action where you rest, you commit, you're depending upon a truth that God says. And so we say, does this apply to giving? Well, look in the text, look at verse number nine. Proverbs 3.9, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits, not the leftovers, firstfruits of all thine increase. And what happens? So shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. So get the point here that it does apply. So if a person says, I trust in God, I believe in God, then they will trust in God enough to tithe of their first fruits, letting God use the rest to perform a miracle. But faith isn't saying, I believe that could happen. Faith is acting on it as though you know it will most certainly happen, because if anybody, you can depend upon God. you can depend upon God. Now, the Bible teaches this idea of faith. Faith is not just like blindness. Faith has to be rooted and grounded right here in the Word of God. You don't have the right to, in a good way, Brother Sean and I, we were talking back there about how people trust in their own imaginations. They get this idea in their head that, well, I'll go to, whatever happens after, they're willing to risk everything on their own trust. And that's not trusting in God. Your trust in your faith is nothing unless you can pull it from the Bible. It has to be grounded. Unless it has a truth and you don't have really... Look, you can trust in me. Look, if I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do my best to do it. But I'm human. And the same is true with you. You say, I'm sure that over the years, I tell my kids, here's my intention. Hey, when you're done with school today, let's go out and play some catch. And then something comes up in the ministry, like a hospital visit or I broke down, and when I'm thinking about when the kids were younger, we lived in Belize, and my vehicles were constantly breaking down. Well, where's dad? We're gonna play catch. Well, he's out on the side of the road looking for somebody to help fix the truck. Right? Why? Because I'm human. But when God announces His truths, you can put everything into trust in that truth. You don't have to worry, is God gonna come through? Because in the case of God had a broken down truck, yeah, He doesn't need it. He doesn't need it to work. He is God. So what we're looking at in this passage here, In verse number five is a command, trust in the Lord. And then he tells us that it really has the idea of a dependence. I mean, our hearts and our lives, when we talked yesterday about salvation, we talked about the faith to be saved, those that were in that class, and we were speaking about a faith to be saved is illustrated in a dependence upon God alone. It's not, OK, I'm going to add that to what I already know about maybe religious ideas and what this person told me, and you give mental assent to something. No. Salvation, faith to be saved, can be a false faith. The Bible says in James 2.19, the devils also believe and tremble. He says, thou sayest there is one God. He said, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. Why? Because they don't have a dependence, and nor do I believe redemption is offered to the angelic fallen, angelic host. They're doomed. But to you and I who are saved, faith to be saved is when you put your dependence, your letting go, and you're saying, everything I have is depending on what Jesus did upon the cross. I illustrated it yesterday with the seat that's in the other room. I said, now, I can imagine that the seat is strong enough to hold me. I can imagine that it is structured properly, and it's not like it only has two legs or something, right? It has four legs. I can see it, but exercising faith is when you let go of your own balance and you trust that it'll hold you up. Now, when we look at a chair, we do it so carelessly because it's normal that it'll hold you up. And that isn't always the case. You know, I was today with somebody whose chair broke. And thankfully, Miss Rhonda, thankfully, when she came down, it wasn't such a hard landing that she appears to be okay. But it is kind of scary. She had her 80th birthday today. and the chair gave way. It just seemed like a weakening of the chair. How many times I, you know, if you ever have those plastic lawn chairs kind of thing, I'm talking about the little round ones with the little plastic back. You know, if I ever sit in one, I'm going to be looking for two to stack together. I mean, I got a problem of a little extra girth. I mean, even when I was skinny, it seemed like, hey, when I was skinny, I was still 200 pounds. And to sit in one of those is like risking my life or the life of somebody around me or near me. But the fact is that you and I, faith in God's Word, not in our imaginations, faith in God's Word, is absolutely trustworthy. He'll never fail you. That's where I finished this morning. So we talked this morning about the hardships of life, and we said, and we know that all things work together. Yes. So you can trust. You can put your faith in God's way is the best way. You say, but I have my way. Well, what does he say? What about my way? What about my own ideas about life? I'm asking you, you look