Depositing Your Trust in the Lord

[00:00:00] All right, let's get our Bible, go to Psalm number 31 this evening, Psalm 31, fitting Psalm to finish with before we look at Psalm 31 overlaps with what we're going to look at tonight, Psalm 31. [00:00:19] We'll read just the first verse here together. Psalm 31 to the chief musician, a psalm of David. [00:00:27] He says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. [00:00:32] Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Let's pray together. [00:00:40] Our Lord in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to meet together. Lord, I pray that you would stir up the hearts of your people to trust you, to obey you. Lord, I pray that you would stir up the hearts of your people among our congregation to serve you faithfully, to live for you faithfully, Lord, to give themselves wholly to you. Lord, I pray you'd help me to do the same. [00:01:08] As we look at your word here tonight, I pray from Psalm 31 as we look at basically one truth that's seen in this psalm, please guide our study. And Lord, I pray that you would use it, if you be pleased, to really help your people who are dealing with various things that they would fully understand and comprehend and grasp what it means to trust you. [00:01:32] Even as we look at this psalm tonight, in Jesus Name, Amen, Verse 1 introduces the topic I want to look at tonight that kind of runs as a thread throughout the whole psalm, and that is the idea of trusting in the Lord. He says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. [00:01:57] Now the idea is the way this is put in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. It almost presents trust, my trust as almost like a commodity, right? Or a deposit that you have that you can place in a certain you can go to, you can go to the bank of Travelers Rest, you can go to the bank of America, you can go to the, you know, you can go to BB&T, if that still exists. Or Wachovia. How many you remember Wachovia? Or I could go back American Federal. Anybody? Anybody know what I'm talking about? There's a few of you I'm surprised, but Ari doesn't know it, but anyway, you can. In other words, you have trust. And you can put your trust here, or you can put your trust here, or you can put your trust here, or you can put your trust here. In other words, at some point or another, you and I are going to place our trust in something. Okay? That's the idea. And he says in the o Lord, do I put my trust. [00:02:58] Now, before I say anything I want to about Trust. I want to address one problem with this idea of trust. If I were to say, you should trust the Lord, what would you likely say? You would say, amen, we should trust the Lord. But how many of these religious terms do we say without really considering and thinking about what that means? What does it mean to trust in the Lord? It's one of these, is it not? Kind of like one of these happy statements we say that makes us feel good that it's. We know it's right, but we just kind of say it and we nod in agreement. We should trust in the Lord. We. Without any real substance to what that exactly means. [00:03:38] Right. [00:03:39] Should you trust in the Lord? Should I trust in the Lord? Absolutely. We should trust in him. What does that mean? How do you do it? How do you know you've done it? [00:03:49] So I want to read a few verses, just do a very quick summary or maybe define what it means to trust in the Lord based upon the opposites of trusting in the Lord based upon alternatives to trusting in the Lord as we see in Scripture. The first thing I want you to see now, I'll just read these. You can note the verses. I'm not going to spend time turning to them all because there's some other verses I want to look at. But unworthy in Scripture, unworthy objects of trust, remember, trust in thee. To our Lord do I put my trust here. Are unworthy banks to put your trust. All right, Some defined in scripture. These are places you should not. God says you should not put your trust. You should not trust. And by contrast, we can understand and have a better idea of what it means to trust based upon the contrast. The first one is man. [00:04:48] Man. Psalm 118, verse 8 and 9. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. You have two man and you have political leaders. That's what number two is talking about. [00:05:07] Boy, I've seen so many Christians. Have you not seen so many Christians get so attached on the election of November? Well, if we just get our guy and everything be good. [00:05:20] No, and I mean, you guys know, you know, brother David is involved, Brother Rob is with us, and Priscilla's been involved in political things, campaigns and such. So it's not like we're eschewing involvement. It's not that at all. But we would be fools to trust in that. But the Lord uses that as a contrast. It is better to trust in the Lord, you know, whenever there's a problem, whenever there's an issue to what do we turn? To whom do we turn immediately? And oftentimes that tells us where our trust is. It's just that simple. [00:05:55] Psalm 146, verse 3. