Not to Worry: Part 2

Don't worry, the sovereign God is on our side.

Today on the Bible study hour with Dr. James Boyce, we're focusing on the second half

of Psalm 37, where David continues to contrast the righteous and the wicked.

David reminds us that blessings abound when we choose to follow the ways of the Lord.

And what about the wicked?

God has a plan.

Come to the Bible study hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boyce, preparing

you to think and act biblically.

When we choose to follow God and to live out our faith through our words and actions,

blessings will follow.

God doesn't promise us material wealth, but He gives us spiritual riches beyond measure.

If you have your Bible now, turn to Psalm 37, verses 21 through 40.

Last week when we began to study the 37th Psalm, I pointed out that it is really an exposition

of the third of Jesus' 8 Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount.

Third Beatitudes, concerns the meek, blessed are the meek, are they shall inherit the

earth?

Jesus doesn't explain what that means in the Sermon that we probably did in things that

are not recorded for us in the New Testament.

And the Sermon on the Mount doesn't explain how we become meek, but that's what Psalm 37

does.

So the Psalm is really a great Old Testament exposition of something that wasn't given

until a thousand years or so later.

Now that doesn't mean that meekness is not mentioned in the New Testament.

It is, though it's somewhat hidden anymore because the translators of the New International

version have chosen to render the word not by meek or meekness, but by the word gentle

or sometimes by the word self-control.

They didn't do that where the Beatitude itself is concerned, and I don't know exactly

why, except people probably are used to the Beatitude as it stands, blessed are the meek.

If they changed it there, people would think they were tampering with Scripture, but

in other places it has been changed, and yet that's the word that lies behind it.

It's in Galatians, for example, in that long list of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul

gives in the 5th chapter.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness.

That's the word.

It's actually meekness in self-control, or again, it does the same thing in Colossians 3,

12.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion,

kindness, humility, gentleness.

That's the word.

It's the word meekness in patience.

Peter talks about it.

Third chapter of the first letter, verse 15, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone

who asks you the reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness or meekness

and respect.

And James also says, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that's so prevalent and humbly.

That's a different translation, but it's the same word, meekly, except the word planted

in you.

Now, those verses all teach a great deal about meekness that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit

and it's given to us so that it will bring blessing and our lives and in the lives of

other people.

And yet, in spite of that, it is nevertheless true that the passage in the Bible that best

explains what this is and tells us the steps for becoming a gentle, a meek or a humble

person is the 37th Psalm.

Now, last time when I introduced the Psalm, I also said it's very difficult to outline.

And I think there's a good reason for that.

This is one of the Acoustic Psalms.

Acoustic Psalms are those Psalms in which each verse or a collection of verses or a

couplet begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet and that progresses in sequence.

So the first verse would begin with the letter A, for example, and the second verse would

the letter B and so on.

Often those Psalms seem to have no particular outline at all because they're simply following

the alphabet.

And yet, I think there's something of a sequence of major ideas in here, although it overlaps.

And I suggested that in the outline I gave last time.

The first eleven verses describe the quiet spirit leading up to the Beatitude because

the eleventh verse of the Psalm is where Jesus actually got the third Beatitude.

He quotes it almost directly, the meek will inherit the land.

And then there's a second section that describes the way of the wicked.

I said that was verses 12 through 20.

Third section contrasts the ways of the wicked with the ways of the righteous, verses 21 through

26.

Then there's an old man's counsel to the young, verses 27 to 33.

And finally the last section, 34 to 40, where the chief theme is to wait upon God or take

the long view.

Now, a lot of that overlaps and so that kind of an outline is somewhat arbitrary.

And yet it helps us, I think, to see our way through the Psalm.

Now we looked at the first two of those sections in the last study and we looked at the last

three, the second half of the Psalm in this.

Now the section we're looking at now, according to the outline, I've just given contrast

the ways of the righteous with the ways of the wicked.

And yet we've already anticipated that a little bit.

When I was talking last time about the ways of the wicked, I showed that there were four

contrasts that are found from verse 12 through 20.

They're very clear because the word but occurs in each one.

And the first two of those talk about the wicked.

They propose one thing but God proposes something else for them.

But the third and the fourth contrast bring the righteous into the picture and it's sort

of in a continuation of that idea that we get into the contrast that we find here.

The one contrast introduced earlier is that the power of the wicked is going to be broken

but the Lord is going to uphold the righteous.

And the Lord is going to provide for the righteous and times of famine difficult financial situations

though the wicked are going to be cut off.