like, but I have my idea of how everything should turn out. Man, I do too. It's not like I sit with an imagination that doesn't work. I don't unplug my head. I have the same thoughts going through my head that you have going through your head as far as how things should be done. But the fact is we're not going to do them that way. We're going to do them this way. We're going to lean not on our own understanding. So while there's a dependence upon this, there's also what we could call a deference. Like when it comes to my understanding and God's understanding, He is right, I am wrong. Now that's about simple truths. I'm saying like, you ever, I've told you this story maybe before, I only have so many illustrations, but there was a story that Charles Spurgeon said when he ran into a, very cocky, contentious atheist of his day. And the atheist said, I don't believe there's a God and that Bible's not real. And he said, I believe God is true. And he said, I don't believe it. Spurgeon said, God is true. And the atheist said, no. So Spurgeon reached up, grabbed the guy by the nose, twisted it very hard and hurt the man, and his nose began to bleed. And of course the man, his reaction was, what in the world are you assaulting me for today? You go to jail for that. And Spurgeon turned to the passage where it says, the ringing of the nose doth bring forth blood. He said, see, God is always right. Now, I think I could prove it other ways than to become that physical with somebody, but I don't fault him for doing so. I've met some contentious individuals at times of my life that they were not really wanting the truth, and you feel like, hey, if I could find a way to belt him in the nose, it might be really good. It might knock some sense into his head, but you know, and I know would not work. But you know who needs belted in the head most of the time? is me. Because I rely on my own way. And you know what? So do you. And God is always right. I have my ideas of the way things ought to be done. And naturally, in a natural sense, we have kind of a, we know this idea of default settings that come with our electronics. We were in the back talking about like the first computers and I was describing how when I was in Bible college, I took a typewriter to Bible college, but computers were becoming, there was one computer in the dorm when I moved there, and by the time I got out of school, they actually had a laptop computer. One lady, one young lady came to college with a laptop computer. It was as big as a suitcase. And we were all shocked that it would turn on without being plugged in. And we were envious because it would run for like, she could work on it for about 45 minutes before it had to be plugged back in. We've come a long way, haven't we? You understand default settings, but you know what your default setting is? Self. What I want. What I think should happen. Now the Lord isn't, sometimes he is involved in that in the sense that he is moving you in a certain thinking pattern when you are saturated with the word of God. But when those thoughts become contrary to the direction of God in the word and the direction of God for your life, friend listen to me, God is right and we should defer to him, not our thinking. I'm not sure if you'd say amen to that, but God's way is always right. He always knows what's best. And the history of this is that so much of what God has told us in His Word is filled with examples of people that said, here's my way, like Cain decided to do things his way. God says, no, here's my way. And he had been demonstrated that because of the sacrifice, exemplified by God. Abel followed that example. And his sacrifice was not accepted. That doesn't mean he didn't have the right or the ability to bring a sacrifice that was not acceptable. He still did his religious ceremony. I mean, I imagine, like you remember the pictures in Sunday school of the altar built by Cain, and he comes with his all sorts of fruits, and imagine what it was like back then, because the world and the earth was in such better condition. than it is today. We have depleted this world, and thankfully, I think we're getting near the end. But we can imagine that he brought all of this fruit and all of the ground, everything came from his garden, and he put it up there. The Lord allowed him to do his, whatever he did, spiritual looking, religious looking. Maybe he wore his best clothing. I don't know how many he had in his closet. But he wore his best clothing. Maybe he spoke in very high tones and large vocabulary. Oh, precious Father, accept my offering. Could you imagine? Maybe he did a lot of religious things. See, but the Lord says, I'm not accepting that offering. Why? Because it wasn't his way. And we could get in our minds, and I'm going to say this, and you may understand what I'm talking about, all of us default to our own understanding. It was Charles Spurgeon, I've quoted him in that story, but he said this, resting on the arm of the flesh seems to be the hereditary disease of God's people. Are you hearing me? We like to do our own thing. Well, I must be right. In fact, as you know, what's real popular today is to say, you know what