Trust in the Lord with All Thy Heart

[00:00:00] Trust in the Lord with all thy heart. [00:00:05] Lean not upon thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct thy path. [00:00:21] Be not wise in your own eyes. [00:00:25] Fear the lord and depart from evil. [00:00:29] It will be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones. [00:00:35] Honour the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. [00:00:43] So shall thy balms be filled with plenty and thy back shall overflow with new wine. [00:00:53] My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his reproof. [00:01:02] For whom the Lord loveth, he reproveth even as a father, the son in whom he delighteth. [00:01:13] Shall we just have a word of prayer? [00:01:16] Dear lord, we have sung together that well known hymn of trusting and obeying. For theres no other way to be happy in you but to trust and obey. And we pray that this morning, as were here, you will take your word and you will plant it in our hearts. [00:01:42] Preserve us, Lord, from just hearing truth or doctrine, just hearing a kind of sermon, lord, we pray together that you will take your word, your living word, and plant it in our hearts, that there it might take root and grow up and bear much fruit. [00:02:07] Dear Lord, I if that is to be so, we need you. [00:02:13] We need your anointing on my speaking and our hearing, so that we are delivered from my ideas and our way of hearing so often what we want to hear and somehow blotting out what we don't want to hear. [00:02:35] Dear Lord, we thank you for that anointing which will preserve us from our own works and our own words and our own hearing, and will deliver us into your speaking and your working in our hearts. And you're enabling us really to hear what you are seeking to say to us. Lord, we just commit ourselves to you with thanksgiving for this time. [00:03:04] In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. [00:03:11] Perhaps this evening I will say a little bit more about my own movements and news about the family. I'll share that this evening with you. But I want to take one marvelous statement in this passage that we've read together in this extraordinary book are proverbs. I always find this book one of the most extraordinary books in the Bible, so pithy, so concise, so economic in its use of words, and so to the point. [00:03:53] And this statement is one that I've had with me from the day I was saved. [00:04:00] I was not only given it on the day I was saved, I was also given it on the day I was baptized. [00:04:07] And it has been with me all through life and at all times of crisis. Strangely enough, this little word has come back to me. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean nothing upon your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. [00:04:37] Now, I suppose if one is a child of God, and I imagine all of you are, you have been born of the spirit of God. You've had a saving experience of the Lord Jesus. [00:04:49] Every child of God longs that the Lord will direct their path, even them. As strong willed of us. [00:04:58] We suspect that the Lord's guidance is better than our own desires. [00:05:06] Sometimes we come into collision with the Lord over this because we have such a fixation on what we think should happen in our lives or happen in our circumstances. And most of us are past masters at manipulation. [00:05:24] We manipulate our husbands. We manipulate our wives. We manipulate our parents. We manipulate our children. We manipulate the church. We manipulate our friends. We try to manipulate our circumstances. We certainly try to manipulate our pastors or leaders. We are always great. [00:05:44] We are past masters of manipulation. And most believers, sometime or another, want to manipulate the Lord. [00:05:53] They want to put words into his mouth. They want to give him the ideas. [00:06:01] They see it naturally from their own point of view. They feel that somehow or other, if the Lord was truly sensible, he also would see the same same thing. [00:06:13] And since the Lord is supposed to be love, surely he would give us exactly what we want and what we think to be the best thing for our lives. [00:06:27] To trust in the Lord with all your heart and not to lean upon your own understanding in all your ways, to acknowledge him is the key to knowing the Lord, directing our path. The Lord is very loving and he disciplines us. So if we try to manipulate him, he won't play ball. [00:06:54] He just withdraws for a while and lets us get on with it. Sometimes it takes some of us a whole lifetime before we learn sense, spiritual sense. [00:07:04] Sometimes only on our deathbeds, we finally discover that the Lord's way is best. [00:07:12] It's a tragedy when I go round the world and see so many christian lives, including the lives of christian workers and servants of God, that have been destroyed by the strength of their own will, by leaning upon their own understanding, a refusal to acknowledge the Lord in all their ways. [00:07:36] The Lord just won't play ball with us. He just doesn't direct our path. [00:07:43] It may seem dreadful to us, but sometimes the Lord allows us to get into the most incredible