TRUST
Psalm 46:title–11
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth.
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. 4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. 5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
TRUST & REFUGE see Ps 57 & 62
Psalm 57:1
1 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.
Psalm 62:7–8
7 In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.
8 Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.
TRUST, relationships built on TRUST are unbreakable and prosperous in every way. Businesses with partners who right trust one another cannot fail. But so much more does this apply to a husband and a wife.
Such a relationship thrives.
How much more when men and women truly trust in the LORD?
2 Samuel 22:31
31 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
Psalm 40:4
4 Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, …
Do you want to know the central passage of the Bible? The central verses?
There are 31,102 verses, so there is not central verse, but two central verses.
They are the 15,551st and 15, 552nd verses in the Bible.
Psalm 118:8–9
8 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. 9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
God is so worthy of our TRUST.
Imagine if every decision we make, we make KNOWING it to be in accordance with God’s will?
How can I tell and promote that it is God who works the works we cannot work without the words written and inspired by him?
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore will not we fear, 1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.
There are the words that testify of a good matter, they speak of the potential fearfulness of terrors natural;
though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
Yet it is knowing who the God of Jacob is that causes us to rest, Selah.
Now imagine that it is not only nature that stands against you but those who are the cause of the fall of all creation who now stand against you;
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
We live in a world where it is not only the natural elements, but the godlessness of men who stand against the Lord, the rage, the overturn kingdoms, and yet it remains that The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
And so yet again, we ‘rest’, Selah.
We just concluded our 6th free youth camp and I just desired to thank the Lord and to tell of his marvellous works. That when you trust him by faith and return to give him thanks, he reveals to you more of who he is that we learn not to trust in ourselves, not to boast of man, but to boast of the God of Jacob who is worthy to be praised.
Job 5:19
19 He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.
Though spoken by the friends of Job in false context, in the proper context the words are true.
There is NOTHING you CANT do if you know it is the Lords will.
Psalm 37:5
5 Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
Preparatory Trust
Psalm 46:title–11
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth.
1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. 4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. 5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
David draws on both historical trust in God’s provision AND personal experience to validate this truth.
David knew of the history of his people (Exodus 4-14)
God had also prepared MOSES before he sang his song see Exodus 4 and 15.
David was prepared by God directly to trust him before he slew Goliath as he confessed to Saul (1 Sam 17:31-52).
Defence to Saul of his preparation (v31-37)
Evidence of David’s trust in God’s refuge (v38-39)
Testimony of Davids trust in God’s strength (40-47)
Practical Trust
Hudson Taylor’s Preparation.
Consideration needs to be given of how God works within our lives practically to prepare our TRUST in him.
To Moses the work seemed to have begun when he escaped Egypt at the age of 40 years, yet we do not know if his own mother did not first instil in him a TRUST in God, for she became the paid caretaker of him since he was drawn from the water by Pharaohs daughter.
David himself was young, a shepherd boy when God placed both the Lion and the Bear as a test of his trust, preparing him for his encounter with Goliath soon after.
For you and I, our life began after our new birth, when we first trusted the Lord to save our souls.
We were infants, babes, desiring the pure milk of the word of God.
Tragically, faith gives way to sight when love waxes cold, and so there are many “OLD” Christians today whom I have often said have been “Christians too long”, they have, as the great preacher Vance Havner once said, “Lost the wonder”.
As the first Church addressed by Jesus in a letter, they have “left their first love” (Rev 2:4), and the only way truly forward is for them to “remember” and then to “repent” and “do the first works” (v5), to be “children” again, and TRUST the Lord as they did when faith was birthed.
J Hudson Taylor established the first inland mission work in China, a man whose TRUST in God was first PREPARATORY before it was PRACTICAL.
He realised that if he were to attend to his calling to China, he would need to learn to completely TRUST in the Lord, and so he consciously began to learn to “live with less”.
