Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to Proverbs chapter 3 and reading
for our text verses 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy
ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3 and verses 5 and 6. Three instructions and a promise
for those seeking direction. In the Word of God we have it
very clearly revealed that God has a plan and a purpose for
this world. the many prophecies that are
contained in the Word, and especially those that have been fulfilled
as the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and His sufferings, His
death, His very utterances upon the cross, told some thousand
years before they came to pass, sets before us that God had this
plan and this purpose, and those so many Nations and peoples are
involved in this plan. None is able to derail it, cause
it not to happen, or take the Lord by surprise. We have in
the Gospel according to Matthew a list of the kings from the
line to our Lord Jesus Christ from Abraham, grouped together
in three groupings of 14 generations, from Abraham to David, from David
to the carrying away into Babylon, and the carrying away into Babylon
to our Lord Jesus Christ. So even the Lord's chastening
of his people using a king such as Nebuchadnezzar was in God's
plan. He says of Nebuchadnezzar that
he is my servant. And so when we are mindful of
that, mindful of the word, who is he that saith, and it cometh
to pass when the Lord commandeth it not. Man is not in control. God is in control. Satan is not
in control. Clearly evidenced by the book
of Job, permitted to do many things, but he must do it by
permission. And God is in control. and the end of Job was better
than his beginning. Of course, the greatest example
of the overruling of God is in the crucifixion of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, where we are clearly told that He was
by taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain, but that
He was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. And so we would be mindful that
in everything the Lord is working out His sovereign will. By and
large, men do not acknowledge that. They say that we are our
own, it is our own choice, it is our own way, and in no way
do they think that the Lord is controlling their lives. In fact, they would feel it a
great infringement upon their liberties and freedoms to think
that God had any control and that they were not at liberty
to do what they wanted to do. Man does have a free will. Man is responsible for everything
that he does. He is accountable to God for
what he does. Those who crucified the Lord
Jesus Christ were responsible and accountable for what they
did. But nevertheless, God's sovereign
control is over all, a great mystery to us and yet clearly
revealed in the Word of God. But when we know this, when we
know this is how God works in the world, then we would also
know that we ourselves are part of that plan. We are in this
world and what we do and what we don't do and what others do
that affect us is also ordered and directed by the Lord. And so knowing that, that should
affect us in what decisions we make and how we go through this
world so that we give the very clear message to those around
us that we are looking to the Lord. We are mindful of his overseeing
hand. And this, our text, is very clearly
setting this forth as to how we are to walk. So we have in
the text three very clear instructions and then following that instruction
there is a promise, a beautiful promise, and he shall direct
thy paths. So I want to look firstly at
the three instructions and then secondly at the promise of direction. that is given after them. But
firstly, the three instructions. The first is this, trust in the
Lord with all thine heart. What is trust? Trust is a firm
belief in the reliability or truth or ability of someone or
something to do what we want done, what we need to be done,
especially when we're looking for something to be done for
us, it is vital that we can trust those that are doing it. And
of course, under God, we trust in many things in our lives. If a person is having an operation,
they trust in the surgeon, they trust that He is skilled, that
he knows what he is doing. And in a sense, when we drive
on the road, we are trusting many other people that are around
us that they will do the right things. When we go and have some
tablets from the pharmacy, we're trusting that when they were
mixed up, that there's the proper ingredients in them, there's
no poison in them, and really, everything in our lives, to a
certain degree, there's an element of trust in it. But what a blessed
thing, where we can look past second causes, and we can look
past what man is doing, and we know that God is in control,
God is over it all, and that we can trust Him. We are not
trusting man, we are trusting in the Lord. And so the first
thing to Think of in this first direction, it is trusting in
a person or in Jehovah, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we're not just trusting in
an ability or what they can do, but in their actual person. that we actually are mindful
that this is the true and living God, this is the Creator of heaven