message, and then he doesn't rush to deliver us. [00:07:54] He lets us sit in the mess for a while, according to the strength of our will, until finally he delivers us out of this. We learn some of the deepest lessons in our lives, and I dont think there is anyone who has been dealt with by the Lord along this line who doesnt praise the Lord and worship the Lord, however difficult it is for path has been, however impossible the circumstances, which in many cases have been self produced, in the end we praise the Lord when we've learned the lesson. [00:08:43] Now, whether it is a question of your personal life, or your family life, or your business life, or whether it's church life, or whether it's the work of the Lord, the service of God, we need to know the Lord directing our paths. What's the point of a church that produces its own way? [00:09:15] What's the point of a fellowship that cooks up all its own schemes? [00:09:20] The whole christian church life is filled with it, church history is filled with it, schemes for this and schemes for that, and systems for this and systems for that. And only after 30, 40 years they find the things don't work, because every time the Holy Spirit works, he bypasses the whole system and does something so marvellous and so wonderful. For a while, the Lord's people, their minds are blown, they all leave the system, they rise above it, and as the spiritual life ebbs, so the systems all come back. [00:09:59] It is unbelievable how we produce these coffins for ourselves. [00:10:11] We sort of have to shake the coffin and finally we nail the lid down with ourselves inside. Its a more irish statement. [00:10:31] We need to know the Lord's direction. I'm sure all of you feel this in your own lives, especially you young, younger people. You face your whole life before, you are not sure which way to go, how the Lord's going to lead, what he wants from you. You have your own ideas, but I think if you're a child of God, you really do long that the Lord will direct your path. You know in your heart of hearts that that is the best way, that it will bring you to fulfillment, it will bring you to true satisfaction, it will bring you into real joy, and of course it will bring you to glory in the end. [00:11:14] And you know, I have, now I'm a little older, I have had to be involved in a whole lot of tragedies amongst God's workers, seeing the kind of thing that happens in the frontier stations of the kingdom of goddess in different parts of the world, to see the mess God's workers get themselves into, always, because their paths are not directed by the Lord, they've produced something themselves, gone their own way, thought up their own ideas, put into motion their own concepts. Of course, they believe that it's the Lord is this ridiculous idea amongst evangelicals and charismatics that common sense has been given to us by God to determine everything in the work of the Lord. Now, it has been my experience that common sense is the rarest of all senses. [00:12:28] Very, very rarely do you find common sense amongst God. You see, the kind of common sense that they talk about is the mind of the flesh. [00:12:40] It is not walking by faith. It is the mind of the flesh. [00:12:47] The kind of thing you get is common sense says, do this, do that, do the other. Common sense is the thing that very often has determined the kind of collection we have when we have a plate shoved under our noses. Oh, in so many places, I think, oh, if you don't remind God's people to give, they'll never give. [00:13:12] They are so mean. [00:13:15] Now, it is true, quite a lot of God's people are meant to part with. Money is the hardest thing they find in the world. [00:13:25] They can part with so many other things, but money seems to be the one thing that they can't part with. They are kind of. But you see, common sense says, shove a plate under there now and then they will be shamed, especially if the person next to them thieves what they put in the plate. I actually have this said by christian workers and pastors. It's a whole system of things. I take it as an example, an illustration. [00:13:56] When people are healthy spiritually and walking with the Lord, you can make giving something that is quite secret. It becomes an act of worship, and people give very liberally. [00:14:13] But tell that to this common sense. [00:14:19] There are many other things about common sense that we find in the church, but really what it is, is leaning on our own understanding. Exactly what this word says we should not do. [00:14:37] Now, to me, of course, I've always said true common sense is, if the Lord is your head, that's where the intelligence is. [00:14:49] I've never yet discovered the intelligence in the stomach. [00:14:56] It's normally in the head. [00:15:00] And if Jesus is called the head of the body, which is the church, then it seems perfectly clear to me that the intelligence is there. The mind of God is there, the will of God is there. And it is also as obvious to me that if we can only hear what he is saying, even if it seems very ridiculous at times, if we will only trust in him with all our heart, he will take responsibility for our path. [00:15:36] That