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the Son of man, in whom there is no help. In fact, I want to tell you something. In Scripture, God is offended when we trust in man instead of him. You know that when Israel trusted on the and leaned on Egypt in their distress, God took offense to it. He counted it as a sin, did he not? Jeremiah 17:5. Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man. What does that mean? And maketh flesh his arm. Notice what it says. And whose heart departeth from the Lord. [00:06:39] Trusting in man rather than the Lord is a sign that our heart has departed from him. 17 Jeremiah 17:7 says this. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is so man is an unworthy object of trust. And we know what it means to trust in man. We got a financial problem, we run to somebody, not to the Lord. We have a health problem, we run to somebody, not to the Lord. And sometimes the Lord uses those things. [00:07:06] But our reliance ultimately must be on him. [00:07:10] He is the one to whom we turn. The second unworthy object of trust is oneself or one's own understanding. You know these verses, Proverbs 3, 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and the contrast, and lean not unto thine own understanding. [00:07:25] You see, when we think we've got it figured out, we scheme, we trust in our own way of thinking. And this usually comes through in a philosophy. Well, just. And here's how it's usually framed. Well, God gave us common sense. How many of you have heard something like that before? But oftentimes that's nothing but a front for not trusting what the Lord has said. And instead trusting man's reasoning or man's philosophy or man's wisdom, which is clearly contrasted in Scripture. Lean not unto thine own understanding. [00:08:02] Proverbs verse 7 says this. Be not wise in thine own eyes. He says, fear the Lord and depart from evil. You know, sometimes people get in trouble because they tinker with evil, thinking it's not going to hurt them, and it does. [00:08:19] That's trusting in one's own wisdom. [00:08:21] They tinker with it. And he says, fear the Lord and depart from evil. Psalm 37, verse 5. We'll look at this later, but commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. [00:08:36] Proverbs 16, verse 3. Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. [00:08:44] So God says, it's foolish to trust in oneself and one's own thinking. Rather, the contrast to that is to trust in God and God's thinking and God's word and God's wisdom, which we know ultimately and most importantly is found in Scripture. Third thing unworthy object of trust is lies. [00:09:03] Jeremiah 20:8, verse 15. Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, hear now, Hananiah, the Lord hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. [00:09:17] To trust in a lie. The fourth thing that is an unworthy object of trust that shows us the contrast is riches and money. [00:09:25] Psalm 49,6 says this. They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches. [00:09:33] The Lord says, that's a foolish thing to do. [00:09:37] You know, our problem is, and I know, I deal with it. You deal with it. Everybody deals with it. The idea that if we have money, everything's okay. [00:09:46] You know what that betrays? [00:09:49] That betrays. We're mistrusting. [00:09:52] That betrays a trust. It's revealing a trust in riches and wealth rather than in God. [00:10:00] You know, even a wealthy person, even a wealthy believer, which they exist, there ought to be a conscious awareness of the fact that they need the Lord in their life and that their money is just one moment from being gone. [00:10:19] You see, that is what it means to be consciously trusting the Lord rather than riches. [00:10:26] Psalm 52, verse 7. Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of riches and strengthened himself in wickedness. And of course, you know this verse, 1st Timothy 6, 17. [00:10:42] Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. [00:10:56] So trusting in riches is foolish, and the Lord takes offense to it. Now, based upon that, we're going to see a few ways that we can in this psalm, because this is a running theme. Trusting in the Lord is a running theme in this psalm. It's introduced in verse number one. In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. [00:11:17] Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. But we see this theme runs throughout the psalm, and trust pops up in various ways and forms in the psalm. Look at several verses. Look at verse number two. [00:11:34] He says, bow down thine ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be thou my strong rock for an house of defense to save me. Look at verse four. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me. For Thou art my strength. Verse number 15. Look at this. Look at what it says. My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that persecute me. Verse 17. Let me not be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon thee. Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. [00:12:07] So his trust is manifested in verse 2 and verse 4 and 15 and 17, in the fact that he is calling upon God and asking for deliverance. [00:12:19] Here's the thing we need to remember. To call upon the Lord, whatever the need is, is an act of trust. [00:12:28] That's what we were talking about in the announcements. To call upon the Lord itself is an act of trust. You need a proof. Verse. All right. Romans 10:14. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? [00:12:40] You see, the call is a product. Lord, help me, Lord. I need your deliverance. I need your assistance, Lord. I can't do this. Calling upon the Lord. You remember Seth in Genesis? Then in the times of Seth, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. That's an indication of their faith, right, to call upon the Lord. The fact of calling upon the Lord indicates that we are not trusting in our own power to deliver or help ourselves in a time of trouble. And it also involves humility, acknowledging that. [00:13:21] Not acknowledging that. We recognize that we are insufficient to the problem that we face. [00:13:29] But not only that. [00:13:31] Listen, there are times when you and I face problems that we think we can deal with. [00:13:44] You and I face issues that we think, Got this? [00:13:50] I've got it. [00:13:53] My strength is sufficient to face this. [00:13:57] You know what we do in that case? We do not call upon the Lord. You know why? [00:14:03] Because we're trusting in ourselves rather than in God. So here's the thing. [00:14:09] Even in circumstances that seem normal, that seem easy, yet we should consciously make a decision, no, I need the Lord even in this thing, which might appear to me to be easy, right? You know, when you preach and teach, after a while, you know, from the perspective of ministry, when you preach and teach for a while, you get to the point to where you can just stand up and do it right? And preachers especially have a very. [00:14:46] It's a pitfall. It's a. It's a stumbling block to be very careful of, which is to just assume, oh, I know these verses, or I know this theme. I know this topic really, really well. I've taught on this before. [00:15:01] I know I can do it. I've done it. Right. [00:15:05] No. The right thing to say. No, I'm not going to deposit my trust. Verse 1. I'm not going to deposit my trust in myself, even in something that I've done before. I am going to put my trust in God. I'm going to acknowledge, lord, I need you. Yes, I've done it. Yes, I've faced this before, but I need you. This time. [00:15:30] I'm not trusting in myself. I'm trusting in you to help. [00:15:35] So calling upon God is an act of humble trust. Just that. Just that alone. [00:15:44] The second thing I want you to see is in verse 3. Look what it says. He says, for Thou art my rock and my fortress, therefore for Thy name's sake, look what he says. Lead me and guide me. [00:15:57] Asking for guidance is an act of trust. [00:16:02] By asking God to lead us and to guide us, you know what we're doing. We are, in effect, yielding. [00:16:09] Yielding in faith, in trust in Him. We're yielding our way to his way. Because when you say, will you guide me? What you're saying is, I'm going to go where you go. [00:16:25] Lead me. That means I'm following Him. [00:16:29] That is, wherever he goes. I'm trusting him to take me to the right place and that his way is better than the way I would walk if I wasn't following behind Him. He's leading me. [00:16:41] We are trusting his leadership. So asking God for guidance. Indeed, the prayer that says, lord, lead me and guide me, doing that is actually an act of trust in God's leadership, that his way, his direction is better and wiser than our own. I read this a minute ago, but it's fitting here. Proverbs 3, 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto Thine own understanding. I know what to do. I know the decision to make. I know where to go. No, stop. [00:17:16] I know the decision to make in this financial question. I know the decision to make in this relational question. I know the decision to make in this work question. Stop. [00:17:27] Lord, guide me. [00:17:31] Guide me. [00:17:34] You know what you're doing. You're choosing to put your trust in God's bank. [00:17:42] That's what you're doing. [00:17:44] So asking for guidance is an act of trust. Number three, rather, is this verse number five. [00:17:51] And you're definitely familiar with this. This is seen in Acts 7 as well as in Luke 23. Into thine hand I commit my spirit. You see, of course, this is the dying words of the Lord Jesus. He added the word Father, obviously because he's addressing the Father. But he says, into thy hands I commit. He said, commend my spirit. Commit means the same thing. [00:18:13] But what you see in that is even our