and earth, that He is gracious, He is long-suffering, He is a
good God, He is worthy of our trust. He is the God of the Bible,
He is set forth from the beginning to the end of the Word of God,
and in these Gospel days, We have instant after instance where
the people of God before us have trusted in this God and the Lord
has appeared for them, helped them and blessed them. He has
not taken away that worthiness of being trusted. When should
we trust Him? In Psalm 62 verse 8, we are told
to trust Him at all times. All times. Not just those ones
where we think, well, we know what to do on this time, but
some other time we don't know really what to do. So we'll trust
the Lord in that time, but this time we'll trust in ourselves. You think of the Gebionites,
when they came and deceived the children of Israel, making out
that they came from a far country. We read that the children of
Israel took of their vectuals and asked not counsel of the
Lord, and they were deceived. They trusted in their own wisdom,
their own assessment of the situation, and did not ask the Lord. We might ask also, why? Why should
we trust in the Lord? Well, here we are clearly directed
to. And if we have known things by
experience, when we have trusted in ourselves, then we have proved
the folly of that. And even what we have said with
the Gibeonites, the reason why they should have trusted was
very evident because of the mistake that they made. We are also told
here as to how we are to trust. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. It's not just a half-hearted
trust. It is fully, unreservedly looking
unto the Lord and trusting in Him. The God of heaven and earth
does have a power in this world. He is able to cause things to
happen. to cause things not to happen,
He has influence over men and women and children and all events
at His command. And so it is with our whole heart
that we are to trust. Sometimes we might say that we
trust in something, but we've got a backup plan. Or it might
be easy to say we trust in the Lord, when we've got a very good
bank balance or we've got a good insurance policy. It is so easy
to have something that, well, if this doesn't work, then we'll
fall back to something else. But the Lord will bring it to
His people that they must trust in Him and Him alone and with
all their hearts. We could ask as well What is
it that we are to trust Him for? It is not just for time, but
for eternity. The Lord says, if we have run
with the footman, if we have done things in this life, and
yet we have been wearied and troubled, how will we do in the
swelling of Jordan? We sang in our middle hymn, at
last, where through the hymn it was the Lord providing, but
then at last it was when we come down to death. And what then?
When our soul leaves our body, when we return to God, when we
come before His judgment throne, that is where we need to trust,
not in the Lord to provide here below, but eternally. And to provide for us a ransom,
to provide for us a substitute, provide for us a way of escape
from the wrath to come. We read the promise that all
thy children shall be taught of the Lord, great shall be the
peace of thy children. And it is to trust that he will
be our teacher and guide. What would the children think
if they went to school and they couldn't trust that their teachers
would teach them the correct things? that they'd get to their
exams and the exam was put in front of them and they'd say,
the teacher never taught me that, we were never taught that and
so you failed the exams. So you trust your teacher to
teach you the right things and to know how to teach you as well. And the Lord is like that, the
Lord is a teacher and we have to trust Him and ask Him to teach
us about ourselves, about Himself about our need, about the way
of salvation, how our Lord and Saviour came to this world, truly
God, truly man, how He lived a perfect life, perfectly obeying
His Father, and that in death He laid down His life. It wasn't
taken from Him, but He laid it down as a ransom, laid it down
as an offering, enduring the wrath of God in the place of
His people, and that whosoever believeth and trusteth in Him
shall be saved. It is the Holy Spirit that reveals
that, makes it known unto a sinner, and that we are to trust in that
account and trust in the teaching of the Spirit, trust in the Lord,
especially for those eternal things, time things, They shall
soon pass away. All that we pass through here
will soon mean nothing in eternity. If our trust and hope is just
in temporal things, we have all been most miserable. But if we're
trusting our soul to the Lord, trusting where we shall spend
eternity to the Lord, trusting that we'll be in the right way
and saved eternally, that is what is vital. What for? Everything, especially eternal
things. What are we to trust? You might
say, here is the person, the true, living, eternal God, trust
in the Lord with all thine heart. But what does that really mean? So what is it that we are actually
trusting? Well, for us, in a gospel day,
and the Old Testament saints as well, they were trusting in
the word of the Lord. The Bible is infallible. It is true. There is no mistakes
in it. And so if we trust in the Lord,
then we are trusting in the word of God. We're trusting also his