I feel that needs to be done? And the right answer, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but if somebody says, you know what I feel should be done? And the right answer to that is who cares? Because our feelings are so the opposite, so non-dependable. so full of waving back and forth. And for instance, you know what I do when I hear, I get this idea, hey, I would like whatever it is, a certain type of razor to use. And I get on that, I get on that amazon.com and I look up, oh, there it is. And I, you know, you could just press a button and it's in the mail, right? Right, you know what I'm talking about. but you're acting on feelings most of the time. A lot of times you're not even acting out of necessity, you're acting not out of wisdom, and the best thing I've learned is to use that list they call a wish list. I put stuff on the wish list all the time. I go up there and say, okay, wish list, wish list, wish list, that's easy to do. And then later, about a day, or it doesn't take long, it might even be 30 minutes, I look at the wish list, that was pretty dumb. I don't have the money for that, and I don't need that, and I don't need that. What a waste if I would have just purchased impulsively everything that I saw. I'd be in debt. See, our understanding is like that. People say, well, I feel this is what should happen. Who cares? I'm not trying to be unkind. I'm saying that about myself. If I as a pastor say, hey, this is what I feel should be. I know what we mean when we say that. I think what we're saying is this is what I think. This is my reason. This is the cause. We don't really mean feeling, I hope, because the last thing we should trust in is our feelings. I want to remind you of a passage of Scripture in Jeremiah. So why don't you go there? Jeremiah chapter 10. I mean, you keep your place in Proverbs. We're gonna come back to this, but I think this is important for you to see. Jeremiah chapter 10, we have in verse number 23. Oh Lord. Are you there? I hear some pages turning. Jeremiah 10, 23. Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. Do we? Yeah, we're making our own decisions. We're making decisions that affect other people all the time, and we're doing what we feel like doing. Jeremiah got it right. Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps. Look at verse 24. Oh Lord, correct me. but with judgment, not in thine anger, lest thou shall bring me to nothing." There's a man who saw God as God. Jeremiah had no ideas that God was a small God who wasn't interested in what he did, or that the decisions we make shouldn't be run by God. Actually, they should originate from God. In other words, instead of saying, this is what I feel should be done, The right answer is, this is what I believe and see that God wants to be done. There's a big difference. So we brag about the things that we're going to do. In James, it talks about that in chapter four. Go back here to chapter 17 of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 17. But James talks about in chapter 4, we say, well, we're going to go doing this, and we're going to do this. And we ought to say, if the Lord will, we will do this or that or the other thing. That our lives are all wrapped up in the very will, the desire of God, and not in our own understanding, our own desires. Look at chapter 17, verse number 9 of Jeremiah. The heart, right, is Desperately or deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who could know it? Well, isn't that what we hear in the world? They say, this is what I feel should be done. And then in the same sentence, they might even say, hey, just whatever's in your heart, trust your heart. I mean, really, anybody who's knowledgeable about scriptures, when they hear that, should almost get sick to their stomach. It makes me want to vomit. that the Christian should be free from the shackles of self, that we don't find the answers to life, the principles of raising your kids. People say, well, I'm just different than what the pastor preaches. Fine, I don't care if you're different from me, but find your truth in the Bible, not in your feelings. Because if you rely upon your feelings and your heart, he says your heart is what? deceitful above all things. Let me ask you from that verse, what is the most deceitful thing in all of the world? Can you all say it? No, no, no, say my heart. What's the most deceitful thing in all of the world? Yeah, my heart. That's tough to say, isn't it? We think we've got a good heart, and we want to have a clean heart. The Bible said He had to pray in Psalm 51, created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me, after He had soiled His heart with sin. But we have all been soiled with sin, and we're sinners purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ, and one thing we cannot do is trust our hearts. Read that verse again. The heart is deceitful above all things. and desperately wicked. Then he asks that funny question, who can know it? Well, look at the next verse, he answers it. I, the Lord, search the hearts. I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. Now, that's an amazing verse because what it indicates is right or