Now we pick up with that at verse 21 and we have three more contrasts here.

Two of them very clear and one is there but not quite so clear.

Now what are they?

Well the first one is in verse 21.

The wicked borrow and do not repay but the righteous give generously.

Now there are a couple of ways you can look at that and the commentators do.

They even invent ways that no rational person would look at them.

But one of the ways it does make sense is this.

One of the commentators, a very good one, says, well the reason the wicked borrow and don't

repay is that God doesn't bless them.

They don't have the means to repay.

And the reason the righteous give generously is that God prospers them.

There's something to be said for that because it is talking about the prosperity of the righteous to some degree.

The difficulty that I see with it, the reason I choose a different interpretation is that the words themselves don't suggest that contrast.

Contrast would be between material blessing and a lack of material blessing.

And the words don't say that, the contrast there is actually between generosity on the part of the righteous

and the spirit and the part of the wicked that's the opposite of generosity.

So what I think that is talking about there is a selfish grasping attitude on behalf of the wicked and generous,

unselfish attitude on the part of the righteous.

Now what it says about the wicked is that they borrow and don't repay.

And if what we're talking about here is not an inability, but actually a moral failure, then the problem with the wicked is that they're out for themselves.

That is for number one.

We don't have to go very far to see that.

If that is the measure of the wicked, we live in the midst of a very wicked world.

This is the very essence of our culture, culture that says, look out for number one.

You've got to take care of yourself and to put it in a funny, but not really so funny way.

The one who wins is the one who dies with the most toys.

You've heard that said.

Now that's the spirit.

You see, one of the commentators, I think, says, what you have here is a difference between perpetual takers and constant givers.

The wicked are perpetually taking.

And the reason they don't repay is that they're borrowing money to get a hand.

That is the shortcut to success, to build a fortune.

And they don't repay because they don't want to repay.

They want to hang on to the capital as long as they can.

And perhaps it's true as well that they overextend themselves and that kind of greed.

And as a result of that, their enterprises fail and they can't repay.

But the problem is not the inability.

The problem is the greed that lies behind it.

Now I think we do have to talk about that in terms of our culture.

You can't take a verse like this and not understand it in terms of our culture because what is

happening in the Western world and particularly in American life is that we're being encouraged

to be wicked in exactly this way, is to live beyond our means to borrow and not repay.

Very short time ago, last week when Dave Dugan, chairman of the trustees, was speaking

in the morning.

He mentioned how the credit card companies send you notices telling you that your credit

is so good that they have upped it from what your limit was before, there's something higher.

If you had credit of $500, well, because you're such a trustworthy customer and your credit

is so good.

It's based with $1,000 and if your credit was $3,000, they're raising it to $5.

That's about as far as I go.

Some of you will know that it goes higher, but that's the kind of letters most of us get.

Now somebody really has to be out of their mind to be taken in by that.

It would be a fool indeed who thinks that these credit card companies and some of them

are companies haven't even heard of that are sending you their cards with pre-approved

lines of credit.

You would have to be out of your mind indeed to think that these companies are searching

throughout all of American culture to find people whose credit is particularly good so

that they could extend them a great line of credit and you just happen to be one of

a very small number who fit that category.

That's not why they're doing that at all.

Anybody who knows anything about what's going on knows that the reason they're doing

that is that they get more money for their money by encouraging you to buy on credit

than they do by lending at commercial rates.

You see, if you lend commercial rates to the banks, the prime rate now is down somewhat.

It's about 9.5 percent last week, I understand.

You get 9.5 percent, but if you can encourage somebody to overbuy so that they have to pay

interest on what they have bought on their credit cards, you can get 18 or 20 percent.

That's double.

Well, that's why they're trying to get you to borrow money and live beyond your means.

That's wicked.

That's wicked.

The Bible is against that.

The Bible is against usury.

That's the Bible's word for it.

And yet that's the very cornerstone of what we imagine to be a profitable culture.

And in this, of course, the government leads the way.

The government is going beyond itself to borrow astronomically.

And when the government cuts back, as they tried to do on the current budget, they don't

actually cut back all they cut back on as the rate of growth.

We're getting into more debt all the time.

Yeah, I'm not so worried about that, where the government's concerned.

I think it's a disaster, but I mean, governments do all kinds of disasters.

What I'm really worried about is how that impacts Christian people, because Christian people

get into that as well, and they get caught up.

And they're worldly in a very basic sense, and then they can't repay.

