In God We Trust

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I too would like to extend Christian greetings to each of you this morning. It's been a blessing to be gathered in God's house with God's people. So for a message this morning, I would like to do quite a bit of reading. I would like to read in Numbers this morning, an account in Numbers 13, a familiar account about the spies that were sent to spy out the land of Canaan, and then the report that they brought back to the people. [00:00:48] and I think I'm going to start reading in verse 26 of Numbers 13 and then I'm going to continue to verse 10 of chapter 14 and this is, I think I'm going to be breaking in at the point where the spies come back. They had already been to the land of Canaan. Numbers 13, chapter 13, verse 26. And they returned from searching the land after forty days, and they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel unto the wilderness of Paran to Kadesh, and brought back word unto them and unto the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. [00:01:36] And they told him and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it flowed with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong and dwell in the land and the cities are walled and very great and moreover we saw the children of Anak there And the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of Jordan And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it [00:02:14] But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search, it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature and there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants [00:02:45] and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, so we were in their sight. And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried and the people wept that night and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God we had died in this wilderness, and wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? [00:03:20] Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation and the children of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we pass through to search it is an exceedingly good land. [00:03:52] If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us, a land which flowed with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. [00:04:26] We are all familiar with this passage, and many times, in many different settings, we have heard this expounded upon. And there's many different things that we could talk about this morning that come right out of this passage. We could talk about, well let me just say this, who do we talk about when we talk about this passage? Was it the ten cowards? No, it's the heroes that we talk about. I think we're all well aware of that. [00:04:56] We could talk about their courage, their obedience, and there might be five different messages in what I read here. But there's something that the Lord brought to my attention and probably because of some of the things that I am facing or I think I'm facing in my own life and that is the trust that Joshua and Caleb had in the Lord. They trusted the Lord and I've titled this message in God We Trust. [00:05:29] Simple title, simple outline. But I would like to look at this again with you. Those two men had seen the same giants that the rest of them saw. They were no doubt well aware of what was going on there. They were. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter. They had placed their trust in God. They trusted in the Lord. It didn't matter how insurmountable it appeared, they knew they could do it. [00:06:06] It didn't matter how far outnumbered they were, they knew that God had promised them that they could possess that land. And there was no doubt in their mind they could do it. They trusted the Lord. We don't know. We read the story here now and you can just use your imagination what happened when they got back. Maybe they came back to a hero's welcome and then they waited several days and then they met with Moses and the elders. [00:06:40] And in that time, I don't know what happened. Maybe Caleb and Joshua walked in their tent and they had some fruit from the land of Canaan And they showed it to their wives and children and they said, here, there it is. It's waiting for us. Let's go. And their spirit, their fire caught and their families were happy and they were, but maybe their wives went over to the next tent and they heard what the rest of the spies said. We just can't do it. We can't do it. Maybe their wives tried to talk them out of it. [00:07:14] It's not possible. We can't do it. It's too much. And add to that the fact that they were, two men, were standing against maybe a million and a half people. I'm not sure. Some people put it up to two million. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They were at odds with that many people. And what do we do when we're in a position where we trust God and that causes conflict? [00:07:47] The pressure was on. And yet they knew what God had said, what God had wanted of them. And they also knew that God was completely trustworthy. They could trust in what he had promised them. Well, let's just leave that. I just want you to run that through your mind. The trust that these men had. We don't read about these heroes for quite some time, and yet, although things happened, things turned out the way they did, many years later, I think it was Joshua that said, [00:08:25] As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That trust in the Lord never left him. Caleb did the same thing at 85 years old when they finally entered the land. And these were the only two people, I believe, that were able, and I don't know about their families, were able to enter from that generation because they rebelled. Joshua said this, he asked for one of the toughest assignments. and the very giants that they were afraid of, he wanted to conquer. [00:08:57] He said, give me this mountain where the Lord spake in that day for thou heardest in that day how the Anakins were there and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be the Lord will be with me. The very place that these giants were, Caleb trusted that God would help him overcome those things. He did not say that I can do it or I have, I'm still strong. [00:09:33] Maybe he felt that way, but he simply recognized that if God was with him, he could do it. He recognized that God would make it possible. And we could look, we could look through the Bible. I mean, we could read many stories this morning. What did David say when he went up against Goliath? What did he say? He said this, Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield, [00:10:05] but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts. The God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied, and