Volume 9 Post/Email 5 – Trusting God
Our VBS last week was on stories of God, David, Saul and Jonathan. We divided the adult class responsibilities among four of us guys. The story I taught on Tuesday was in First Samuel 22 where Saul kills the 85 priests of Nob.
This was an evil act! It was an atrocious decision fueled by an out-of-control leader. His cruelty went beyond those holy men who wore the linen ephod. Verse 19 mentions that Saul also killed the men, women, children and infants in the city of Nob.
What are we to make of this story?
God continues to permit Saul's madness in the chapters following, including allowing David to suffer as a fugitive. Why would God remain longsuffering? Why not intervene?
Without claiming to have all the answers, nor complete insight into the mind of God, His Word does provide His people with spiritual truths to hold to and guide us.
The following verses mostly convey a message about God. They magnify God and His transcendence and power as Almighty, and that we cannot fathom the depths of who He is. A few also provide the application that we are called to trust God 100%, which is a matter for which God's people wrestle.
"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has been his counselor?" -Romans 11:33-34
"For who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." -1 Corinthians 2:16
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:8-9
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." -Proverbs 3:5-6
"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the LORD a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The LORD is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." -2 Peter 3:8-9
"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal. He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust." "Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you." -Isaiah 26:3-5, 8a
"This is what the LORD says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." -Jeremiah 17:5-8
Following the Nob massacre, David had an opportunity in First Samuel 24 and 26 to kill Saul. He chose, rather, to trust God and wait on God to deliver. He waits. David walked with God and waited for His timing.
Galatians 4:4-5 reads, "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights as sons."
God waited, and waited, and waited, and when the time had fully come, God sent his Son. Why? Redemption.
God provides a way for wicked men to become righteous! God punishes Jesus on our behalf! God provides an exchange of sin for salvation through Christ!
We can exchange all of our idolatry, bigotry, pride, and other sins, and receive salvation and newness of life! Now we live in peace and harmony with Him, including trusting Him.
Reflection Question: Can God be trusted?
-Brian