If you take all those offers for credit cards to come to you and find out how much credit

you have and add it all up, by simply applying for a few of these cards within a very short

time, you can have credit of $150,000, you can buy up to that limit, and then you'll all

have money.

If you have a mortgage on your house for $100,000 or $150,000, you know how long it takes

to pay that back.

And on a house you're not paying rates as high as you do on a loan on your credit cards.

You see, and yet that is the way we're being encouraged to live.

Now, if we're going to be among the righteous in this verse, we're going to have to break

with that.

Christians are going to have to take a different policy entirely.

I want to give you two principles for what we should do with credit cards, and I'm not

saying, cut them all up or lock them in a safe.

Some people have to do that.

It's like if you're an alcoholic, you can't even take a drink, and if you're addicted to credit

cards, you better get rid of them.

But I'm not saying that.

We live in that kind of a culture, and things cost so much money.

You can't carry hundreds and hundreds of dollars around with you all the time to pay for

things.

You have to use credit cards.

Here's the policy.

Christians should follow.

Never put on your credit card what you're unable to pay immediately when the bill comes

without paying any interest whatsoever.

If you can't pay that bill when it comes a month later, don't put it on your credit card.

Wait.

Okay?

That's the first principle.

I repeat it.

Christians, this is serious.

It's a difference between the wicked and the righteous.

That's what my text says.

Never put on your credit card what you're unable to pay when that bill comes immediately

without any interest whatsoever.

That's the first principle.

Here's the second.

Never charge so much on your credit card that you're unable to give to the Lord's work.

What you should give, I suppose that's 10% of time, and have money over to help people

who need it.

In other words, charge.

That's all right.

I'm sure you can pay.

I don't always keep it within bounds.

That's not so hard.

It's just a question of self-discipline, and we should be disciplined.

You want another text?

Here's the great text for our age from the Ten Commandments.

Allow, shout, not covet.

And that's what our society is built on.

Greed is what it's built on, and we mustn't do it.

Where we're going to come at the end of this is to wait on the Lord.

Wait on the Lord to exalt you and do time and to put down the wicked.

Here's another way in which you should wait.

Wait for the things until you have the money because that's the Christian way.

Now there's a second contrast here, verse 21, the wicked borrow and do not repay, but

the righteous give generously.

The second one is in the verse that follows.

Those the Lord blesses will inherit the land, but those he curses will be cut off.

Now, in that song, when it says inherit the land, it certainly is talking about the land

of Israel because, in the Old Testament, that was the great blessing.

I have a part of the land was significant.

There were laws to protect the right of the land for the various families, and if for

some reason a particular family would lose a chair of the land, there was an obligation

placed upon kinsmen to buy it back, so it wouldn't apart out of the family.

When it says inherit the land, that's certainly what it's talking about.

And it's obvious that that doesn't apply to us in the same way, and no promises in the

New Testament that Christians are going to inherit the promised land or any other land,

any earthly land.

And yet there is the third be attitude, isn't there?

Third be attitude says blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Now that's a significant change.

Word the land, Aritz refers to Israel, the earth is something else, broader, and nonetheless

it's speaking about a kind of inheritance and Jesus does use the word.

Now what does that refer to?

Well there are several things it could mean, and it's been interpreted in this way by

different people.

For one thing it could be looking for, we do a day in the future, in eschatology, when

the saints are going to reign on earth with Jesus Christ.

Not every eschatological outline permits that interpretation, and so those that don't

hold to that are going to weed it out, but if you believe that the saints are going to

reign with Christ on earth in any sense, well that's one way in which that can be fulfilled.

There's a second way it can be fulfilled, and that is with the view to prosperity in

general.

Not talking necessarily about owning real estate in Philadelphia, but it means generally

speaking the Lord will bless the meek.

If you follow in God's way, if you do the kind of things that are here, God will prosper

you.

That's not categorical, because that's in true in every single case, but often it's true,

generally it's true.

And of course there are millions of Christians that would testify to that, could mean that.

It could also mean that if we are really meek before God, humbly submitted to God, then

there is a sense, a very real sense in which the whole earth is ours.

Reason I am inclined to that interpretation is because the Apostle Paul said something

very like that himself, he was not a rich man.

He was poor, he was an attinurate evangelist, and at times he barely had enough to eat,

or live on, he had to work often for a living just so he could support himself.

He certainly wasn't prosperous in this world's goods, and yet he says in 1 Corinthians,

poor, and yet possessing all things.