providence, how he orders things in this world. We're trusting
that he is the one that holds us back from that which is going
to hurt us and that will bring us forward into those things
that are a blessing and the way that he'll want us to go. Realising
that the Lord is he that causeth things to come to pass and causes
things not to happen. And so also we would trust in
his wisdom, trust in his counsel, trust in his intentions. The Lord says, I know the thoughts
that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to
give you an expected end. To trust that that which he's
doing, though we don't understand it, like Peter, When the Lord
was going to wash his feet, he says, thou shalt never wash my
feet. The Lord had said to him, what
I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. But as soon as Peter realized
if he was not washed, he had no part with the Lord, then he
wanted everything washed. The Lord said all that was needed
was his feet, then he would be clean. entirely. Really our walk,
our feet, our sanctification is known by our walk. And so when we are trusting in
the Lord, there's many aspects of the Lord that we are actually
trusting in at that time. But how does it actually look
in practice, in trusting in the Lord. Sometimes we have the case
like dear Joseph, that his path, his life, was taken out of his
hands. He just obeyed his father, he
went to his brothers. In that, we find the Lord directing
that though his brothers moved to a different place, he found
a man walking in the, or man was walking in the field, found
Joseph, and Joseph said, I seek my brethren. And that man was
a vital link in the chain of Joseph going to his brethren. We could look upon that and say,
well, wouldn't it have been a better thing if that man had not been
there and had not overheard his brethren, because then Joseph
wouldn't have been thrown into a pit He wouldn't have been sold
as a slave. He wouldn't have been falsely
accused. He wouldn't have been put into prison. No, he wouldn't.
But then he wouldn't have been brought into Egypt. These dreams
that he had would not have been fulfilled. The promises to Abraham
would not have come to pass. And their lives would not have
been saved during the famine. And so that one little event,
providence, was a vital thing in Joseph's life. And yet, you
might say, Joseph never had to decide, will I go into Egypt? Will I go into prison? Will I
go and serve this man or that man? Everything was taken out
of his hands. It is a real example of God's
providence doing everything, guiding everything, without Joseph
putting his hand to him. We think of Moses and in the
direction of the Lord to go into Egypt, to trust that he would
really bring them out. In the Passover, when they put
the blood upon the post of the door, they were trusting that
the word of the Lord was true, a destroying angel was going
through the land, that if they didn't have the blood, that then
they would perish. They had to trust when they walked
through the Red Sea, with the sea all on each side of them,
must have been in one way a terrifying walk, that that water would not
fall upon them. Walking through the wilderness
in all that they did, they were having to trust in the Lord to
direct them with the fiery cloudy pillar day and night. We think
of how it was also with when Amalek came. Israel did not just
pray, or Moses did not just go and raise his rod over Amalek
and Amalek be destroyed. Joshua had to fight with Amalek. He was with the sword, but Moses,
Aaron, and her holding up his hands. And the direct link between,
as soon as Moses' hands fell down, the rod fell down, then
Amalek prevailed. And when he lifted up the rod,
then Israel prevailed. They were using means, they were
using the sword, they were fighting. But it is clearly told in that
account that the success was depending upon the rod, upon
God's power, not Joshua's power. And so We have this in practice,
a real illustration of how we are not to be idle, we are to
be doers, we are to use means. But while we're using those means,
we are trusting the Lord with all our heart, not giving any
trust to what actually we are doing. You think of David going
out against Goliath. And there is Goliath, of which
all of Israel, including King Saul, were frightened, fearful
because of him. But David says, I will go against
him. And he's going to go just with
a sling and a stone. That's his means that he has.
But he doesn't. He goes in the name of the Lord. He says, the Lord that delivered
me out of the paw of the bear and out of the paw of the lion,
He shall deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And
his trust in the Lord was well founded. The Lord did deliver
him. He also realized, as when his
brother accused him of just going down to see the battle, that
there was a cause why he came to the battle at that time. David
didn't know about Goliath before he came. Again, like Joseph,
he was just doing his father's bidding. Go and see thy brethren.
take these things to him. But when David comes, then he
finds and he hears Goliath coming. So when his brother accused him
of coming just to see the battle, he said, is there not a cause?