is common sense, spiritual common sense. If the Lord is heard, why not listen to him? If the Lord is heard, why not seek him. [00:15:49] It would be better to spend days in prayer and to hear the Lord and do it, and then find that he has truly taken responsibility for our ways than to cook up our own ideas and follow what we call common sense. [00:16:11] It seems to me, and this again, is how I see common sense, that if God has gone to all this trouble to save me now, I don't know why he has gone to all this trouble to save me. And I have to tell you, I wonder even more why he's gone to all the trouble to save you. [00:16:35] I mean, if he's gone to all this trouble to save me, then it seems obvious to me that he wants to direct my path. [00:16:49] And if he has gone to so much trouble to see save me, then it seems to me that whatever his will is for me, it must be the best. [00:17:08] He can't be gaining anything out of my being added to his kingdom. I mean it. [00:17:15] He's got a load of trouble with me. And I have to say from experience that he must have a load of trouble with you. [00:17:24] I mean, we are an awful lot of trouble to the law. One wonders why the law didn't create sort of little automatons. [00:17:32] He would have had so much less problems. They don't answer back. They do what they're told. [00:17:39] If that's what the Lord wants, he wants some kind of divine factory for eternity where there are millions of little slave laborers doing it. Why not turn over to the Japanese and have the whole thing automized, you know, so that we've got just the things mechanical. We won't have any strikes, we don't have any arguments, we don't have any misunderstandings, we don't have any talking back, we don't have any contradicting. I mean, it would be so simple. But it seems amazing to me that the Lord has saved you and me. [00:18:16] And if he has saved you of me, then he's not gaining such a lot out of it himself. So he has done it for our sake. And therefore, it seems to me this is what I call spiritual common sense, that his way for me must be the right way. It is for my good. [00:18:36] Very often the fixation I have in my own heart as to what would satisfy me will destroy me. [00:18:47] It is part of this fallen world that from the very beginning, the enemy has planted ideas in us as to what will satisfy us the most and be the best for us. [00:19:01] From observation and experience, I have to say that ive seen life after life after life by getting what they want, what they think is best. For them. [00:19:15] Alternatively, I've seen also many, many lives that have yielded to the Lord and walked with the Lord. And I find them enjoyed and in peace and in life and in renewal. And I see the works of God in and I see the power of God in them. They are all people that have trusted in the Lord with all their heart. [00:19:43] So here is the bottom line. He will direct your path, whether it's in the service of God, the work of God, or the church of God, or whether it's in your personal life, whether it's in your own truly individual life, or your family life, or your business life, he will direct your path. [00:20:10] There are three conditions for this promise to be fulfilled. The first is trust in the Lord with all your heart. [00:20:22] The second is and lean nothing upon your own understanding. [00:20:30] And the third is in all your ways, acknowledge him now. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, not with part of your heart. [00:20:46] It doesnt say, trust in the Lord with all your mind. [00:20:53] It says trust in the Lord with all your heart. [00:21:00] Not part of it, but all of your heart. [00:21:10] I dont think I need to say anymore. So simple, isnt it? I mean, trusting in the Lord with all your heart binds every one of us out, because why do we have arguments with the Lord? [00:21:24] Because we don't trust him. It's as simple as that. If he says this is the way for you, we say, no, it's ridiculous. Lord, that way will destroy me. I mean, that way is the worst thing I could possibly have. Are you going to turn me into a nun? Are you going to turn me into a monk? What are you going to do with me, Lord? Is this the way you want for me, doctor? Don't believe it's the the best way at all. We don't trust with all our heart. Sometimes we can trust in our heads, but it's no good if the heart's not there. [00:21:56] Most christians trust in their head, otherwise they wouldn't be converted. [00:22:00] I mean at least they've got saved. And so in the head, they feel now the Bible is the word of God, and therefore this must be right, what he's saying. But it's up here, not here. [00:22:16] So when we come to practice, what we bleed up here is contradicted down here. [00:22:26] And that's why we find so many Christians, real Christians, born of God, saved by the grace of God, when it comes to practice, get into message, they know the truth. But the heart, it's the heart that's the problem. [00:22:45] When God appeared to Solomon of old, he said, my son give me your heart. [00:22:58] In the end, it's not the head. It's the heart. [00:23:03] And of course, the heart is a symbol of the spirit. That is the central part of our