wrong, whether you pass the test of trust or not, God is aware of what's being done. and that there is a recompense, a reward, a result for those who live by faith or those that live by fear or feelings or go off in their own way, their own discovery, they say, well, this is what I feel should be done. Who cares? Tell yourself that. Who cares? You just have to say, I don't know what I'm doing. But God does. And when God speaks, you can put everything at risk. You can just say, God spoke. Therefore, I can risk everything on the knowledge that God has directed. Say, but human reasoning. What is he saying here? He tells us in another passage, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. But most Christians live like the steps of my life are ordered by me. And somewhere we have to break ourselves of this selfishness or we'll never know a life of faith. We'll never know what it's like to just let go and let God. You want freedom from hardships. That appealed to us this morning. Because we've all been through hardships. But at the end of it, it means to trust in God. So what does that mean? Well, it means you can trust in God. But it also means you cannot trust in self. Again, what Charles Spurgeon said, let me read it again. Resting on the arm of the flesh seems to be a hereditary disease of God's people. I've seen it destroy churches. I have. When people begin to be more interested in numbers and pride and position than they are in the humility and unity of the church to do the will of God. I've seen it destroy a whole movement of Christianity. Way back in the back in the 60s, 70s and the 80s, back when Brother Thompson, when you were in Bible college, you know, the largest churches across America were independent Baptist churches. Without a question, now they're these emerging churches. They're the most like Joel Osteen type. You know, come and we'll puff you up and make you feel good so you can go home for what purpose? I don't know, because it doesn't solve your problems. But back in those days, I mean, I was just a boy in the late 70s and early 80s following these preachers like John R. Rice and going to the Sword of the Lord meetings and hearing Ray Hart sing and John R. Rice preach and these men that we hold in great esteem over the years and had great testimonies. But we were a movement. I mean, we were a large movement. I mean, my pastor was saved at Akron Baptist Temple, Roy Thompson was, and Akron Baptist Temple had a Sunday school, which was only, I mean, Akron wasn't that big of a town, but it had the rubber industry there, and he went there before that, and Dallas Billington, a man of God, started that work right there, and within a number of years, he couldn't fill, he couldn't have an auditorium that would be big enough. It was running over 6,000 every Sunday morning. And this story is true. If I could write the details all over the independent Baptist movement in the 60s, 70s, and in the 80s, you say, what happened? I'll tell you what happened. It became more important to have a name. And so people began to preach instead of be like Jesus and trust in the Lord, they began to preach things like, hey, you gotta be like Jack Hiles. He was a famous preacher in Hammond, Indiana with a church of 10,000. You gotta be just like Lee Roberson in Chattanooga, Tennessee, whose church ran about 10,000 people. And everything was centered and focused on man. And God will not share his glory with anybody. I mean, when you get done serving the Lord, as you can remember back in your mind in Exodus 2, when I preached about the ark of bulrushes, that our lives are like that ark of bulrush, being able to be plucked out of our place and bent together and pitched in and out with the Spirit of God, and then we're used of God, and then when that account is finished, we've carried and borne the name and Jesus, the Son of promise. And then you hear nothing more of that ark. because at the end it was not about us, it was about the Lord Jesus Christ. But yet we have this idea that we're going to somehow imagine a story where we're walking in this world, oh, I'm a good Christian, but we're trusting in our hearts. Trusting in our own way. We're leaning on our own understanding. And until we're ready to let go and let God, Let go and let God. A long time ago, when the Lord called me to preach, and maybe you've heard this before, and maybe you're sick of hearing it, but it's all I know. But in 1989, in a January Sunday night, a missionary was speaking, and the Lord spoke to my heart. Clearly, I knew God wanted me to be a preacher. There wasn't any answer. I had good grades, I ended up a few years later, I was a valedictorian in my class. I understand, there were things like, I told you my grandmother was wondering why I was wasting my intellect by becoming a pastor. I am a nothing person, I'm the child of a cop. I'm a cop's kid from Cleveland, we came from a rough place. But I look back and say there were people who thought that going into the ministry was for the people who didn't have the academic excellence and not for people who had offers and opportunities and scholarships being sent in the mail. Back then they weren't given