Georgia. It's a pleasure to be here in Remlap again. I was here two weeks ago for the pastor's fraternal. I didn't expect to be back so soon, but I'm happy to be able to be here and preach the Word of God to you. Pastor Kurt was, in December, he actually led my ordination council, and so I'm very happy to have this opportunity to serve him, to serve you, to serve the Lord in his stead as he's recovering from illness. So it's my pleasure to be here with you. Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs. We're gonna be in chapter three, and our focus is going to be on verses 25 and 26 this morning. Proverbs chapter three, verses 25 and 26. Before we begin, let us pause and ask for the Lord's help and for his blessing. Heavenly Father, your people have gathered here today on this day that you've set aside for your worship and for our edification, and we need to be fed from your word. And Lord, we will come away empty and hungry if your Holy Spirit does not fall. We pray that through the merits of Christ, your Holy Spirit would be poured out upon me as I preach your word, upon your people as they hear, and Lord, that everything that takes place in your house today would be glorifying to you. We pray it not because We have earned something from you or because we've been good enough this week to come and ask this of you. We ask you because you've promised to be with your church until the end of the age. And we ask you through the merits of your son. And so we have every confidence that you'll answer our prayer in Jesus name. Amen. Let's read Proverbs chapter three. We're going to start our reading in verse 21. We'll read through verse 26. Hear the word of God. My son, do not lose sight of these. Keep sound wisdom and discretion and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked when it comes. for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Amen. Well, perhaps you've seen the classic movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas. And in that movie, Charlie Brown spends most of his time walking around depressed because He sees his friends and his family members consumed with materialism and greed. And he sees this as antithetical to the Christmas season. And he seeks to find an answer to the question, what is Christmas all about? Well, in search of a cure for how he's feeling, he finds himself at his friend Lucy's psychiatric booth. And she promises for a nickel that she's going to help solve all of his problems. And in this scene in the movie, Lucy begins by asking Charlie Brown what's wrong with him. And he answers by saying this, I feel depressed. I know I should be happy, but I'm not. Well, Lucy then goes on to suggest that they begin by pinpointing Charlie Brown's fears. So she asks a series of questions to him, probing for different phobias that he might have. Are you afraid of responsibility? Are you afraid of cats? Are you afraid of staircases? Are you afraid of the ocean? Are you afraid of crossing bridges? Well, none of those things seem to hit the mark. So she finally asks Charlie Brown, If he has pantophobia, is he afraid of everything? And in frustration, he blurts out, that's it. Well, this of course is from a cartoon and it's meant to be comedy, but I can't help but wonder how many of us, how many Christians, how many believers in the Lord Jesus Christ walk around in constant fear of things that we have no business fearing. Have you ever found yourself paralyzed with fear? I think if we're being honest, we have to say to one another that, yes, we have. We've all been paralyzed with fear at one point or another. And perhaps it could be fear of temporal matters, your health, the health of your loved ones, the economy, the state of our government, the multiple conflicts that are ongoing around the globe and what the impact of those conflicts will be here at home. Perhaps you fear persecution. We know that The world hates our God. The world hates his church. We live in a culture that is increasingly hostile towards true Christianity. So perhaps you're fearful of persecution. Or maybe you're more fearful of eternal matters. Am I saved? Are my sins forgiven? Does God really love me? And if he does, how can I know? Well, friends, unlike our God, we are mutable creatures. We are changeable creatures. We are affected daily, even hourly by things that happen around us. And there are all sorts of things in this life that can and do cause us to fear. But that's not what God would have us do. We're not to be a fearful people. And if we're to overcome fear and to enjoy the peace of mind that Christ has purchased for his people with his own blood, then we need to realize that God himself is our confidence. He is our stronghold. As Luther's famous hymn says, a mighty fortress is our God. Well, in the verses that precede our passage, Solomon has been speaking of the benefits of gaining wisdom. And those benefits are summarized in verses 21 through 24. Again, my son, do not lose sight of these. Keep sound wisdom and discretion and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet." Friends, true wisdom, saving wisdom, wisdom that will truly be life for your soul, as verse 22 says, that wisdom cannot be separated from faith in Christ. And the Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and a believing and reverent fear of God finds its true expression in a lively faith in the only begotten Son of God. So as I trust you'll see, our text has much wisdom to offer us as we navigate the ups and downs of this present life, but it also offers us much more than temporal wisdom. It offers us wisdom for eternity. It offers us an anchor