See, a certain sense in which he understood he possessed it all.

It was God's, he was God's, and so it was all his.

He says the same thing explicitly, writing to the Corinthians.

He says, all is yours, whether Paul, or Apollo's, or life, or death, or seephus, or anything,

all is yours, because you were Christ and Christ is God's, and everything is God's.

Now if that is the way to take it, then that's insignificant, because it means that Christians

are going to have a different approach to material things from non-Christians.

Someone who doesn't have this attitude and understand that they possess it in this sense

in Jesus Christ is going to try to acquire it.

You know, if you own something, then that's yours, it's not mine, and what I want to do

is get what you have myself, and so I go about this business to acquire more and more things.

And the strange thing about that, of course, is that the more we acquire, the less secure

we seem to be.

It's the great wealthy ones that suddenly topple, and you read about it in the paper,

how they go bankrupt.

Their Taj Mahal is out of business, and that type of thing.

But you see, a Christian, it's different.

A Christian doesn't have to acquire it in order to possess it.

We can go anywhere in the world and recognize it as God's world and say, it's ours, you

know?

You can look out on the ocean.

You don't have to own the ocean to enjoy the ocean.

You can say, isn't that wonderful?

Oh, God has given that to me, to enjoy.

For this moment, I don't have to put it in a bottle and take it.

Take it home, or it'd be mine, or look at the sky, what a wonderful sunset that is.

What a wonderful sunrise that is.

Isn't this a glorious day?

God has given it to me, because I think it's really in that sense, probably, that to

me inherit the earth.

We really do.

It really is ours, because God has given it to us to enjoy.

Well, there's one more contrast.

This is the one I said that's not quite so clear.

Up to this point, every one of those has been connected with a butt.

You count them up to six of them.

When you get to verse 23 and four, there is no butt, and I think you have to understand

it as preceding the verse.

In other words, it picks up from the latter part of verse 22.

Those he curses will be cut off, but the Lord delights from the way of the man who steps

he's made firm.

Even though he stumbles, and Christians do stumble, he won't fall, because ultimately the Lord

upholds him with his hand.

Many of you will know that 23rd verse better in the King James version, and maybe rightly

so, because the King James had a very good translation at this point.

That old authorized version said, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.

That's a good thing to know, because we walk through a world with many uncertain paths,

and many occasions for stumbling, and we do stumble, but the steps of a righteous man

are ordered of the Lord.

When you're doing what is described in this Psalm, then God is with you, and he's going

to direct your steps, even though you may go through difficult times.

Harry Oneside in his commentary on the Psalm tells something that comes from the life

of George Mueller.

He is the man who built the orphanages in England, a great man of faith and prayer.

He always laid his request before God in prayer, and I've ever mentioned them, and God provided

everything he needed for these orphanages for a whole lifetime.

It was a remarkable story.

Oneside's story has to do with somebody who was a friend of George Mueller, and on one

occasion picked up George Mueller's Bible and was stumbling through it.

He came to this Psalm, and next to that 23rd verse, which in the authorized version, said

the steps of a righteous man or a good man are ordered of the Lord, Mueller had written

into the margin and the stops.

And Oneside said that was significant because, obviously, this man had been meditating on

that, a man of faith, and God had richly blessed, but who had experienced also times when

he had been put on hold.

And he recognized, well, I think, true spiritual insight that that's part of God's direction

too.

You see, we live in such a mechanistic, progress-oriented society that unless we're moving forward

regularly and sometimes rapidly, we think nothing's happening.

I can speak to that because that's the way I feel, instinctively, that's the way I am.

It doesn't have to be great progress, but it has to be progress.

I've got to see it, and I've got to see it happening and happening regularly.

You know, where that came into our culture is when we started to connect our country by

trains, and the schedules had to run on time and so forth.

That's when all of that changed before that.

People didn't think that way.

They were willing to wait.

It was said, you know, back before coming at the locomotives when everybody traveled

by stagecoach, it didn't matter if you missed the stage, you could catch one next month.

But today, people get upset if they miss one turn of the revolving door, and that's

more or less the way I am, but what we have to learn is that Ganges is the stops as well

as the steps, and the stops are ordered of the Lord as well.

I suppose we ought to say on the basis of this text, and the stumbles.

There's a sermon with three essays, if you want to be alliterative, and the stumbles,

because God uses the stumbles too.

Even when we stumble, God teaches us certain things, and He uses those for His glory.

Well we get to the end of this section, and there's a testimony on the part of David,

he wrote it, and it's what we've heard.