away as often as today. But the Lord called me to preach. And I sat there that night in my room, and it was so serious to me after I got home. I didn't tell anybody that God had called me to preach, but I was serious. It was like God called me to do something, and I was unable. My whole thing was, I can't. God, you can, but I can't. And then that next day, I made a decision and took my bed and threw away my bed. You say, why did you do that? Well, because the missionary was from New Guinea. And back then, they were living in huts and going in among the headhunters, and they were risking everything to bring the Gospel. Now watch what I'm saying. I knew I wasn't strong enough. Even physically, I said, you're too much of a wimp. You like comfort too much, Don. By the end of the week, I had ripped the carpet off the floor in my bedroom and slept on the hard wood like you're standing on or sitting right there in the auditorium. I slept on that until I got older in my last year of high school. There were things that you say, that's extremism. Let me tell you why. Because that night when the Lord called me to preach, and I argued with Him, And he called me to preach, and I came down there to that little altar that my dad had built, had somebody built. And it was a little spot, and nobody knew, but I was inside shaking to my core. Because I knew that when that happened that day, and I said yes, it meant that God had all of me. He had all there was of me. I know I'm saying, God, you didn't get very much when you got me, but you have all of me. God had to determine what I was going to do. God had to be the one to decide where I would go to Bible college, where I would serve the Lord. God is the one that put me in that position to learn the things that I've learned. He's the one that sent me to Belize. He's the one that sent me here. But none of it made any sense. None of it made any earthly sense. But leaning on your own understanding, it'll make a lot of sense right there, but it'll get you just as far away from God as you can be. There has to be this deference where you say, God, here's the control. Like riding in a car that's moving, and say, all right, Lord, and you take the back seat. And you can't see him, your ears can't audibly hear him, you can't touch him, but he has the front seat. And you're sitting back saying, I don't understand it, but God is getting me where I need to go. That is leaning not on your own understanding. So going back to Proverbs, if you will. trusting in God, a deference, a dependence. Thirdly, there has to be a devotion. And I remember that this took longer because in my life it took longer for this. And there's still areas in my life that I wonder, do I acknowledge God in that area? And the Lord reveals things to me and I have to repent and say, no, Lord, in that area, I've been selfish. You think after 50 years, and since I got saved, it's been since 1986 till now, so it's, what is that, 39 years. You know, coming up next in the summer, about a year and a half from now, it'll be, I think, 40 years of saved, walking with the Lord. You think I'd get it right, you know that? By now. But he says in this verse, in all thy ways acknowledge him. in all thy ways acknowledge him. Now we want, as Christians, we're like spoiled little children, we want all of the blessings, and he shall direct thy paths. But we're not really sure if we wanna do everything he says is conditioned on that. So we have, what is conditioned? Well, we said there has to be a dependence, trust, a deference to him, that we're not gonna use my understanding, right? And then there's gonna be a devotion that in everything, Every area of my life, I'm going to put Him first. Every area of my life. So there's some that say, and I'm just gonna say it this way, and you can help me with it, because I'm not here to be the Holy Spirit to you, but just to make it understandable, that instead of saying, God, in every way, you're first, we will say, hey, Lord, in every way but this way, because in that way, I am never going to change. You see? And then we want God to bless? I mean, we're unreasonable with God. And we should think. We want our way. And we'll say in all your ways acknowledge Him. No, no, no. In most ways we will acknowledge Him. Or in some ways. Because I think we all, and I'm including myself in here because I've got a lot of growing still to do. I don't know of any areas of my life right now that this would be true because if I did I would confess and forsake it. That's what I mean by living a life with no known continued sin. I don't know. If you see it, you see it. I don't see it yet, but I know that I'm human and I'm prone to this. But we all have our devotion as far as acknowledging God. We have devotion that is with exceptions and lines that we draw and say, I'm devoted only this far. because there are other areas that our grip is really on. I will not change. And, you know, as a pastor, frankly, when I run into those areas, you say, what do you do? Well, I'm given a choice, either fight you or just wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. So I may get up here and I'll preach the truth, like we get into a topic and I'm preaching, I'll tell you the truth of what God says, but I'm not gonna fight somebody over your area of non-relinquishing to the Holy Spirit. I'm just gonna go pray. I'm gonna go pray, God, touch that person's heart. I'll make it personal to you. I've told you, this takes the rest of your life, it's sanctification. What are you holding back from God today? I will not pray earnestly. I will not go sowinning and commit to going every week. I will not tithe. I will not dress biblically. I will not listen to godly music. I will, and we have so many I will nots. that we have to say, and the Lord is so merciful that He still cares for us, but the real blessings and the answer to this promise are just eluding, it's out of reach of most people. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and what shall He do? He shall direct thy paths. What does that mean? It means if you're in the will of God, you're like, you're immortal. What I mean by that is nothing can harm you. unless God says it's time. I mean, I've had some funny stories. I've told you about stories like in Belize when they pulled out a machete after me, right? Wanted to kill me. Or out in Africa when a big hippopotamus charged me in Botswana. I've got some funny stories, but I was totally safe there. Why? Because unless it's my time designed by God and His will, they can't do anything that God doesn't allow. I'm totally safe. So every once in a while, here I have a fear of not having enough in store for our latter years, right? I do, it's a fear I have. You know, I've done some things to try to correct that. We've started putting a little bit of money away. We don't have a lot to put away. But I have a fear. Every once in a while, the devil comes. But listen, in the middle of God's will, I don't mean you don't do your best. I'm listening to the Holy Spirit. I'm trying to do my best. But when it comes right down to it, in the middle of God's will, if he needs to, I can go outside and get man to fall down from heaven. You say, could that really happen? Come on, pastor. You don't believe it could happen? You know, why don't you believe it won't happen? I mean, maybe you've never been in a situation where you had need and you had nothing, you had no way to meet the need, but then you went and prayed and God met the need. And you look back and you say, how in the world did it happen? I'll tell you why. Because if you trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, he will direct your paths. Because he takes care of his own. Now that makes you want to shout, like I always shout. I'm the one up here shouting, right? Poor Jim was up here this morning, comes to church, he has a hearing problem where it's very sensitive when I get loud. And you heard me comment this morning, I'm trying real hard. We got these nice little speakers talking to me back. So I hope you see a kind of a little bit lessening, but man, this is an important message. This is an important growth in your life. I mean, are we done growing? We have to know that what we're talking about is an Almighty God whose ways are perfect, whose steps are right. They're good. Listen, whatever God does, it's always right. And whatever God says to do, we would be in trouble if we didn't do it. It didn't really work out for Jonah, did it? What did he do? Well, he's a perfect example. Here's a preacher of the gospel who's well-known, well-liked among his people, but God says, get up, Jonah. Go down to Nineveh. Now, what was Nineveh? It was the capital of Assyria. who are the number one enemies of God's people. The Assyrians said that. It is not Babylon that is the strong. They were the weaker sister at that point. But at that time, this was the strong military, the strong city. It would like be going into the worst of the enemies of America and walking down as an American, clearly not fitting in, speaking your own language, saying, God is going to destroy this place in 40 days. And everything in him saying, why would I, I don't, if they died, I would be happy. Why would I care if they got saved? Are you following me? Jonah could have thought, and when he got in that boat, he was a national hero. Because what Jew wants God's enemies to have revival? Everything was against the reasoning. And even Jonah was at a point like, hey, if it means going over there, I'm gonna disobey God. Did it work out for him? These people are not good. They don't deserve the gospel. I could be better used here in wherever he was. I don't know where he was. You probably have it in the book of Jonah, but it's escaping me. Like, I would be better used in Jerusalem. Fine, wherever he was, in Samaria or wherever. Arise, Jonah, go to Nineveh. So he went the other way. And you say, but isn't it true? Everything that you reason in your mind, we should let Nineveh die. The fact is, later, when the Lord knew that they were beyond hope, He let them be destroyed. He let them be destroyed. And I heard the story that when even Zoniphon and his people were coming back, fighting their way back from Persia to Greece, they came into the ruins of Nineveh, and the Bedouin people of that area that had settled among the ruins, like we're here