for our souls. And by gaining true wisdom, by being united to Christ by faith, who is himself the wisdom of God, only then can we with great confidence walk on our way securely, as the text says, and lie down as it were in the grave on that last day without fear, because the Lord will be our confidence. So with these things in view, I'd like to preach verses 25 and 26 to you under two different headings. Firstly, our need for confidence. And secondly, our only sure confidence. Starting first with our need for confidence. And the text begins with a negative command. Do not be afraid. The Hebrew word for afraid means to fear or to stand in awe of. And Solomon goes on next to mention the two things that we are not to fear, two things which we are not to be afraid of or stand in awe of. Firstly, we are not to be afraid of sudden terror. Do not be afraid of sudden terror. Interestingly enough, this Hebrew word translated here as terror is actually translated as fear in 80% of the places in which it appears in the Old Testament. It's actually how the NASB and the KJV translate this verse, do not be afraid of sudden fear. In other words, we're not to spend our time and our energy being afraid about what fearful or terrible thing might happen to us in the future. Of course, when we look forward to verse 26, we see the reason that we're not to be afraid of sudden terror. And it's not because bad things or challenging things don't happen to us. We know that they do. but rather we are not to fear because the Lord is our confidence. And we'll come back to that shortly. But first I want to explore what this sudden terror or sudden fear might look like. One Hebrew lexicon defines the word fear as this, fear which Jehovah causes, fear which Jehovah causes. And we can see this terror or this fear, which Jehovah causes clearly throughout the Old Testament, certainly where God goes before his people, Israel, and defends them against their enemies. We read about that this morning in Psalm 47 is another example of that. And when we read our Old Testaments, we see that the nations feared Israel, not because Israel was some mighty warrior nation. They feared Israel because they feared Israel's God. They had heard about his exploits and they trembled. For example, we read 2 Chronicles 20, verse 29, that the fear of God came on all the kingdoms of the countries when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. The fear of God came on all the kingdoms. And the word fear used here, it's the same word translated as terror in our passage. Do not be afraid of sudden terror. But I would suggest to you that we also see this fear which Jehovah causes or this fear of God if you will, expressed in a different way in the Old Testament. And I believe this is what Solomon is expressing in our passage. And that particular fear of God or fear of sudden terror is the result of a difficult or a frowning providence in the life of a child of God. And we see this perhaps most strikingly in the book of Job. Take for example, Job chapter 13, verse 11. Job says this to his friends, will not his, that is God, Will not his majesty terrify you and the dread of him fall on you? The dread of God. Again, this is our same word that we've been looking at that's translated often as fear or terror. Another example from the book of Job, this time from chapter 31, Job says this in verse 23, for calamity from God is a terror to me. And because of his majesty, I can do nothing. Job says calamity from God is a terror to me. Again, Job is not speaking of fear or terror that comes from the outside world. He is speaking of terror that comes from his God. Calamity from God is a terror to me. Remember, Job was a righteous and upright man. And he's claiming here that terror from God, terror from God is something that frightens him. Of course, what Job speaks of is in reference to those many hard providences that he endured at the hand of God, losing his animals, losing his servants, losing most devastatingly his children. But even after this, God was not done with Job. If you remember, he allowed Satan to attack Job's body. It was struck with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot, excuse me, to the crown of his head. And the Bible tells us that Job sat in ashes, And he took a piece of broken pottery and he scraped his sores. This is a man who was brought about as low as one could be brought and still survive. He had lost most of his possessions, his children were dead, and now even his health had been taken away from him. And this, I believe, is what Solomon has in mind when he speaks of sudden terror. He is speaking of God's sovereign acts of providence in our lives, the ones that come at us suddenly and are hard for us to bear. the unexpected miscarriage, the layoff, the death of a loved one that happened unexpectedly, the phone call from your doctor with your test results. These are the types of hard providences that can cause sudden terror or sudden fear in our lives. So we're commanded firstly, do not be afraid of sudden terror. Do not be afraid of what God's providence might hold for you. And again, we're working our way towards this, but as a reminder, verse 26, we're commanded not to be afraid of these hard providences, not because they don't happen, but because even in the midst of suffering, the Lord is our confidence. God alone is the only true source of comfort in times of difficulty. Well, before getting to that verse 26, we need to address the second thing that we're commanded not to fear in this present life. We are not to fear the ruin of the wicked. And the Hebrew word translated here