THE BLESSEDNESS OF TRUST
Part 2


JEREMIAH 17:7

A. "BLESSED IS THE MAN THAT TRUSTETH IN THE LORD AND WHOSE HOPE THE LORD IS"
  1. Jeremiah was a man of strong faith and childlike trust in God and His promises:
    1. Amid all the suffering and calamities that befell him, he never lost faith
    2. He was, in this respect, like Job who said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" - Job 13:15
  2. The prophet of God contrasted the blessedness of trust in God with:
    1. "Thus saith the Lord; cursed by the man that trusteth in man"
    2. "And maketh flesh his arm"
    3. "Whose heart departeth from the Lord" - Jer. 17:5-6 B. LET US DEVELOP THE LEADING THOUGHTS OF OUR TEXT TO SEE THAT JEREMIAH PICTURES OUR PRESENT DAY COMPLEXITY IN BOTH THE RELIGIOUS AND COMMERCIAL SOCIETIES
  3. The church of God faces the great conflict between light and darkness and between paganism and Bible Christianity:
    1. There is the challenge of secularism - life has become an easier thing; science has made machinery to do things for man that our forefathers never dreamed of
    2. That was the sin in the days of Lot - "They bought, they sold, they planted, they builded" - Luke 17:28
    3. That was the curse of God's professed people in the days of our Lord, "Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep and doves and the changers of money" - John 2:14
  4. But one eager to know the blessedness of trusting the Lord will find to his joy:
    1. The outburst of Joy - "Happy is the man that trusteth in the Lord"
    2. Secondly, we have an outburst of simple faith in God, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is"
    3. Thirdly, there is the outburst of courage no indication of defeatism; such is the trust of the child of God C. LET US NOTE IN CLOSING, THE DIFFERENCE IN THE END RESULTS OF
  5. Him that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm:
    1. The curse of God rests upon him - Examples: The fight between David, who trusted in the Lord and Goliath who held flesh for his arm - I Sam. 17:46-51
    2. The rich farmer who consoled his soul because he placed his trust in his possessions - Luke 12:16-20
    3. Then we think of the rich young ruler - Matt. 19:16-22
    4. "For he shall be like the heat in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh" - Examples: this truth is demonstrated by the early experience of Lot in Sodom - in the end he had to walk away from his earthly possessions with his life - Gen. 13:10-11; 19:16-17
  6. How different is the experience of one that trusts in the Lord:
    1. "He shall be like a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out his roots by the river" - Examples: Abraham chose to trust the Lord with his choice, and note what God said to him, "Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art northward, southward, and eastward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it and to thy seed" - Gen. 13:14-15
    2. Said David of his life, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" - Ps. 23:1-6
    3. Again he testifies, "I have been young and now I am old, yet, have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread" - Ps. 37:25
  7. But when we think of the blessedness of trusting in the Lord:
    1. We must not confine the blessings to the material things only
    2. But much more to the blessings of the Spirit - that is what the gospel of Christ emphasizes - James 2:1-5
    3. The blessedness of becoming partakers of the divine nature - 2 Pet. 1:2-8; Rom. 8:28-29


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