I mentioned it last time.

I was young and now I'm old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children

begging bread.

What he's doing there is adding his personal testimony to the truths that he's just

denunciated in the previous section.

That does make us pause, because we want to say, is that our testimony?

Can we say that?

Now some of us aren't old enough to say that.

But assuming we are, however long we've lived, can we say, I've never seen the righteous

forsaken or their children begging bread.

The first part, yes, the righteous are never abandoned by God.

None of us would say that, but have we never seen poor Christians and poor children?

Spurgeon, interestingly enough, a great man of God, a believer in the Bible, certainly

was a bit troubled by that and he wrestled with it, and he solved it this way.

He said, that's David's testimony, but I can't say that that's mine.

He said, I've helped many poor families, and I have helped children of people that

were undoubtedly upright people.

So he said, generally speaking true, but he wouldn't say it was categorically true from

his experience.

I suppose my experience is somewhere in between.

I don't think I can say I have ever literally seen the children of believers begging bread,

but I don't doubt for a minute that there are poor Christians, I know some of them, and

I don't doubt that there are places in the world where the children of Christians beg

because everybody begs because there's nothing to eat.

I think that much is true, but generally speaking, you say, this is a good principle, it's

simply David saying God is faithful to his people, God takes care of them.

They may go through hard times physically, just as they may go through hard times and temptation.

They may stumble and so forth, but God provides for them and millions of Christians will testify

to that.

They'll say, as they look back at hard times, many, even in our generation, looking back

on the depression people who lived through that were old enough to have done it, and we'll

say those were terrible times, people lost everything.

They were jumping out of windows, but we never went without anything to eat.

God provided us enough to eat all that time.

We'll see millions of Christians would say that.

Derek Kiddler is one of the good commentators on this, and he does something kind of interesting

at this point.

He's trying to outline the Psalm, remember I explained how difficult it is to outline it,

and he does it for verses 12 through 26, by taking a bunch of phrases from Paul's letter

to the Corinthians, from 2 Corinthians 4, 9 and 6, 10, and he breaks it up using Paul's

phrases as the titles.

And it's interesting.

Here's what he does.

Section 1, persecuted but not forsaken, verses 12 through 15, is having nothing and yet

possessing all things, verses 16 through 20 and 25, number 3, making many rich, verses

21, 22 and 26, and finally 4, cast down but not destroyed, verses 23 and 24.

In other words, what he's saying is this was Paul's testimony, too.

You know, the testimony of David and the Old Testament, you know, the testimony of Paul

and the new, they're one and the same, and it's a testimony to the grace of God even in

hard times.

Well, we have the next section, and the next section is what I call the Old Man's advice

to the young, that is to people who haven't lived quite as long as he has.

Given his testimony, and verses 25 and 26, now is an Old Man he speaks to those with

less experience, and he says, look, here's my counsel.

Now there are two things that are said, one here and one in the last section, two imperatives,

if you will.

Verse 27, turn from evil and do good.

And then verse 34, which I've separated out as a last section because it's really the

message of the psalm, wait for the Lord and keep His way.

That's what He's telling us to do.

Trust, turn from evil and do good and trust in the Lord, wait in the Lord and turn from

evil.

It's interesting that He adds on and do good because that's what we've already seen

in verse 3.

Remember when we talked about it?

You have a list of things that were to do in that earlier portion of the psalm on the

very first one is trust the Lord, but it adds immediately and do good because those

who trust God will do good.

The fruit of the new life within is going to express itself.

It's why James, later on in the Bible, can say, if you say you have faith, well, and good,

but I want to see evidence of it.

Show me your faith by your works.

If you don't have any works, I'm not going to believe you have any faith because faith's

got to express itself that way.

That's exactly what David is saying twice over in the song.

When he talks about doing good, we understand as we read on that he's thinking not just about

deeds of social concern, but he's also speaking about right words or good words because

verses 30 and 31 begin to talk about that, the mouth of the righteous man at his wisdom

and his tongue speaks what is just.

Do you ever think of that when you think about doing good or expressing the life of Jesus

Christ with it?

It's not just doing things that's speaking on his right, saying things that are just.

We are so casual with our tongue.

We say, it's just words.

It doesn't matter.

Oh, I didn't mean it.

I was exaggerating.

You see, the righteous person who's touched by the spirit of Christ doesn't do that.

He speaks truth.

And if you say, well, how is he able to do that?

Why?

The answer is verse 31.