as ruin means storm or to rush over. Imagine for a minute, a raging river, banks overflowing with water from a torrential downpour. The waters in that river rushing over the stones and the riverbed and washing away anything in its path. This is the picture that's being painted in our text. And because of that, I actually prefer the way the NASB translates this word. Do not fear the onslaught of the wicked. the onslaught of the wicked. And by mentioning here the wicked, Solomon now has created a distinction between two categories of people. And these two categories of people represent every single human being that has ever lived. Firstly, there is the category of person being commanded here not to fear, not to be afraid. And this command is addressed to God's people. And if we look again at verse 26, the Lord will be your confidence. Notice Lord in verse 26 is capitalized. And when we see that in our translation, that is typically a representation of God's covenant name, Yahweh. And the use of Yahweh, the use of God's covenant name here, it signifies a special and unique relationship that God has with a particular people. And in the context of our passage, of course, this is referring to God's old covenant people. These are people who were citizens of the nation state of Israel. They were children of Abraham, according to the flesh. However, in the New Covenant, God's special and saving grace is only given to those who have been united to Christ by faith. Those who are not physical descendants of Abraham, but spiritual descendants of Abraham. Those who have been justified by faith in the promised Messiah, just as Abraham was. So the first category of people that Solomon mentions here is God's children. The second category of people are those whom Solomon refers to as the wicked. They are not children of God. Instead, they are children of the devil. Again, we must remember that two spiritual families exist in this world, the children of God and the children of the devil. Every single person who has ever lived has been represented in one of these two spiritual families. And we have to ask ourselves the question, which spiritual family do we belong to? Are we children of God by faith, by the new birth, by union with Christ, by grace, or by our fallen nature, are we children of the devil? We need to ask ourselves that question. It's not a comfortable question to ask, but the text confronts us with that question. So we must, before God, answer it. When we speak here of the children of the devil, we must acknowledge that they have an unquenchable desire to persecute, to rush over or to onslaught the children of God. And this persecution is exactly what Paul is referencing in Ephesians chapter six, when he exhorts believers to put on the whole armor of God. You'll remember that Paul explains to us this, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So to be sure, our battle is not against physical enemies only, or even primarily. But consider for a moment, author David Hesselgrave's definition of culture. He says this, culture is the arena of continued divine and satanic intervention and penetration. God by his spirit, heavenly agents, and human representatives, and Satan by his demonic forces. So in other words, our culture is the battleground where spiritual warfare is waged. And we must confess that this spiritual warfare, this onslaught of the wicked, it certainly manifests itself in very physical, very tangible ways in our lives. Just consider for a moment how our culture responds to a truth of God as simple as this. There are only two genders, male and female. Who would have ever thought there would be a controversy over that? But if you want to see the wrath of the wicked in 2024, just take a stand on that simple truth. Bank accounts canceled, employment terminated, reputation slandered. These are just some of the ways in which the onslaught of the wicked against God's people manifests itself. But friends, how much more hostility does the gospel of Jesus Christ draw forth from this culture? How much more hostility does the gospel draw forth from those who are children of the devil? the call to repent of sin and to find salvation in Jesus Christ alone. It is an insult to unbelieving men and women because it calls them to account before a holy God. They don't want to answer to someone, to their creator, for their sin. It's an offense to them. And brothers and sisters, that means simply living as children of God in this present world, walking in step with the gospel, seeking to order our lives in accordance with the word of God, by the spirit of God, aiming to adorn the gospel with very simple acts of obedience to God. This will bring forth the onslaught of the wicked. You can count on it. And in fact, our text makes that clear. Look at the end of verse 25. When it comes, Not if it comes, when it comes. Solomon is telling us here that the onslaught of the wicked will come to God's people. It is inevitable. Paul teaches us in 2 Timothy 3. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And although the degree of the onslaught of the wicked, the degree of this persecution will vary from Christian to Christian and from age to age, we can be sure that all of God's people will experience it in some form or fashion. So we've seen Solomon's two categories of fear or two things God's people are commanded not to fear. We are not to fear hard providences and we are not to fear the wrath of wicked men. Yet, friends, we must acknowledge that both of these things happen in the Christian life. All of us experience difficult providences and all of us experience to some degree persecution from the world. And because of this reality, we all have a great need for confidence. We have a great need for confidence. So having established that indeed we do have a need for confidence, let us move to our second heading and see our only sure confidence. Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Do not fear because the Lord will be your confidence. Saints, the Lord will be your confidence. Two parties addressed here, the Lord and the reader, those whose confidence is the Lord. Again, as we mentioned earlier, the use of God's covenant name in this text, it means that the promise which follows is only for those in covenant with God. The Lord does not promise to be everyone's confidence in the world, but only those who are in covenant with him, those who have been united by faith to his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. Those who have been adopted into his family, That is who the promise is for. So we need to be clear that only born again Christians can rightfully claim this promise that the Lord will be your confidence. And the word confidence in the text literally means loins or inward parts. When we think of a man who is willing to do something extremely dangerous or difficult, almost to the point of his life being at risk, we might say that man has intestinal fortitude. Now, if you go to the Oxford Dictionary and you look up the term intestinal fortitude, you're going to see a footnote under there that says this, used when you want to avoid using the word guts. So, of that brave man who puts his life in danger to accomplish something, we can say of that man, that man has guts. You got to give it to him. It takes guts to try something like that. You have to be extremely confident to do something like that. And this same sentiment is depicted in the word confidence that we see here in verse 26. Now, most modern translations do render this word as confidence, and that's a fitting translation, but commentator Bruce Waltke suggests a better translation of this word is at your side. At your side. In other words, we can understand this verse to say, do not be afraid, for the Lord will be at your side. Believer in Jesus, the Lord is at your side. The Lord is your confidence. And we should note that he is your confidence in this life, but he's also your confidence in the life to come. He is at your side here in this life during hard providences and persecutions, but he's also at your side on the final day of judgment. And let me say this, brothers and sisters, the Lord is your confidence whether you feel like he is or not. Our feelings do not change God. He is who he is, even when we forget who he is, even when we fail to believe him like we should, the Lord himself is our confidence. That's what the word of God says. So please hear me here. Your confidence is not fundamentally rooted in your own apprehension of the Lord being at your side. It's not rooted in your level of assurance, in other words. Instead, your confidence is perfectly rooted in God himself, which means it is an unchangeable fact for you if you are in union with Jesus Christ. Now, the reality that the Lord is the believer's confidence, this should be something that gives us great comfort and assurance. If we doubt that the Lord is our confidence, if we have a struggle with assurance, and all of us have, I'm sure, at times, to varying degrees, But if we doubt that the Lord is our confidence, then we're robbing ourselves of a great blessing that God intends for us to enjoy as his children. And there are many reasons why we may fail to enjoy the blessing of assurance, of knowing that the Lord is our confidence. And I want to look at four of those reasons here quickly. Four reasons we might fail to enjoy the blessing of knowing that the Lord is our confidence. First, Satan's attacks. I'm convinced that one of Satan's greatest tactics is to tempt us to forget that God himself is our confidence, to have us doubt the love of God for us. He knows that he cannot snatch you out of the Father's hand, so he tries to make you a fearful Christian, a depressed Christian, an unproductive Christian. We might even say a Charlie Brown Christian. All by seeking to consume your thoughts and energy with the question, does God really love me? Does God really stand here at my side? Is he really my confidence? And in those moments of doubt and temptation, we have no other option than to follow the example of our master and use the truth of God's word to drive out the lies of the evil one. And you'll remember, after our Lord's baptism, he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan. Three different times, Jesus rebuffed temptation with the word of God, saying to the evil one, be gone, Satan, for it is written, for it is written, for it is written, always going back to the word of God. So doubting Christian, does God love you? Is he really your confidence? Yes, he does. Yes, he is, for it is written in Ephesians chapter one, in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In love, he predestined us for adoption according to the purpose of his will. Brothers and sisters, God chose you not because you're lovely, I like you a lot, but I didn't choose you because you're lovely. He chose you because he loves you. All right, wrap your head around that. You're not lovable, yet God loves you. God chose you because he loves you. God is love. You haven't affected him. You haven't stirred up within God some sort of emotion that caused him to love you and caused him to choose you. That should give you a great confidence. That should be a comfort to you because you had