David was thinking, there's a purpose why I'm here. God is going to
use this purpose. Of course, what had happened
before, David had been anointed in secret by Samuel Now God is
going to bring David in front of all Israel and all the Philistines
and present him to them all as the one that is to be the next
king. And it's very evident, Saul very
soon realized that that was the case. And so we have these examples
through the word of those that are trusting to the Lord. They use means. When they're
trusting, they use prayer. They cry unto the Lord in prayer. Everything that they do is giving
this impression, giving this so that those around them, their
children, their loved ones, they can know that their parents are
trusting in the Lord. And the Lord sees it, and the
Lord knows where their heart is and where they're really trusting. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. This is the first of these three
instructions. And may it be a word to us, whether
we are seeking direction at this time or not, and we know that
some of you are, but we need this word constantly, that we
do not lean to our own understanding. And that is the second instruction. The first one is a positive in
trusting in the Lord with all thine heart. The second instruction
is lean not unto thine own understanding. Lean not. We know if we have
something and we're leaning upon something and that thing gives
way, then we fall down. If it's a stake in the ground
or it's not put in the ground far enough and we lean upon it,
then we'll fall down. If we're leaning upon a walking
frame and the walking frame collapses, then we will fall. So whether
we stand or fall, it depends on what we're actually leaning
upon. And the warning is here to lean
not upon our own understanding. What understanding do we really
have? We can only just see a little
bit ahead. We can't see what other people
are doing. We can't see what is in their
lives. Sometimes we have an example
of this on the motorways here. We might be driving on the motorway,
and we can see perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead. And we can think,
well, there's no problem. There's no accident at all. We're
going quite well. But then we see the overhead
signs say that instead of going 70 mile an hour, you should go
40 mile an hour. And you think, why is that? Well,
I don't need to go slower. I've got a nice road in front
of me. But those that are looking at the cameras, they can see
15 miles ahead that there's an accident or a broken down vehicle. And they're trying to get it
off the motorway. And they don't want all of these
cars coming up and banking up against it. So they hold you
back miles before, and they get the vehicle off. And when you
get there, you see no reason why you should have been going
slower at all. But the people that have been
looking at the cameras, they could see the reason. And so
God, he sees what we cannot see. He can see the future. He can
see what other people are doing. He can see reasons for holding
us back that we cannot see. reasons for what he is doing. And this is why we mustn't lean
to our own understanding, because our own understanding is only
on part of the facts, is not on all of the facts. You think
of many times when the Lord told the parables and the disciples
asked him to explain the parables, he said to them, do you not understand? And they didn't understand. He
had explained it to them. When the Lord rose from the dead,
we read, He came to those on the way to Emmaus. They'd seen
the crucifixion. They'd seen what the Lord had
done. But they didn't understand. We trusted it should have been
He that should have redeemed Israel. And the Lord then explained
in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. And then
their heart burned within them. Later, when He appeared in the
upper room, then opened he their understanding that they might
understand the Scriptures. So even our understanding, unless
the Lord opens it, we do not understand. The natural man receiveth
or understandeth not the things of God, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned. There is a real danger
of thinking that We know it all, and we understand, and so we
do not trust in the Lord. We think of the word in Jeremiah,
it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. It is the Lord that directeth
steps. And so this instruction, this
warning, is a very necessary one. By nature we are proud,
we like to think that we are independent, that we are able
to make decisions when we don't have everything that we need
to be able to make a right decision. And so we are exhorted here,
lean not unto thine own understanding. When we think of the children
going to school, Your understanding increases as you go through school
and when you're in sixth grade, you understand a lot more about
maths and English than you did in grade one. And it is like
that through life. The Lord is teaching and he gives
us to understand things that at first we do not understand. And especially with your children,
you are trusting in your parents to provide for you, to care for
you. You don't understand all of the
complexities and all what is involved, but as long as you
can trust in them, you don't need to understand. And it's
good for us all to remember that. If we can truly trust in the
Lord, we do not need to understand. If the Lord sees fit to Open
our understanding, He will. But if our trust is true on the
Lord, we do not need to understand. Now, if we drive a motor car,
we do not need to understand how to service it, how to build
it, how to pull it apart. All we do need to know is just
how to understand how to drive it. The children of Israel, they
could not understand How it was the Lord divided the Red Sea,
but they'd understand it was so and that they were saved to
walk through it. There's many things that we cannot
understand. It's good to actually acknowledge
it and to confess it before the Lord. Lord, I do not understand. But if we can trust in the Lord,
though we cannot understand, that is glorifying to the Lord. It's a blessing. to us, it shows
what real faith is and trust is. The Lord said to his disciples,
I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them
now. There's many things that as children
you cannot bear to be told, but later on you will be able to
understand it and then you can be told that. And so this is
the second direction. The third one, is that we are
to acknowledge Him. In all thy ways acknowledge Him. If someone had done something
very good for us, if they'd given us some money or given us a car,
and other people knew that, but we were walking down the street
and we came up to this person and with those other friends
around. And the other people said, oh, we've heard you've
got a nice new car and you really prospered, you really got on
well. Yeah, yeah, we have. We really got on well. And there's
a person standing by that has done everything for us, but we
don't acknowledge them at all. We don't acknowledge their help
or anything. That would be grieving to that
person. Of course, they may have wanted.