being. Spirit, soul and body. [00:23:12] Wherever you read the word heart, it doesn't mean soul in the hebrew understanding and concept, heart. Actually, your belly is your soul. That's the same thing. It speaks about your range and your kidneys. It is. I mean, it seemed very weird to the western ear, but this is all your soul. All these things down here is your soul, but your heart. That we would think, ah, that's where our emotions are. That's our soul. No, no. In the hebrew concept, that's your spirit. That's the central core of your being. [00:23:48] Trust in the Lord with all your heart. [00:23:53] That's the first thing. We won't spend any more time on that. I think that must be surely clear to everybody. But we can at least say this is because we don't trust in the Lord with all our heart. That we get into so many problems. Here is the second part of this threefold condition. And lean not upon your own understanding. Oh, we all have our own understanding. We wouldn't be human if we didn't have our own understanding. Everybody who's not a cabbage has their own understanding. Well, there are one or two saved cabbages. But, I mean, the fact of the matter is, nearly everybody has their own understanding of things. You have your own understanding of what would be best for you. You have your own understanding of where your life ought to go. You have your own understanding as to how your family could be best fulfilled. You have your own understanding about your business or career life, your professional life. You have your own understanding about church life. We have so much in this way of understanding. It covers everything. [00:25:06] I always think of dear Abraham in this matter. This man of faith, this man who did trust the Lord with all his heart, to whom the Lord appeared and said, get out of ur of the Chaldees, out of your father's house, into a place that I will show you. And he never named the place. And poor Abraham went out not knowing where he went, but he went out by faith. [00:25:35] Now, the interesting thing about Abraham was he had two failures in his life. [00:25:45] And both those failures came from leaning on his own understanding. [00:25:50] Of course, most of us would say, oh, we never fall into that kind of trap. Not like Abraham. But in principle, nearly all of us fall into it. Do you remember when he went down to Egypt? He shouldn't have gone down to Egypt. The Lord never told him to go down to Egypt. Now the Lord told Jacob to go down to Egypt. But he never told Abraham to go down to Egypt. If Abraham had only said the lord told me to stay in this land, then he would have known like Elijah. Many hundreds of years before Elijah was born. He would have had an experience of a brook that didn't dry up and ravens that fed him. [00:26:29] But instead he went down into Egypt. And when he got down into Egypt, it was his own understanding. There's plenty in Egypt. Egypt is not dependent on rain that comes down from the heavens. Egypt is dependent upon a huge river, the Nile. And you pump it up and it's all there. Then it's clear, isn't it? The Lord has dried up all the books in the promised land. But there's no rain. The heavens are like grass. There's not a blade of vegetation anywhere. It is perfectly obvious we have to go down into Egypt. [00:27:04] This is the Lord, isn't it? [00:27:07] I mean, why did he do this? If these are my circumstances? He doesn't expect me to stay here. He expects me to go down. I will die. What's the point of my being here and dying? He wants me alive. I'll go down to Egypt. He goes down to Egypt. And then comes the second thing pharaoh takes a great interest in. [00:27:26] Now he says, now this is great. Fancy the pharaoh of Egypt taking an interest in me. Just an ordinary person. Of course. Abraham came from one of the noble families of Earl of the Chaldees. He wasn't a smelly, stinking Bedouin shepherd as liberal theologians tell us, who could neither weave nor act. He came from one of the great families of earth and one of the noble families. [00:27:54] Pharaoh obviously heard about it and said I'd like to meet him. Well of course Pharaoh couldn't take his eyes off Sarah the moment she appeared. She must have been some beauty. [00:28:07] And certainly she must have walked very beautifully. If I know anything about the east. [00:28:12] There was something about Sarah Ferrer who just couldn't take his eyes. Of course he didn't look at her. I mean you don't do that in the east. [00:28:19] But he saw everything by looking this way. Looking that way, he saw everything. [00:28:27] And also in the east. Abraham never said a thing. But he knew that pharaoh was obsessed with Sarah. After they'd had coffee and talked about all kinds of things about their families and their backgrounds and I don't know what Pharaoh says. [00:28:54] Who's the lady? [00:28:56] Oh, sis. [00:28:58] Abraham, my sister. [00:29:05] What a beautiful sister you have. [00:29:12] Now you must understand that actually Sarah was Abraham's cousin. [00:29:23] So, I mean, Abraham wasn't telling an outright lie. I mean, of course he was do a thing like that. [00:29:30] He knew that it was wrong to tell a lie. But she was his cousin. And in