this day will the Lord deliver thee in mine hand You know what, David, we understand was going up against tremendous odds He was going up against a man that had an armor on and was covered almost from head to foot He did not say, I am younger, I am quicker, I can throw this thing just right He didn't lift himself up and show him his muscles [00:10:41] Or I can run faster than you can He simply said, I can't come in the name of the Lord And he did it He trusted He trusted in the Lord When God asked Abraham to leave his family His home And maybe everything that was normal to him He didn't argue He didn't say, he didn't say, but God, I don't understand what you're doing here. [00:11:11] It doesn't make sense to me. But he took him at his word. He said, God said, he will take him to a land that he will show him. Not much, not very specific. And I don't know if there was more to that than we see or not. But he trusted the Lord. He trusted God and he received a blessing for it. There are other accounts of men and probably also women in the Bible that trusted the Lord. [00:11:44] I think just now of Ruth and Naomi and there's many more. There's also accounts of men that did not trust the Lord. And I would like to read one of those in 1 Samuel chapter 13. It's an account of Saul and some of the struggles that he had. And we came across this in our family devotions. I thought it fit well in this message here. [00:12:15] And I think I'm going to ask you to stand, if you don't mind, as I read this. 1 Samuel chapter 13 starting at verse 5 and then I'm going to read to verse 14 And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude And they came up and pitched in Mishmash eastward from Bethhaven [00:12:50] When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, for the people were distressed, then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him, trembling. and he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him [00:13:23] and Saul said bring hither a burnt offering to me and peace offerings and he offered the burnt offering and it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Mishmash. [00:13:56] Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord. I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly. Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee. For now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought him, a man after his own heart. And the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. [00:14:37] You may be seated. Again, we could make several different messages out of this. We could dwell on the disobedience. We could look at a lot of different things here. But you know what? The pressure was on Saul. And the Philistines were, as the sand of the sea, innumerable. And he was up against that thing. And but he trusted in his own strength. He he took it in his own hands and he did it his way. He decided his way was better. He was not just supposed to offer up that burnt offering. He was supposed to wait on Samuel. I think we're all aware of that. [00:15:25] But that disobedience that came out was just an outworking of what was in the heart. That lack of trust, that lack of faith that things would be alright and that God would work things out for His people. He trusted His own power more than God's divine protection. Now, what do you face in your life? [00:15:58] What is it that you struggle with? I believe that all of us struggle with pressures of life. We face things, and I know I'm in a different place than maybe the youth up here or the ladies over here, but we face things as grandparents, as youth, and all the way in between. And there's times when, in the recent past at least, there's thoughts that go through your head. [00:16:30] How will my family turn out? What will the church be like in ten years from now? Will we still have a stable foundation to plant our feet on? And we face things, and the church is seemingly under attack. There's people that are drifting away from God. And there's problems that come from within and from without. And it seems like the devil is so busy in not only that, there's financial problems in our day. [00:17:05] There's people that have put their trust in their wealth. And we are well aware of what happened recently where that wealth has vanished in thin air and people have lost some of them, almost everything. And that's not the only thing. I guess we can be poor and we can put our trust in wealth and we're just as in just as bad of a shape as those that have money. But what I'm getting at here is where do we anchor ourselves? What do we trust? Where do we place our trust? [00:17:40] Can we still remain faithful when everything around us is falling apart, when there's pressure from within? Do we take God's word and say, but this is what God wants, and we just quietly trust him and just continue walking on down the path that he has chosen for us? You know, I think as I struggle through some of these things, issues that I sense are beyond what I can even theorize about or or figure out or have answers for. [00:18:15] We simply need to come to the point where we're just still and know that God is God and he will work things out. He's promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. And this promise is just as powerful when the storms of life are rolling over us as they are when things are going well for us. We need to remember that. Now, I don't know, and this is something that I didn't think a lot on, and I struggled a little bit with it. [00:18:49] What brings us to the place where we trust in God? Is it simply just the Word? Do we read, I think the Word is powerful. It is powerful. What brings us to the place where we trust in God? Where we clearly see that I don't have all the answers is it when we get to the end of our rope. When we face things that bring us to the point where we don't have answers. I don't know. [00:19:20] But think about Peter when he was walking on the water. Do we sometimes do the same thing in our lives? Do we start out and it looks good and we've placed our trust in God and all of a sudden we get to looking around and we see that the waves are high and the problems are huge and we start to sink. And it's at that point I believe, and the Bible doesn't say what Peter did, or at least maybe I missed it, but one of the things that occurred to me, Peter might have thrashed around in that water for some time before he cried out, [00:19:58] Lord save me and I think that's what I do sometimes I try with my own strength to do things that we're not able to do and we need to let go and let God do that how do we act how do we live how do I live my life when I have completely put my trust in the Lord is a question that that I would ask us this morning and I think again we could look back to those What did these men of