to be done is completely anonymous, they wouldn't want to be known.
But the teaching here, if we have trusted in the Lord, then
we should acknowledge the Lord and let others know that we are
trusting in Him. And if He appears for us, and
when He does bless us, then we're not to deny what He has done,
but put the crown on His head. You know, dear Hannah, When she
comes to Eli, she says, for this child, I prayed. I came before
the Lord, I prayed for this child, and this child was given by the
Lord. And she is acknowledging before
Eli what had been done. He's putting the crown on his
head. It is like with the Psalms, not
unto us, not unto us, but unto his name give glory. Sometimes in cases like copyright,
if there's a book and we want to copy part of that book and
put it on an essay, or maybe it is even in preaching, and
we're going to quote this particular man, but we don't acknowledge
him. We make out that this is just
from us, or that we have written this piece, and we don't put
any acknowledgement This is the person that wrote it. This is
the person that did it. And so, for the Lord to have
the honour and glory, those that receive the benefits and blessings,
they are to acknowledge Him. We have the case with Ezra. Ezra,
when he was taking many precious things back from Babylon to Palestine,
then he had already said to the king, he testified to the king,
that the Lord's hand was over all them that feared him, that
he would watch over them. And because he'd made that profession
to the king, he felt he could not ask for some horses and soldiers
to protect them from the bandits by the way, because he'd already
professed that the Lord would watch over them. And so We also
ought to very clearly acknowledge the Lord. When the three Hebrew
children were told to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's image, and
they refused to bow down, and they said that the Lord was their
God, they were serving him. So Nebuchadnezzar, he says that
if you don't, I'm going to put you in this burning fiery furnace.
But they said that being known to the King that we will not
serve Thine image or bow down to that image, that our God,
whom we serve, is able to deliver us out of Thine hand and He will
deliver us at this time, whether it was through death or whether
it was through Nebuchadnezzar changing his mind, they were
sure whatever the Lord decreed, they would be delivered. And
they made this very, very clear before the king. They acknowledged
the Lord. There was their trust. And then
when God did deliver them, and Nebuchadnezzar saw the form of
the fourth like the son of God in the furnace, then he'd already
had this profession, already he'd been told that they served
this God. And so it is a vital part for
the honour and glory of God. It's a sad thing if you were
to go into the employment of some of the Lord's people and
find that those with whom they worked had no idea they were
Christian. then no idea that they were trusting
in the Lord for help, for guidance at all, that they had a compartmented
life. A life was one life in the church
of God and another at school and another in the workplace,
and the twain they did not meet. In the house of God, they were
religious people that trusted and feared and served the Lord.
In their workplace, the Lord had no part in it. He was not
mentioned. He was not known, not acknowledged. And so the third direction here
is, in all thy ways, not some of thy ways, not just the ways
in the house of God, but in all thy ways, at home, at work, at
school, we acknowledge the Lord, say, He is my God, He is the
one I serve, the God of the Bible, that is my God, the one in whom
I trust. The one in whom I pray, in all
thy ways acknowledge him. There was a story years ago of
two young lads at school and on a Monday evening they went
to a lady's house and she read them the Bible and they were
taught the things of God. Well, one day they came into
school, the first one came in and his mate said, Oh, we know
where you've been going on Monday night. You've been going to so-and-so's
house and reading the Bible. And he denied it. He was ashamed
of what he was doing. He was scared of them mocking
him. And then the other one came in.