He said;
“my experience was that the less I spent on myself and the more I gave away, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become. Unspeakable joy all the day long, and every day, was my happy experience. God, even my God, was a living, bright Reality; and all I had to do was joyful service. It was to me a very grave matter, however, to contemplate going out to China, far away from all human aid, there to depend upon the living God alone for protection, supplies, and help of every kind. I felt that one’s spiritual muscles required strengthening for such an undertaking. There was no doubt that if faith did not fail, God would not fail; but, then, what if one’s faith should prove insufficient? I had not at that time learned that even “if we believe not, He abideth faithful, He cannot deny Himself”; and it was consequently a very serious question to my mind, not whether He was faithful, but whether I had strong enough faith to warrant my embarking in the enterprise set before me. I thought to myself, “When I get out to China, I shall have no claim on any one for anything; my only claim will be on God. How important, therefore, to learn before leaving England to move man, through God, by prayer alone.”[1]
He began the journey first through the need he had for his wages by his employer, a doctor. The doctor was always busy and so told Hudson Taylor to remind him when his wages were due. But otherwise, he said;
“This I determined not to do directly, but to ask that God would bring the fact to his recollection, and thus encourage me by answering prayer.”[2]
Now the account goes on and I pray it will encourage you to consider yourself in light of it, how well do you trust the Lord to provide for your needs…not government, GOD.
There are far too many today who are slaves to the government and forgo their own responsibilities and faithfulness to God as a result. Would you become faithful to the Lord if your government servitude dried up?
You trust the Government, but how well do you trust God?
Mr Taylor tells of his own question of trust and how little value he placed in trusting God.
Mr Taylor continues;
“At one time, as the day drew near for the payment of a quarter’s salary, I was as usual much in prayer about it. The time arrived, but my kind friend made no allusion to the matter. I continued praying, and days passed on, but he did not remember, until at length, on settling up my weekly accounts one Saturday night, I found myself possessed of only a single coin—one half-crown piece. Still I had hitherto had no lack, and I continued in prayer. That Sunday was a very happy one. As usual my heart was full and brimming over with blessing. After attending Divine service in the morning, my afternoons and evenings were filled with Gospel work, in the various lodging-houses I was accustomed to visit in the lowest part of the town. At such times it almost seemed to me as if heaven were begun below, and that all that could be looked for was an enlargement of one’s capacity for joy, not a truer filling than I possessed. After concluding my last service about ten o’clock that night, a poor man asked me to go and pray with his wife, saying that she was dying. I readily agreed, and on the way to his house asked him why he had not sent for the priest, as his accent told me he was an Irishman. He had done so, he said, but the priest refused to come without a payment of eighteenpence, which the man did not possess, as the family was starving. Immediately it occurred to my mind that all the money I had in the world was the solitary half-crown, and that it was in one coin; moreover, that while the basin of water gruel I usually took for supper was awaiting me, and there was sufficient in the house for breakfast in the morning, I certainly had nothing for dinner on the coming day. Somehow or other there was at once a stoppage in the flow of joy in my heart; but instead of reproving myself I began to reprove the poor man, telling him that it was very wrong to have allowed matters to get into such a state as he described, and that he ought to have applied to the relieving officer. His answer was that he had done so, and was told to come at eleven o’clock the next morning, but that he feared that his wife might not live through the night. “Ah,” thought I, “if only I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of this half-crown, how gladly would I give these poor people one shilling of it!” But to part with the half-crown was far from my thoughts.
I little dreamed that the real truth of the matter simply was that I could trust in God plus one-and-sixpence, but was not yet prepared to trust Him only, without any money at all in my pocket.”
Hudson Taylor continued on to the home of this man, up a flight of stairs of a wretche apartment until he was presented with the mans family;
“ and oh what a sight there presented itself to our eyes! Four or five poor children stood about, their sunken cheeks and temples all telling unmistakably the story of slow starvation; and lying on a wretched pallet was a poor exhausted mother, with a tiny infant thirty-six hours old, moaning rather than crying at her side, for it too seemed spent and failing. “Ah!” thought I, “if I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of half-a-crown, how gladly should they have one-and-sixpence of it!” But still a wretched unbelief prevented me from obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the cost of all I possessed. It will scarcely seem strange that I was unable to say much to comfort these poor people. I needed comfort myself. I began to tell them, however, that they must not be cast down, that though their circumstances were very distressing, there was a kind and loving Father in heaven; but something within me said, “You hypocrite! telling these unconverted people about a kind and loving Father in heaven, and not prepared yourself to trust Him without half-a-crown!” I was nearly choked. How gladly would I have compromised with conscience if I had had a florin and a sixpence! I would have given the florin thankfully and kept the rest; but I was not yet prepared to trust in God alone, without the sixpence.”[3]
Mr Taylor always was comforted by prayer and was ever so confident that this is what they ought to do. He told the man that this is the reason he called for him and so bent their knees to the Lord…but then Mr Taylors own conscience screamed at him;
scarcely had I opened my lips with “Our Father who art in heaven” than conscience said within, “Dare you mock God? Dare you kneel down and call Him Father with that half-crown in your pocket?” Such a time of conflict came upon me then as I have never experienced before or since. How I got through that form of prayer I know not, and whether the words uttered were connected or disconnected I cannot tell; but I arose from my knees in great distress of mind. The poor father turned to me and said, “You see what a terrible state we are in, sir; if you can help us, for God’s sake do!” Just then the word flashed into my mind, “Give to him that asketh of thee,” and in the word of a King there is power. I put my hand into my pocket, and slowly drawing forth the half-crown, gave it to the man, telling him that it might seem a small matter for me to relieve them, seeing that I was comparatively well off, but that in parting with that coin I was giving him my all; what I had been trying to tell him was indeed true—God really was a Father, and might be trusted.
