Trusting God: The Path to Spiritual Vitality

God had taken this people you remember he' made them a nation he' taken that one man Abram and had turned him into a nation and he had given them great exceeding great and precious promises he had said I will be to you a God and you shall be to me a people and he had promised them great and wonderful things but he had also warned them that if they departed from him that if they forgot him that if they listened to the other nations and followed their way of life well as certainly as he would bless them if they obeyed him he would curse them if they disobeyed him he made it quite clear to them at the very beginning. [00:45:00]

God has still not left them he still speaks to them he had sent a whole succession of prophets to them warning them pleading with them urging them to beware promising them blessings they wouldn't listen so now he sends the last of the succession, Jeremiah there are foolish superficial people who don't understand this man nor his book they think he's just a pessimist but there was never a greater realist Jeremiah was given this most uncomfortable task of telling these people that it was the last chance and that if they didn't accept it well that the curse would descend upon them. [00:03:12]

One cannot but be amazed at the mercy and the compassion of God who is so patient with us and so longsuffering why didn't he abandon these children of Israel long before why hasn't he abandoned the world why are we not all consumed who do not know him in his rough and in his anger but God is longsuffering and patient and kind and he go un addressing us and he has sent his gospel into the world to plead with mankind to show them that where they are and the way of Salvation and nothing is more wonderful than the way in which that message and that truth are presented to us here in the Bible which is the word of God. [00:04:40]

The Bible puts it so plainly and so clearly it puts it sometimes in definite messages in instruction it gives us bold unvarnished truth call it Doctrine call it what you like it's here in abundance but God doesn't stop at that he sometimes puts it in pictures so that though we may not be able to grasp truth and Doctrine well at any rate we can see a picture and he warns us with his pictures and he attracts us with his pictures my point is that he uses every conceivable method so that my dear friends if any of us here tonight shall ever find ourselves under the curse and the wrath of God to all eternity we shall be without any excuse at all. [00:05:12]

The real reason why man's life is as it is today without God is because men has turned his back upon God he's trusting himself instead of trusting God but as I say God doesn't stop at that he goes on to give us a picture he gives us a picture of the life of the man who doesn't trust trust in the Lord and he then gives us the contrast the picture of the life of the man who does trust in the Lord and that's the thing to which I want to call your attention this evening so that tonight we rarely are most concerned about verses 6 and 8 we are told about the man who does not trust the Lord but who trusteth in himself and maketh flesh his arm that he shall be like the heath in the desert and shall not see when good cometh but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness in a salt land and not inhabited on the other hand we are told that the men who trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is shall be like a tree planted By the Waters and that spreadeth out her Roots by the river and shall not see when heat cometh but her Leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought neither shall cease from yielding fruit. [00:09:36]

The inability to see these two pictures proves that that is an absolute necessity well it is in order to try and make that plain and clear that I'm calling your attention to these pictures this this evening let me put it like this the one thing that matters in this life and in this world is our relationship to God if our life is a life under a curse there's only one re real reason for that it is that we are not trusting the Lord we're trusting ourselves on the other hand if we desire the blessings that this Godly Christian Life offers to us well it is only available on one condition and that is that we trust the Lord make him his trust make him our trust and set our hope in him and in him alone. [00:12:57]

The terrible thing about the ungodly life finally is that it's a life that is valueless it is useless it doesn't bear any fruit it's not productive I could give you endless similar statements in the scripture bearing out that very fact take the one I read at the beginning tonight in the fifth chapter of the epistle to the galatian you notice the contrast that Paul draws there between the works of the Flesh and the fruit of the spirit the flesh cannot produce fruit it can only work and its works are perishing and they haven't life in them and their dead works as another scripture puts it. [00:37:54]

The tragedy of all tragedies that because of the soil because of its nature because of where it is it cannot even benefit from good it shall not see even when good cometh look at it like this look at that shrub there in the desert in that salt land and not inhabited there's a wonderful shower of rain and then there's glorious Sunshine the shrub doesn't derive any benefit from it at all it can't you see there's no root there there's no depth there there's nothing there to respond to it so that though you may get the sun and the rain and everything else the shrub Remains the shrub it doesn't see when good comes even it's so terrible in its condition that it can't enjoy the benefits that come to it. [00:46:28]

The fact is my friend that God so loved the world that he gave he has given he has sent his only begotten son into it he sent his son into this world to bless men to save them to deliver them from this sinful condition to give them pardon to make them his children to bless them with Joys beyond our imagination the Son of God Jesus Christ has been into this world and he's even gone to the cross on Calvary he's suffered it all he's gone down into the grave and has risen again in order that you and I might become princes and children of God and enjoy Eternal Bliss. [00:47:59]

It is only when men and women see themselves like that that they begin to see the need of a savior that they begin to see why it was absolutely essential that the Son of God should come from Heaven to Earth that education and culture and knowledge and will and self-effort can never do it that there's only one hope for men and that is that he be given a new life and a new nature a new start and a new beginning and that is the message of the Christian faith but in spite of our being what we are God has had mercy upon us he has sent his son to Bear our sins and their punishment in order that he might forgive us we need forgiveness we are a disgrace to God we are an insult to God we have been made by him to be like that that is sin we need forgiveness we need pardon this is got to be cleansed out of us and God has provided the way to do it he sent his son to die for our sins it's the only hope for us nothing else can do it because we are that and then he gives us the new nature he takes us and he plants Us in himself we begin to draw of his life and of his power we become like branches in a Vine we begin to bear fruit we are blessed ourselves and we become a blessing unto others. [00:50:21]

Have you been born again you can easily answer the question by just looking at your yourself in terms of the picture that I've held before you are you enjoying the benefits the blessings of God's gospel in Christ have you seen the good that has come are you bearing fruit if not you're still in the desert in the salt land and not inhabited and if so turn to him without a moment's hesitation confess it to him acknowledge it tell him that you see that all your pride was nonsense and all your boasting was idle tell him that you see are like the shrub in the desert ask him to forgive you and to Pardon you believe him when he tells you that he does so in Christ and in him crucified and ask him to give you this new life this new heart this implanting into Christ that will make you a new man you ask him and he will do so and the picture will be entirely reversed and will become like the tree. [00:53:59]