nothing to do with God choosing you. And so his constant love for you, his constant being at your side, his being your confidence has nothing to do with you now. You're just the beneficiary of this. So take hold of those precious doctrines of grace. People look at us as Calvinists sometimes and they think, election, that's a really tough doctrine. I don't know if I can, you hear things like this, I don't know if I can worship a God like that. I feel sorry for people who say that. I don't want a God who has a conditional election. I don't want a God who is not choosing his people sovereignly out of the good pleasure of his own will. And I don't think you want that either. So take hold of those doctrines of grace. They're so clear in the word of God. Comfort your own soul with those things when the enemy would attack you, when he would cause you to believe that the Lord is not your confidence. Believer in Jesus, the Lord will be your confidence. Secondly, we fail to enjoy the comfort of having God as our sure confidence because we have a wrong view of God. In Psalm 50 verse 21, God says this, you thought that I was one like yourself, but now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. God says this, you thought that I was one like yourself. We are finite and fallen, including our minds. And our finite and fallen minds, friends, they cannot comprehend who God is in his essence. Now, we can praise God that by grace, we can apprehend him by faith, but we cannot understand him exhaustively. And because of this limitation, we may be tempted to think of God as sort of like us, except he's bigger than us, he's stronger than us, he's holier than us, he's wiser than us, so on and so forth. But this is wrong. God is wholly different from us. He is entirely other. He is utterly unique. And when we think of him as simply a much improved version of the best Christian we've ever met, we are thinking sinful thoughts about God, which are not true. And this low view of God, this view of God that uses a human paradigm to attempt to understand him, this can lead us to believe that God will abandon us or let us down in our time of need, because after all, other people have done that to us in the past. But friends, God is not like us in that respect. Consider Isaiah 49, verses 15 and 16. In these verses, the Lord is addressing a false claim that Israel had made about him. They had said that God had forsaken them, that he had forgotten them. And the Lord responds by saying this, Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget. So God uses this image of a nursing mother forgetting her child. He says, as crazy as it sounds, as unthinkable as it is, because of sin, it is possible for a mother to forget her nursing child. But I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." So friends, the Lord loves and cares for his children in such a perfect way that even the love of a mother for her nursing child pales in comparison. So we must remember that God is most loving. He cannot be more loving than he is. So take comfort that your God is love, that he does not forget you, even in times of difficulty. Believer in Jesus, the Lord will be your confidence. Third, we fail to enjoy the comfort of having God as our sure confidence because we have a misplaced confidence in ourselves. A misplaced confidence in ourselves. In John chapter two, the apostle makes the comment that During the Passover feast in Jerusalem, many people saw the signs that Jesus was doing, and as a result, many people believed in his name. Well, John goes on to give us some insight into our Savior's mind when he says this in verses 24 and 25 of the same chapter. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Our Lord knew what was in man. He knew the frailness and the fickleness that exists within fallen man. Therefore, he did not entrust himself to them. Instead, his trust was fixed firmly in his heavenly father. And friends, oftentimes, even Christians, we think of ourselves as stronger than we are. We think of ourselves as more capable than we are. And when this happens, we place ourselves in God's rightful position. We make the error of putting our confidence in the flesh, of trusting in ourselves for all of our needs. My children enjoy the Winnie the Pooh stories. And for one of my kids' birthday presents one year, a family member purchased this nice framed picture of some of the Winnie the Pooh characters. And there was a quote on the framed picture from Christopher Robin. And the quote went like this, "'Promise me you'll always remember, you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.'" That's the wisdom of fallen mankind. That's the wisdom of fallen men, right there. Friends, we are more cowardly than we believe. We are weaker than we seem. We are more foolish than we think we are. And the message of Proverbs in a nutshell is expressed in chapter three, verse five, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. When we face temporal concerns, those hard providences that God brings into our lives or persecutions that rush upon us from wicked men and women, whatever the trial or tribulation, we must not lean on our own understanding. In everything, we must trust in the Lord with all our hearts. And the same is true for eternal concerns. trusting in our own ability, in our own obedience, in our own good works, in any way, shape, or form, that misplaced trust will sink you to the lowest hell on the day of judgment. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Friends, repent of misplaced confidence and remind yourselves of the utter sufficiency of God for all your concerns, your temporary concerns and your eternal concerns. Believer in Jesus, the Lord will be your confidence. Well, fourth and finally, we fail to enjoy the comfort of having God as our sure confidence because we tolerate unrepented sin. Because we tolerate unrepented sin. After confessing his sin with Bathsheba in Psalm 51, David cries out to God, restore to me the joy of your salvation. David did not lose his salvation because he committed adultery, but he did lose the joy of that salvation. His unrepented sin kept him from enjoying the temporal benefits of being a child of God. Only when he confessed his sin to the Lord and forsook it, did he have the light of God's countenance restored to him once again. In a different Psalm, David also speaks of the burden that believers bear while harboring unrepented sin. Psalm 32 verses one through five, David says this, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, that is when I didn't repent of my sin before you, O God, For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer." And David goes on, I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. When David kept silent, when he was slow to repent of his sin to the Lord, his bones wasted away, the chastening hand of God was heavy upon David. And brothers and sisters, this is God's way with his people. This is his way with you and me. And praise God that it is. He will not let his children go on sinning while at the same time enjoying this great level of assurance. He cares too much for us to allow us to do that. Proverbs 28, 13 reminds us, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find mercy. So saints, may God grant us grace to keep a short account with him, to be quick to confess and to forsake all of our known sins before him so that we may enjoy great assurance. Believer in Jesus, the Lord will be your confidence. So we've seen four reasons why we may not enjoy the comfort and assurance of having the Lord as our sure confidence. Finally, under this heading, let's examine the last part of verse 26 and see what it means to have the Lord as our confidence. Solomon tells us that the Lord will keep your foot from being caught. And the word keep here means to watch or to guard. And the emphasis is the same way in which a gardener would keep his garden or in the same way in which a shepherd would guard his flock. So we're told in the text that the Lord is the one who will guard us, who will keep our foot from being caught. And notice again, the personal nature of this promise. The Lord will keep your foot from being caught. Although this is true for all believers, it is a statement of great specificity. The Lord will keep your individual foot from being caught. Once again, remember that God's covenant name is being used in this text. That means that the promise that He will keep your foot from being caught is a promise that applies only to those who are in covenant with him, those who are in the covenant of grace, those who have had their sins imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ and had his righteousness freely imputed to your account. It is to you that this promise is given. The Lord will keep your foot from being caught. And the word caught means to capture or to be taken. This Hebrew word, it's only used in one other place in the entire Old Testament, and that's in Psalm 9, verse 16, which reads as follows. The Lord has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. The wicked are snared. They are caught in the work of their own hands and thus are under the judgment of God. So keep that in mind and look back to our text here in verse 26 and we see the Lord keeping the believer's foot from being caught or from being snared. Now, feet are a common symbol of stability. They often represent the condition of the entire person. We'll often speak of a person being sure-footed or balanced. And what do we mean by that besides a person who is strong, who's standing fixed firmly on their two feet? So if your foot is caught, as our text says, then the idea is that the whole person is caught and taken away. The whole person is snared and taken, their sure-footedness being removed. And the implication for the Christian is that even when hard providences come, even when persecutions from wicked men rush upon you, the Lord will be your confidence. He will keep you from being caught. He will keep you from being snared. He will keep your soul from being captured and taken away. Quoting again from commentator Bruce Waltke, he says here, the Lord is the hidden source of sure-footedness. Friends, you can trust God. He cannot lie. He has promised to bring to completion the good work that he started in you and see that you persevere safely all the way to his heavenly kingdom. Remember, God is not like men who speak with boldness and confidence, but lack the ability to carry it out or to execute their plans. God has the omnipotent power to see that you persevere until the end. He has the omniscience to see every obstacle, every temptation that will come into your path. And he has the omnipresence to comfort you wherever and whenever you are afflicted. Do not be afraid of sudden terror, of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Remember, saints, he who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. Well, I have two additional applications for you from our texts this morning. Firstly, for my fellow Christians, I don't think any of us have a martyr complex. We probably don't sit around longing to be made a martyr for Christ's sake. But with that said, I do think that most of us tend to fear hard providences from God more than we fear persecutions from the world. And perhaps that's because we have a hard time reconciling some of the wonderful promises of God for his children, promises such as Romans 8.28. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. We might have a hard time reconciling promises such as Romans 8.28 with the difficult trials that we experience in this life. Again, think of the hard providences which fell upon Job that we looked at earlier. If God is for me, why do bad things happen to me? Why do bad things occur in my life? Why is life sometimes so hard? If God loves me, how can the two things be true at the same time? Well, in reality, there's no conflict between God's wonderful promises and his providential dealings with his children. God uses means to sanctify us. And oftentimes, hard providences, those trials and tribulations, they are the exact means that he is using to fulfill his promises, to make us more like Christ, to make us fit for glory. In his book, Trusting God, Jerry Bridges says this helpful comment about navigating frowning providences in this life, quote, We must take our stand by faith on the assurances of God's love given to us in the scriptures. We cannot evade one of the basic principles of the Christian life. We live by faith and not by sight. Certainly our faith frequently wavers. And just as we may momentarily question the wisdom of God, we will momentarily question the goodness and love of God. That's often our initial reaction when adversity strikes us. We feel cut off from God's face, cut off from his love and tender care, but we must also learn that God cannot forsake us because we are his children in blessed union with his son. We cannot be cut off from his sight, but we can be cut off from the assurance of his love when we allow doubt and unbelief to gain a foothold in our hearts. Last summer, my co-elder, Pastor Jerry Slate, had to undergo emergency heart surgery due to an aortic dissection. To be quite frank, it's a miracle that he's alive right now. The death rate for an aortic dissection is 80% initially, and then it increases exponentially as each hour goes by. So the dissection occurred, he didn't have a surgery for 24 hours. Pretty amazing. God is definitely good. But I was visiting with Pastor Jerry in the hospital the night before his procedure, and he said to me, I am in omnipotent hands. This is a man who was staring at death. I am in omnipotent hands. Saints, when we find ourselves enduring those hard and difficult providences, we would do well to take those words upon our own lips. So believer in Jesus, you are in omnipotent hands. The Lord will be your confidence. Secondly, to the unbeliever, to the person who's not found life in Jesus Christ, where is your confidence for eternity? Where's your confidence for eternity? One day you will stand before your maker and be judged, The book of Hebrews declares that it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. And I promise you, on that day, the temporary concerns of this life will be no more. On that day, you must have a confidence that will carry you safely into eternity. So when we see Solomon command us not to be afraid of sudden terror, to be afraid of the sudden fear which Jehovah causes, you must see this command in light of eternity. On the day of judgment, terror from God will come suddenly to all who are outside of Jesus Christ, to all who do not have the Lord as their sure confidence. And if you neglect this truth, you do so to your everlasting peril. So do not let the busyness and concerns of this life creep in and drown out the weightier matters of eternity. I know that your fallen nature chafes against the idea of a day of judgment. It's not something that the natural man wants to accept. In Noah's day, there were men who would not heed his warnings. They ignored the warnings. They put off God's call to repentance. Instead, they poured their energy into their temporary affairs, things which would soon be washed away. Jesus uses the destruction of unbelievers in the flood as an illustration for what judgment will be like for the ungodly when he returns. Jesus says this in Matthew 24, for as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. Just a normal day, just like every other day. until the day when Noah entered the ark. And they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man." My unbelieving friend, please hear me. You must find refuge in the ark before the waters come. You must have the Lord as your sure confidence before the fear which Jehovah causes rushes upon you on the day of judgment. Jesus Christ stands ready to save any sinner who will come to him in repentance and faith. Children, you don't have to be an adult to have your sins forgiven. Christ alone obeyed God's law perfectly. Christ alone offered himself as an atoning sacrifice for sin. So, unbeliever, find refuge in Jesus Christ. Turn to him and be saved. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word. We pray that you would bless it now to the good of our souls. Lord, for those of us here who have been adopted into your family, would you impress upon our hearts the unchangeable fact that you yourself are our confidence, whether it be temporal concerns, of hard providences or persecutions, or perhaps fear of eternity. Lord, would you calm our fears with the truths that we find in your word. For those who are outside of Christ, Lord, I pray that you would open their eyes, that you would make Christ beautiful to them, that you would draw them irresistibly to yourself, all for the praise and glory of your own name. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.