the east, you're very loose about nephews and nieces and cousins. And so you speak of them almost as my brother, my brother, my, my sister. So it's the most amazing thing. But it's true. So Abraham thought to myself, I've got to get out of this mess. It's quite clear that we're in trouble. [00:30:01] And so he says, this is my sister. [00:30:05] You're not telling a lie. [00:30:07] She is my cousin. [00:30:13] And then, of course, the very thing. Now listen to this. The very thing that he feared. [00:30:22] And because of his own understanding. [00:30:26] He tried to guard the situation by saying it was his sister. Actually got him into the hot water. Because Pharaoh said. Well, well, well, we'll make a covenant between you and me. I'll marry her. Now, this is the old way of making a covenant, you see. I mean, it's a very simple thing. In the old days, used to marry off daughters. Kings and all the rest of it. Used to marry off their daughters, didn't it? To make a pact. I mean, this was the way of making them the lamb. So Pharaoh said, you and I are going to be friends, Abraham. I'll marry her now. Poor Abraham didn't know what to do. How he managed to keep his face straight, I don't know. He didn't go white. He didn't do anything. He just looked and said, oh, yes, very good. Very good. Yeah. And now he was black. And he watched while Sarah was married. There was a whole berman. And he had to give her away. His own sister. [00:31:22] If it hadn't been for the lord. Who brought a curse upon Pharaoh's household. So that everything went wrong. And in the end, Pharaoh brought in his wise men and said, what's wrong? Every single thing's gone wrong. They said, it's this woman that you've taken in. The gods are very angry about it. Then he called Abraham and SAid, abraham, what's this? There's some mystery about your sister. And finally Abraham told him. Now, isn't that interesting? Now, of course, you say, I'd never do a thing like that. No, but in principle, we're doing it all the time. It's our own understanding. [00:31:58] We guard ourselves. We guard the way to our own self fulfillment. To our self advancement or whatever else it is. [00:32:08] We lean on our OWN understanding. Now, there's another picture also here. And you will remember what happened this time. It was dear Sarah. Now, Abraham had hearkened to Sarah's voice. And the BIbLe says it was well that he did it. Some husbands don't ever listen to their wives. But he did actually listen to SArah. And every now and again the word of God was in Sarah's mouth. [00:32:36] But there were times when Sarah. [00:32:39] It wasn't a word of God. [00:32:42] Now, the LorD had said to Abraham, in your seed, it's in your seed. The promise is in your seed. In your seed. All the nations of the earth, all the times the earth shall be blessed. But Abraham was nearly a hundred and Sarah was in her nineties. [00:33:08] And he pondered and pondered and pondered on this. And his own understanding said, there's something very strange here. [00:33:17] I mean, she can't bear a child. Now, I'm not sure that I'd be able to produce one. [00:33:28] And of course, it shows. It's rather interesting in the relationship between Abraham and Sarah. They obviously had a good talk about it. [00:33:37] And Sarah said, well, it's obvious, isn't it? [00:33:42] I mean, you just don't understand. You're a man. You just don't understand these things. [00:33:47] It's quite obvious, isn't it? I mean, you've got to take my handmaid. [00:33:52] She's young, perfectly capable of producing a child is obvious. [00:33:59] And be my child. [00:34:01] Oh, Abraham. Sidney. How is it? I could never think. I never thought of such a thing. It's obvious, isn't it? This is the way the Lord served. Well, of course the whole purpose of God's going to be fulfilled for this. It's quite obvious. Oh, you are. You are such a wonderful woman. Fancy laying down your life like that and allowing me to have a child through someone else for your sake. [00:34:25] And they had their child. [00:34:28] Ishmael, dear Ishmael has been with us ever since. [00:34:37] It was his own understanding and Sarah's own understanding. [00:34:43] Poor Sarah. She suffered more than Abraham. Actually, Abraham rather liked Ishmael, from what we gather from the scripture. But Sarah couldn't stick the boy. Every time she saw him, she felt a failure staring her in the eyes. It was the most terrible thing. And when finally God in a miracle, caused her to conceive, then her dislike of Ishmael and Hagar grew into an antagonism. [00:35:11] She, through her own leaning on her own understanding, had produced the problem. And now she wanted to shove it out of her sight. [00:35:20] This is what happens with all of us. Through our own understanding we get into. But then we blame our circumstances. We blame whoever is the other party to it. We blame the church, we blame the leadership, we blame our brothers and sisters always. Everybody else is wrong. We don't want to see them anymore. We want to get rid of them because we've made a mistake. We've leaned on our own understanding, but they are the ones that are wrong. [00:35:47] Interestingly, the Lord doesn't disappear. He doesn't forsake us, he