among the hills, they were asked, well, what was this city? They said, no, we don't know, but it was so thoroughly destroyed that we have no idea what it is. It was further buried so that it was really, at the time of the Bible's writings in the 1800s, the only mention of Nineveh's existence was in the Bible. And archaeologists were starting to make fun of the Bible saying, we don't believe Nineveh exists anymore. It was just some fairy tale in the Bible until about 18 something, I can't remember the dates and I don't have it right here, that they discovered Nineveh's ruins buried far deep below the sands of that desert. It was so thoroughly destroyed. Because when God wants to destroy something, he does a thorough job. But when Jonah went to that place that he did not want to go, where he did not want to go, to a people that he didn't really even want them to be saved, God, in his mercy, knew that there was a little kid walking around that city who needed to come to heaven. Might have looked like your child. There was an old man walking down the middle of that city with his cane who just waited for the time because faith had been sparked in his heart and really the message was not given with any kind of desire to see Nineveh change. In 40 days you're going to die. Now there, I told him. That's really the feeling you get from the book of Jonah. I did it, Lord. And then he goes and sits under that plant, that gourd, just to stay cool. He wants his comfort to be met. Hmm. And he said, you're going to save them, aren't you? Yeah, because God loved those people. God saw something in them that was worthy of a revival. That would have been if we could have known all the details, we would be astounded at what God is about to do. A whole nation city. That repented. Whoever knew when Jonah was going that that short message would be stricken on the heart, the fear of God in the king's palace, so that the king himself would make a decree among his people that it's time to repent. And a lot of little children, God saved. A lot of moms and dads trusted the Lord. A lot, and when we get to heaven, We're going to see those people and spend eternity with them. And it's going to be like, oh, obviously God wanted them here. That he stretched out the most unreasonable task for this Jewish prophet. Hmm. And then he did all the rest. He said, hey, I'll send a fish, swallowed him up in a whale, and then spit him out, scared Jonah enough that he finally said, okay, I'll go. And then he used his reluctant message to be, to turn an entire nation upside down, and we think for that generation. And when God was done with them, he thoroughly judged Nineveh. But God wasn't done. So when we lean on our own understanding, we're asking that our children don't do right. We're asking for a poor turnout to our marriages. We're asking for souls to not be saved. We're asking for God's blessings to be removed. When we say, I will not give in to God in one area of your life, I will not be a tither like I'm supposed to, we're saying the protection of God and the promises of God removed from your life. the vulnerability of walking away from God's protection. Sometimes he protects us in those cases because he is so merciful, but he's not obligated to do it because there are conditions to his promises. I mean, I'm not gonna say, hey, get right with God or you're gonna be zapped with a lightning rod. No, because God is a merciful God. And he thoroughly loves you. He loves you. But he's not obligated to take care of you like He is by His own promises if we meet His conditions. Serious message tonight, trust in the Lord. With all thine heart, dependence, lean not on thy own understanding, a deference. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, that's devotion. And then He will direct thy paths, that's the compensation. Are you trusting in the Lord? The Lord's going to allow trials to come where you're going to be made to trust in him or not. Are you willing to say, Lord, here's the driver's seat of my heart. Here is my life. Here is my church. Here is my family. Because it doesn't belong to us. Belongs to God. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that we've honored you in this passage of scripture that we've examined tonight, Lord, and I pray and trust that we have honored you in giving out the sense of it and giving out a reality of our faith. In order to please you, we have to believe. Without faith, it is impossible to please you. And Lord, I have tasted of the reward I have seen the great things you've done. And now, Lord, I trust you to the limited amount. And Lord, I pray that you would reprove me in areas of my life where my devotion perhaps is falling short, where my will has stopped your working in my heart, so that the blessings of your blessings, the blessings of souls and the blessings of discipleship and the blessings of plenty and all of this protection can come on this church, on my family, because I've met the conditions that you've asked. Lord, we're begging of you to do something in our midst. Lord, Pocatello needs to be reached for you. God, please touch the hearts. Please help us to respond. In your name I pray, amen.