Oh, we know where you've been. Yes, he said. Yeah, we've been
to so-and-so's house. We study the Bible. And they
said, oh, well, you're not ashamed of it then, are you? And they
didn't say anything more. And it's good for us to realize
people will mock, they will jeer at us, but it's a lot better
to clearly acknowledge and say exactly as it is and not be ashamed
of our God, not be ashamed of the word of God, not be ashamed
of the one that we're really trusting in. And so this is the
direction here, in all thy ways acknowledge him. Now, it's interesting,
how this third direction is talking of ways. We're told that there
is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death. We can go different ways to get
to places on earth. We know that there is only one
way of attaining heaven. The Lord says, I am the way. the truth and the life, no man
cometh unto the Father but by me." But when we think of paths,
that is the more intricate or if you say, well, there's a way
from here to another town, but when you're actually going on
that way, especially if you're walking, you're walking on paths. So that is the The actual things
that we are seeing with our feet, the things that we are actually
walking in, more intricate or more concerning us as to what
we go. We hope, we trust, as the Lord's
people, that we are in the way, we're in Christ, we are running
the road set before us, looking unto Jesus, that we are in that
narrow way that leadeth unto life. But in that way, there
are many, many paths, many places that we must walk that make up
that way. And that is where the promise
comes in here, a promise of direction. A great blessing. We are in the
way that leadeth unto life, that leadeth to heaven. But being
in that way, there are then many paths, and paths are set before
us. We have a beautiful promise in
Psalm 32. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will lead thee with mine
eye. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as a horse and mule
which have no understanding, but it is to, instead of have
the reins of the horse, the rider pulling the head one way or another
to tell the horse which to go, the rider's using their eyes
to see which way to go, the horse is not using its understanding,
it is just doing the bidding of the rider. But the Lord says
that my people, they need to be forced like that, All I need
to be is to speaking to them. So it is to be like the rider
of the horse not having any reins, but just saying to the horse,
turn right, turn left, stop, go, and it obeying its voice. And the Lord has said that he
will then guide his people in that way. Through the wilderness,
we might say there wasn't any paths. The Lord still guide them. and he made them a way where
there seemed to be no way. Those paths then are the detail
of the way. It is the individual places where
God's people have to walk in. And we were to go through the
woods near us, we might go through a path that was very narrow,
short path, might then enter into something that is very wide
with no obstructions in it and then we go to another part and
there's a lot of obstructions and weeds and brambles we've
got to get through and in the way from one side of the wood
to the other there's lots of different paths and different
experiences that we're going through but it's all going the
same way But we mustn't think, well, because it started off
nice and easy and wide, then all the way is going to be like
that. In fact, there's one way that is, it's properly signposted
through that woods, that if you're going to go in the right way
that you want to go, you turn off the main path and into a
path that doesn't seem to be very clear at all, but it goes
out and eventually it opens out into a nice wide road. But unless
you were trusting in that signpost, you would stay on the main road,
or stay on your main path, and you wouldn't get where you're
wanting to go. And so thinking of this promise, a beautiful
promise following these three directions, he shall direct thy
paths. He shall direct thy paths. This is a blessing, a blessing
from the Lord. You think of Abraham's servant
sent to get a wife for Isaac, he says, and he blesses the Lord,
he prayed for direction, he says that he hath led me to the house
of my master's brethren. He could clearly see the Lord
had directed him, so could Laban and Bethuel, they could see that.
Later on, Jacob in the same way felt that. Paul, when he wanted
in his missionary journeys to go to Bithynia, spirits suffered
them not, forbidden to go to Asia, and then a vision, come
over into Macedonia and help us. The Lord directed him where
to go, and in that path, and he was thrown into prison, but
in being thrown into prison, that was the beginning of the
Philippian church, with the jailer converted and his household.