doesn't, he doesn't give us up. [00:35:57] He actually goes on and fulfills his purpose. But our mistake remains with us. [00:36:04] Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not upon thine own understanding. I think of dear Jacob, I was talking about Jacob yesterday to some of the folks at the Israel convention and just saying what a lot of misconceptions there are about Jacob. Jacob was a swindler. I had no doubt about that. Jacob was a deceiver. He was a twister. His very name, Yaakov means exactly that. He was someone who supplanted someone who, he came out with his arm round his brother's, his twin brother's leg. And that's why they call him Yaakov. [00:36:43] But you know, we make a terrible mistake when we paint a picture of Jacob as some effeminates soft weakling who was always within the confines of the home, who was just a kind of cunning deceiver. It's a terrible mistake. [00:37:10] The man was as tough as you make him. [00:37:15] The way he managed all those flocks for 21 years with his uncle Laban and the way that he managed it, he was some man. And much more interestingly, there was deeper down in his heart than all the deception and the twistedness. There was a purity of heart very rarely sound in belief, believers. [00:37:46] And thats why he saw the Lord and lived. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see the Lord. [00:37:56] You remember when Jacob saw the Lord, he said, ive seen the Lord and I have lived. [00:38:06] That means that deep down within him was a single nest of heart for God. [00:38:13] He really wanted the Lord. He wanted the things of God. He wanted the purpose of God more than anything else in his whole life. He wanted to walk with the Lord. But he had no answer to his own nature. [00:38:28] He leant on his own understanding. In fact, there had been a prophecy before he was born. Whilst the twins were in their mother's wombs, in Rebecca's womb, there was a prophecy. [00:38:46] The elder will serve the younger. [00:38:52] And apparently mother, who always had a very soft spot for Jacob, told him when he was very young. [00:39:03] And Jacob lent on his own understanding, he watched his twin brother day and night, as he grew up thinking to himself, it is the purpose of God, the God of my fathers, that he, Esau, shall serve me, that I shall get the birthright, that I will get blessing. And so when one day his brother, so athletic and so outdoor type, comes in and he's hungry and has nothing to eat, and he hadn't got anything, Jacob says, yes, I'll make you something, but you sell me your birthright. [00:39:53] It worked. [00:39:55] Just as Jacob thought. Peter surrendered his birthright in a moment. [00:40:03] And Jacob thought, thank God I've got the birthright. [00:40:12] A bit later, his dear mother got together with him and said, now, listen, if you want the blessing, we're going to have to just do one or two things. Your father's half blind. He will not know who it is. I'll work gloves that go right up your arms, very soft kids fur. And when you go into your father and he feels you, he'll think it's Esau. Just watch your voice. And it's what happened. And dear old Isaac said, it's a very strange thing. It's the voice of Jacob, but it's the arms of Esau. He said, as he felt him and kissed him and put his hands on him and said, the Lord bless you. And he gave him the blessing. And then Jacob went out and said, I've got the blessing. [00:41:01] He had no idea that what he had obtained through his own understanding was going to lead him to 22 years of exile and sorrow. [00:41:16] For within a matter of days, he was fleeing for his life into a situation where his uncle swindled him for 20 years, and he had to use all the wits that were in him to counter his uncle and overcome his uncle. Well, I can't go into the whole story, but what I'm just trying to say is this here is a leaning upon his own understanding. He did trust in the Lord, but he leant upon his own understanding. He so desired that birthright. He so desired that blessing. Oh, dear brothers and sisters, again and again I find in the work of the law, people are trying to obtain spiritual birthrights to the flesh. They're trying to obtain spiritual blessings through the mind of the flesh, through the energy of the flesh, and end up with sorrow in the work of the Lord. We introduce all kinds of the ways of the world, the ways of the world, the systems of the world, everything to do with the world. I'm not saying we shouldn't have organization, that we shouldn't have administration, that we shouldn't. But when the Lord gives us the way and we walk with him. That's entirely different. To say something which just comes out, we copy the world just like Israel of old wanted to have a king. Of course God intended Israel to have a king. It was the messianic king. But they wanted a king like the kings of the nations around them. They wanted a royal family, like the royal families of the nations around them. [00:42:55] And in the work of the Lord and in the church of God, we have introduced all the ways of the world, in the way we run the church, in the way we have our membership roles, in the way that we have our church meetings, in the way