The joy all came back in full flood-tide to my heart; I could say anything and feel it then, and the hindrance to blessing was gone—gone, I trust, for ever.
We cant but recall to our minds the “last mite” given by the widow, Taylor also gave of his want and one might think that his heart sank as a result….but this is not the case of those who wrestle with faith and faith wins.
In the very next paragraph he writes;
I well remember how that night, as I went home to my lodgings, my heart was as light as my pocket. The lonely, deserted streets resounded with a hymn of praise which I could not restrain. When I took my basin of gruel before retiring, I would not have exchanged it for a prince’s feast. I reminded the Lord as I knelt at my bedside of His own Word, that he who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord: I asked Him not to let my loan be a long one, or I should have no dinner next day; and with peace within and peace without, I spent a happy, restful night.[4]
Incredible when we are willing to trust in the Lord how that rest comes, “Selah” we might say as the Psalmist writes.
Well, as God often rewards our first steps of faith early, so he did not suffer Mr Taylor to wait long;
Next morning for breakfast my plate of porridge remained, and before it was consumed the postman’s knock was heard at the door. I was not in the habit of receiving letters on Monday, as my parents and most of my friends refrained from posting on Saturday; so that I was somewhat surprised when the landlady came in holding a letter or packet in her wet hand covered by her apron. I looked at the letter, but could not make out the handwriting. It was either a strange hand or a feigned one, and the postmark was blurred. Where it came from I could not tell. On opening the envelope I found nothing written within; but inside a sheet of blank paper was folded a pair of kid gloves, from which, as I opened them in astonishment, half-a-sovereign fell to the ground. “Praise the Lord!” I exclaimed; “400 per cent for twelve hours investment; that is good interest.
This account was his first in trusting on the God of Jacob as his refuge and strength, and it would be called to mind again and then added to with more accounts, then more, then more again, all of them PREPARATORY for a life lived in TRUST.
Hudson Taylor was no older than 20 years at this time, at the tender age of 21 he took to sail to China.
What will it take for you to learn to TRUST GOD COMPLETELY?
When will the WORDS OF GOD truly be your refuge, strength and rest?
When could you say with Job, the same faith exercised by the friends of Daniel; “though he slay me, yet will I TRUST in him” (Jb 13:15) ?
Preeminent Trust
6 The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
Moses was to trust in the VOICE of the LORD.
David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, trusted in THE WORDS OF THE LORD.
Psalm 119:98–105
98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
101 I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.
102 I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.
103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104 Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
105 NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
A couple living with complete trust in one another are a true force in every way. They succeed in life better than any.
Imagine having such TRUST in the Lord that you are willing to believe, obey and LIVE BY FAITH rather than by sight?
Hymn 290, Be Still My Soul is all about TRUST!
[1] Taylor, J. Hudson. The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor: Missionary to China (Illustrated) (p. 14). (Function)
[2] Taylor, J. Hudson. The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor: Missionary to China (Illustrated) (p. 14). (Function).
[3] Taylor, J. Hudson. The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor: Missionary to China (Illustrated) (p. 16). (Function). Kindle Edition.
[4] Taylor, J. Hudson. The Autobiography of Hudson Taylor: Missionary to China (Illustrated) (p. 17). (Function). Kindle Edition.
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