The Lord used persecution a lot. He said, when they persecute
you in one city, go to the next. So how is that direction? How
is that directing thy paths? The Lord has said, yes, that
is one way I direct. Where one way is shut and you
are persecuted, then flee from one city to the next. So how
is it that the Lord then directs us? What are we to expect? Well,
the main thing is, of course, the Word of God. Thy Word is
a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path. There are many
things in the Word that forbid us from walking in certain paths.
And then there are things that direct us into what paths we
should walk in. And the Lord is able to use His
Word. When we're reading it, to impress
upon us a Word, and whatever Word is used, It must be not
against the rest of the scriptures. We could easily just have a word
come into our mind and think, well, we're going to take that
word. And some people have done that.
They've wandered direction, and they've opened the Bible, and
they've put their finger, and closed their eyes, and put on a word. And there's a
story of one. He put his hand on. He went out. and hung himself. And then they
saw, well, that's no good. So he opened it again and looked,
and again, that thou doest do quickly. And then you can see
the foolishness of just using just as a lottery thing to come the word,
to be directed by the word. But we are to be directed by
the understanding, the clear message of the word of God, that
which is kept in context and doesn't do violence to the truth
and direction of the word of God. And there are many that
have made many mistakes on that. And they've said, oh, the Lord
has given me a word for this, a word for that. And then they've
shaped their lives to do according to that word. And it's proved
wrong. Thomas Watson. The Puritan, he
said, he'd much rather trust in providence than in a word
that just dropped in and that he felt should guide. Because
we think of one of our hymns, providence unfolds the book and
makes his counsels shine. The Lord certainly does give
direction through the word. Some of you will know, when I
was a young man seeking a wife, and just come to my own home
and 20 years of age and reading in Jeremiah 16, thou shalt not
take to thy wife nor have sons and daughters in this place.
And that word I pleaded, rested upon for 10 years and it came
to pass and we were married over here and we weren't in that house
when our daughter was born. And it was a word that stayed
me and kept me. It was very needful at that time.
And the application of it, it wasn't against the Word of God. So the Word, and by providence,
by the preaching of the Word, through the ministry of the Word,
the Lord can direct us in that way. through men like with Joseph
and the man that found him in the field. But the important
thing is to look past the means and to see the Lord using the
means. Sometimes when we've looked for
direction from the ministry and we've come to the chapel and
the doors have been shut and then we've seen that the direction
has already been given but we refuse to accept it or notice
it, But the Lord would make us to know that that was His direction,
though we didn't recognise at the time, and therefore shut
up other ways. And so the Lord will make His
people, when He gives the promise, and He shall direct thy paths,
they will understand the directions. How would we thank someone if
they said, I'll give you direction to go from here right through
London And they gave you the directions and you looked at
the piece of paper and said, I don't understand that. I've
not a clue how to follow those directions. Here are the directions,
but they're useless to me. That wouldn't be very good direction. You can be sure with the Lord,
he will make us understand. You not only direct, but you
actually make us to be able to follow it and able to see his
hand in it. He shall direct. Thine paths. How blessed that is. We think
of the, we have some blind people in this town and sometimes they
might be crossing a road and someone will come and take their
arm and lead them across. And if we had a section of road
that was maybe full of holes, if we had someone to guide them
and they stumbled and they tripped over and they got to the other
side and they thanked their guide and said, you've been such a
good guide, without you I would have fallen and stumbled through,
fallen over with that ground as it was. But if they had another
guide who took their arm and skillfully directed them round
every hole and they didn't stumble once and they had a nice smooth
path right through, The blind person could turn and say, well,
I didn't really need you. I would have been all right through
that path. I would have been quite all right.
There wasn't any holes or any reason of stumbling. But the
truth was that the better guide was the one that guided them
with no stumbling. And when we trust the Lord, it
is not using our own understanding and thinking, well, we didn't
really need the trust. It wasn't really a dangerous
time at all. The Lord knows the dangers, not
us. And He knows the way. And there's
every reason to follow these instructions and then rely upon
this blessed promise that the Lord would direct our paths. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. in all thy
ways acknowledge him and he shall, not might, not maybe, he shall
direct thy paths. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.