It's because the law of God is in his heart.

You see, if you don't have the Bible in your heart, and I think that means more than simply

having read it once or coming to church and hearing it preached on from time to time,

that means actually knowing it, memorizing it, dwelling upon it, meditating upon it.

That's what it means.

If you don't have the Bible in your heart that way, well, then you're not going to do

what's right or speak what's right because you're just going to drift along with the

culture and you're going to follow the same standards that the world has.

You're going to do all of those things we've seen here.

But if the word fills you and that's what you're thinking about, well, then you will speak

what is right and you'll do what is right as well.

At any rate, we come to the last section, beginning with verse 34, and it says, wait for

the Lord and keep His way.

We've seen this before.

This isn't new theme, but it is the dominant theme of the last section, and it really wraps

it up.

What he's saying here is that there are times in our lives when the Christian way doesn't

seem to be the right way.

You say, this business of living the Christian life, look at all the trouble I'm going through.

And David says, yeah, but you need to take the long view.

It is true.

Ungodly people will prosper for a time.

God allows it.

It brings actually greater destruction upon them in the end, but they are brought down

in the end, and it is always better to serve the Lord.

He'll keep you, even during the hard times, and he'll bless you a great deal at the end.

He uses an interesting image here, which is the exact reverse of what we saw in Psalm

1.

Recall what he said in Psalm 1 about the righteous, the righteous are like a tree planted

by the rivers of water that bring forth their fruit in their season.

Here he uses that same image, but it's reversed.

Now it's of a wicked man.

I have seen a wicked and ruthless man flourishing like a green tree in its native soil, but he

soon passed away.

You know, we read that, and that doesn't seem to be a very good image.

At least if you read it critically, as you might, if you were a critic of poetry, you

would say, earlier we saw the righteous compared to beautiful flowers in the field,

verse 20, the Lord's enemies will be like the beauty of the fields.

That's right.

Flowers that spring up the last only for a day, as soon as the sun comes out, that image

fits.

They're fine for a time.

But not when you're talking about a flourishing green tree in its native soil.

How is a tree like that disappear overnight, unless it's cut down, which, of course, he

may be thinking about what he doesn't say.

I think the answer to that is exactly what I've been saying.

There's a great green flourishing tree, and this is an ungodly person.

They've gotten that way by unjust means, by dishonesty, we know it.

And over here are the righteous, and they're compared to a flourishing tree.

And you look at that from the outside and you say, well, look at what's the use of being

righteous.

You do just as well by being ungodly, and maybe that tree is even flourishing more.

You see, if you look at externals, that's what you're going to think.

What this all must teaching us to do is not do that, but to look at it on the basis of

the Word of God, to think in a godly way, to meditate upon these truths, to hide them

in our hearts, to let that guide our thinking and form our mind, and understand that although

the righteous flourish and seem to do as well as the ungodly sooner later, they're going

to be cut down.

It's really saying what Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 is saying, trust in the Lord with all your

heart and don't lean to your own understanding.

When your own understanding it looks like it pays to be sinful.

All your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your past straight.

Blessing now, a care now, comfort now, and blessing and glory hereafter.

I suppose at this point someone will say, but I just can't do that.

I can't be like that.

Whether you're talking about what it means to be meek, and the answer is what we saw

at the beginning, where to trust in the Lord and do good, where to light ourselves in

the Lord, commit our way to the Lord, where to be still before the Lord, where not to

fret, where to free frame from anger, I do all of those things.

I am angry, I do fret, I am not still, I don't commit, I don't delight, I don't trust

and so forth.

I just can't be like that.

You know the answer to that, that's right you can't, not by yourself, but you see

you can if you'll come to God because that's the character that He'll develop in you.

Jesus Christ said, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give

you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am what, meek, I'm the meek one, and if you

come to me, I'll teach you what it means to live in a godly, meekly, consistent fashion

and not to worry because ultimately everything is in the hands of a sovereign and righteous

God.

Our Father, thank You for the psalm, which has been a blessing to so many people for so

many ages, people in times of trouble, consultant, people who are upset, who were worried about

the future, and who have found reassurance here because by reading these words, they

find themselves anchored once again in your character and you are the one who changes

not.

Father, help us to follow in those godly steps and do likewise and so grow into that character

which is godly and so different from the character of the world and prosper spiritually

as you have determined we should through Christ our Lord.

Thank You for listening to this message from the Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported

ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

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and confessions of the reformed faith and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster

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preparing you to think and act Ghibli-Cli.