we conduct our business, in the way that we raise money, in the way we appoint officers. So very often it's just the ways of the world. [00:43:18] And with it comes sorrow after sorrow after sorrow after sorrow. And in the end it becomes like a curse upon the whole work of God, a blight upon everything we do. [00:43:34] Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not upon your own understanding. There was a time when dear old David, David, he wasn't yet king, fled from Saul in a terror. He didn't know what to do. Up to that point, he'd been so faithful. He walked with the Lord. When he could have killed Saul, which would have been leaning on his own understanding. [00:44:00] He didn't do it. There were two or three occasions. But then on this occasion, he fled into the Philistines, do you remember? And he fled into a city, do you remember? [00:44:15] And the king, the Philistine king, was thrilled. Oh, David, he said, nice to see you. [00:44:24] Will you help out? Oh, David said, I will. [00:44:29] David thought, saul can't get me here now. I'm safe. [00:44:36] But then a whole series of problems began and the king of the Philistines wouldn't let David out. You remember the story. And when poor David plead with the Lord, deliver me, o Lord, you've delivered me also your. All through my life you have worked miracles for me. And there was silence from heaven. Very, very interesting. Total silence. [00:45:01] David had got himself into the mesh and the Lord said, you get yourself out of it. [00:45:08] So what did David do? What a dreadful thing for this one, who was to become king of Israel and stampede upon our whole mentality the concept of kingship. This man had to pretend he was a psychological case, a lunatic. He spat on his beard and he dribbled and he scrabbled on the doors with his hands and he knocked his head on the floor. And he was. He was a wonderful actor. It's interesting to me that David could. A lot of us couldn't even do this kind of thing. But David, master, he did a good job of it. And the king said, he's mad. He's gone bonkers. [00:45:50] He's absolutely crazy. He's gone out of his mind. We better let him out. [00:45:57] In those days they were very afraid of mental disease. They thought it caught, you know, like sort of flu or something else. Out with him, they said, and out he. Well, but David learnt his lesson. [00:46:12] Sometimes when you get yourself into a mess, God says, it's okay, I'm not forsaking you. You got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out. [00:46:24] And that often means we have to humble ourselves to the very dust. [00:46:30] We have to humiliate ourselves in one way to get ourselves out of the mess. Lean not upon your own understanding. I could go through, if we had time, life after life after life, all through the old covenant and the new, and illustrate this. Leaning on our. Do I have to? Haven't we all, if we've walked with the Lord, haven't we all got our own experience of leaning upon our own understanding? Sometimes in very small things and sometimes in very big things. But we've leant upon our own understanding and got ourselves into a fearful mess. [00:47:12] Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not upon your own. What a lovely thought it is in one sense. Leaning, leaning. Now, you see, when you lean on someone, you're putting your whole weight. [00:47:32] You trust them. [00:47:34] Here is a kind of spiritual schizophrenic. They're trusting in the Lord or trying to with all their heart and at the same time leaning upon their own understanding. They're being carried along by their own conscience, their own understanding of a situation or of the will of God or whatever else. [00:47:59] It's beautiful, really. [00:48:03] All of us lean on our own understanding. It would be natural, just like we love ourselves. [00:48:08] I always think it's one of those expressions of our Lord's humour when he said, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [00:48:26] He took it for granted that everybody loves themselves. [00:48:30] He just said, just love your neighbors as much as you love yourself. Even those who are always sort of apparently modest of defacing themselves. Actually, their very defacing of themselves is their love for themselves, because they're trying to get others to rush forward and say, oh, no, no, you're not as bad as that. You're much better than them and heap kind of honours on them and accolade song, you know, the kind of thing, we've all often said it before. [00:49:06] He plays the piano, they say, no, I really, I'm not much good at playing the piano. Now, if you said, it is perfectly clear they would never speak to you again. [00:49:20] The fact that they said that they were no good at playing the piano doesn't mean a thing. What they expected you to say was, oh, no, your mom, your mom. [00:49:31] You're just like Rubenstein. I never heard such a thing in my life. That's what they're expecting. [00:49:38] Sometimes people say, I can't speak, you know, I can't speak publicly, but if you say you certainly can't, they would be so angry with you. [00:49:50] You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to say, no, it was wonderful. [00:49:54] It