old, what did they do? What do we do? [00:20:33] Is it simply a matter of just sitting back and saying, there it is God, I trust you, I'll just sit back and let you do what you feel is best. I don't think so. I think on the contrary, we take God at His word and we're about His business. When we trust God, we're doing what God wants us to do. The only real proof that people around us have that we trust in the Lord, that we have faith in God, [00:21:05] is when we follow God, despite what popular opinion dictates or the circumstances. This may be, this came to my mind as I was reading, as I was meditating for this. And I know this is extreme. I don't think any of us are guilty of this, but there was a time and I don't I didn't know this man personally. I knew the families. There was a man that said, I trust the Lord. He will provide for my family. And he sat back and he provided enough for one day. And those poor children and his wife almost went hungry. [00:21:51] They didn't have enough. I don't think that's what God wants. I think we are to provide. I think we are both in the spiritual sense. When we trust God, we are about the Lord's work. We are standing firm, steadfast. It is seemingly our temptation, and maybe I'm speaking for myself, but it's seemingly this temptation is always there to take things in my own hands and do what I feel is right or what needs to be done. [00:22:25] And there are things that we need to do, and I looked at my concordance, and there are just a whole list of verses that talk about trusting the Lord. Psalms 118 verse 8 says this, It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. And there's a whole list of things. And there's a whole list of verses. There's seemingly that temptation to take things in our own hands when we don't clearly see where we're going or what the Lord wants of us. [00:22:59] And I'm not going to read this, But I think we should consider what happened to Hezekiah. He was a man that placed his trust in the Lord. And you can read about this in 2 Kings 18, chapter 18 to 20. And if you remember what happened, against incredible odds, I don't know if I should say that Hezekiah and his army overcame the Assyrian army, But the Lord, because of his connection with the Lord, the angel came and in one night killed 185,000 Assyrians. [00:23:36] And miraculous turnaround for Hezekiah. He placed his trust in the Lord. He came after a long line of kings that had just disregarded God completely. And here was Hezekiah like a breath of fresh air. He turned things around. Sometime later he became sick. And I'm just giving you the short version. And we remember that he was going to die. And Isaiah, I think it was, said, get your house in order because you're going to die. [00:24:08] And I don't know, I don't remember the details, but I think he wasn't even out of the courtyard when God spoke to him. And I think he gave him 15 years, if I'm not mistaken. I'm just saying this from memory. Again, because of his trust, the Lord heard his cry and he gave him another 15 years. But there's something troubling about the end of King Hezekiah. Something that troubled me. [00:24:39] Because of his illness, the king of Babylon sent him a letter and some, I think, some gifts. And there were several men, I believe, if I understand right. Hezekiah showed these ambassadors his wealth and it says this he showed them all the house of his precious things the silver and the gold and the spices and the precious ointment and all the house of his armor and all that was found in his treasures there was nothing in his house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah showed them not [00:25:13] you know what I don't know if he was feeling arrogant because the Lord had guided him for this long but somehow he got his eyes off the Lord and he trusted in his wealth and his armor and because of this because of this his children I believe if I remember the story right I'm not sure if it was Isaiah that told him but somebody said there's a day coming when everything that you showed them will be back in Babylon [00:25:47] it will be taken from you so we need to be careful I think Solomon understood something about trusting in the Lord when he said, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. When I start trusting in my abilities, in what I can do, and leaning on my own understanding, when we do that, we rob God of the glory that He deserves. And we need to be very careful. [00:26:18] I think that's sinful. If we start down that road, we need to be careful. Now, we know that this is the inscription that is on our coins, the title of this message. And as I was looking at this, in God we trust, and I don't know, maybe you have some thoughts on this. Are we still a nation that can say, in God we trust? [00:26:52] I don't know, but that may be beside the point. But there was a story that I found that made an impression on me. And again, I'm going to give you the short version of this story in my own words. There was a man in 1861, and I had the names, I don't have them here written down. Remember, the Civil War was going on at this time. and he wrote the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and he said probably you are a Christian and he said that in this letter he said that now you know we are in a war, we are fighting [00:27:32] and if the Confederate Army was to destroy us, to annihilate us, Because how would the people that come after us know that we trusted in the Lord, that we trusted God and we took him at his, that we were a Christian nation, I believe is what he said. And I don't think the wording was in God we trust that he suggested. But nevertheless, this secretary of the treasury, trying to think, Chase, I can't think of his name, doesn't matter. [00:28:06] He took it seriously and he put that on the coins. In God we trust. And maybe some of you, I don't know if some of you have noticed this or have heard of this, but I think there have been in the recent past some movement has been made to take that off of there. I'll just leave that. I didn't do any research. But the question that hit me, the thing that struck me was this, and that I would like for all of us to consider this morning. If Rosewood as a congregation were to sell their homes and move out of this community and away from here, [00:28:48] would the people in this community know that we trusted God? Would they understand? What would they say? And have we inscribed in God we trust on our hearts? To the point where our fellow man, our co-worker, the brother sitting beside us or sister on the bench knows that we trust in God with all our hearts. Is our level of commitment such that God himself knows that we have sold out to him is a question that I would like to leave with you this morning. [00:29:29] Shall we kneel for prayer?