was wonderful. [00:49:57] Lean not upon your own understanding. Here is the third part of this condition. In all your ways, acknowledge him. [00:50:08] Actually, in the Hebrew, the word is, in all your ways, know him. [00:50:15] Now, isn't that interesting? [00:50:18] In all your ways, do you know, we can very quickly find out in our life, if there's a wrong way because we can't acknowledge the Lord in it, then we know it's a path that is nothing to do with him. [00:50:37] To know the Lord in all our ways means that we have no axe to grind. You understand? We've got no kind of vested interest. [00:50:49] We are absolutely ready to say, I want you to be lord in all my ways. This way, that way, the other way. Whether it's in my personal life, in my sex life, whether it's in my spiritual life, whether it's in my family life, whether it's in my business life, whether it's in my service, whether it's in my fellowship with others. I want you to be lord. In my friendships, in empathy. I want you to be lord. I want to acknowledge you. [00:51:23] We dont have to become those who afflict ourselves all the time and deny ourselves this and deny ourselves that and cut this out. And cut that out. Theres no need for any of that. All we need to do is to be able to acknowledge the Lord in all our ways. Thats all. [00:51:43] Here then, is the threefold condition. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him. [00:51:53] This holds good for personal life, for family life, for business life, for church life, and for the service of God, the work of God and the promises, and he will direct your paths. Now that's the the old version's translation into English. Some of the more modern versions say he will make straight your paths. Others say he will make plain your paths. The word in Hebrew is very, very simple. [00:52:27] When someone says, is such and such a place on here, you say, Yeshua, straight on. [00:52:39] And this word is Yashir. [00:52:42] He will make straight, or he will straighten. [00:52:47] But the old version is actually very good. He will direct. [00:52:52] But he has more than just he will direct. He will actually make your path straight. Now, most of us know how difficult it is when we are looking for somebody in some town or village or in the countryside, and it's not a straight path. Do you understand what I mean? [00:53:12] You've got to turn left at such and such a point and right at such and such a point. And then you bear over to the right further, and then at third turning, you turn there, and then you go down, and there's a little sort of way up you're supposed to go. It's not very plain. And no wonder many of us get lost. We go round and round and round, certain, because we can't find the place easily. It's not made plain. [00:53:44] But the Lord says that he will make straight our paths, or make plain our paths, or he will direct our paths. Not just direct, but actually make the path itself straight. [00:53:59] When we lean upon our own understanding, our paths are very tortuous. [00:54:05] We may get there in the end, but, oh, my, it's like wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years before finally we get there. Whereas if we'd only trusted in the Lord with all our heart and not leant upon our own understanding in all our ways, acknowledged him, he would have made plain our path. [00:54:29] Here, then, is a very simple statement. [00:54:36] And yet it goes to the heart of everything in the life of the child of God and in the life of, of the church. [00:54:51] It goes to the heart of everything in the life of the servant of God. [00:54:56] If you and I could get hold of this very simple little thing, we would be delivered from years of wandering and years of what I call being stuck in a morass. [00:55:17] May the Lord help every one of us, since he has such an interest in leading us, since he has such an interest in actually fulfilling his purpose in our lives and bringing us to true fulfillment. [00:55:37] May he write this little word in all our hearts. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not upon your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct. [00:55:58] Make plain, make straight your paths. [00:56:04] Shall we pray? [00:56:09] Heavenly Lord. Oh, what a mess we sometimes get ourselves into. Saved by your grace, born of your spirit. But, Lord, you know the mess that we get ourselves into. And, Lord, it's always because we haven't trusted in you. With all our heart. We've leant upon our own understanding. We haven't acknowledged you in all our ways. There are ways in our lives, even in our life of service, where somehow or other, Lord, we've not been able to acknowledge you and declare your kingship. [00:56:44] O Lord, will you burn this word into our hearts? So simple, so foundational. Just burn it into our hearts, Lord, so that every one of us shall hear this word applied in our lives by the holy spirit himself. [00:57:06] We may be enabled, Lord, to trust in you with all our heart, not to lean upon our own understanding in all our ways to acknowledge you. [00:57:17] Then, Lord, you will direct our parts. [00:57:23] We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. I.