Lord as a man, as a man committed Himself to God, to His Father. [00:18:24] What does it mean to commit yourself to God? That's what he's doing. In verse 5, into thine hand I commit my Spirit. That also is an act of trust. So we got. Asking God for deliverance is an act of trust. Trust. Asking God for guidance is an act of trust. Committing oneself to God is an act of trust. Listen to this verse. Psalm 37, verse 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord. [00:18:49] Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. [00:18:57] He shall bring it to pass. Listen, if you trust in God, trusting God is believing without scheming. As someone has said, believing without scheming. Here's the problem. [00:19:20] How many of you have had something that you desired or some goal that you wanted to accomplish? [00:19:27] And instead of committing your way to the Lord, that's what it says, right? Psalm 37, verse 5. Instead of committing your way to the Lord and trusting also in him, and he, trusting him to bring it to pass, Just look at the text, right? Just look at the verse. Instead of doing that, you schemed to accomplish it, you tried to manipulate to accomplish it. [00:19:55] Know what I'm talking about? [00:19:57] Can you just give me a nod if you know you're going to figure it out, you're going to work it out, you're going to make it happen, right? [00:20:05] There's a problem with that is because sometimes that's nothing but a front of trusting oneself. [00:20:14] You're scheming. And of course, you put a God sticker on it. You, you know, to sanctify it, sanctify our scheming. [00:20:22] But really, what the text says is, commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. You know who does it? Not our scheming, but him, but God Himself does it. [00:20:37] No scheming, you see, that's trust. You see, the moment you're scheming, the moment you're manipulating, we're demonstrating that we're not trusting in God. [00:20:49] That's hard to do because it involves patience, does it not? It involves yielding to God. It involves obedience. Committing your way to him gets us in a lot of trouble, does it not? What's the difference? Trust. [00:21:04] What's the difference? It's trust. [00:21:08] So number three is committing yourself to him, committing your way to him, entrusting him, entrusting your way to Him. If there's Something you want from the Lord. Listen, I promise you, God is faithful. [00:21:23] Entrust that thing to him, and he will bring it to pass. [00:21:32] Isn't that so simple? Right? It's so simple. But it's true. That's what Psalm 37:5 says. [00:21:41] It says, further, I will not go my own way, but I will go the way that God prescribes. That doesn't mean that we don't have a thing to do. But we don't need to be obedient to the Lord. We do. We don't just pray and say, well, I'm not going to obey the Lord. No, we obey the Lord. But it's when we go beyond obedience to the Lord and we try to scheme that thing instead of trusting in him, thereby trusting in ourselves. That's when we get into trouble. We start to make, to argue why it's okay to scheme that thing, that really we should be trusting God for. Because it says, and he shall bring it to pass, not me. He. [00:22:21] Number four, verse six. [00:22:25] He says, I have hated them. That regardless, lying vanities. [00:22:31] But I trust in the Lord. You have this idea of believing lies, believing God, truth, right? [00:22:43] Isaiah 59, verse 4. Listen to this verse. [00:22:46] None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies. [00:22:55] They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. [00:23:01] What this means is trusting in you. Either trusting in the Lord and what God says, or you're trusting in lying words contrary to His Word. [00:23:12] And to trust in lying words is lying vanities. Because listening to lies will prove to be empty and vain. That's why they're called lying vanities. This is lying vanities. Those two words come together in Scripture, in Isaiah and in Ezekiel and other places. [00:23:30] But by contrast, notice what it says, but I trust in the Lord. In verse number six, it is to trust in the truth in God's Word, not lying vanities. [00:23:44] We believe what he says as revealed in the Scripture, and we act upon it. Now, here's an important point you have to understand, and this is, we have to get this out of our Christian thinking, out of our Christianity is lip service to what God says. As if we believe it. We have to get lip service out. Because just like, oh yeah, trust in the Lord, you know, there's people that are going to hell that say that they're not even going to heaven. Their name is not written in the book of life, and they're going to hell saying they trust in the Lord. You know what that is? Lip service. [00:24:23] But there are believers. God's children, God's people who give lip service, give lip service to this idea of trusting in God and believing what the Bible says, and yet they don't do it. But the doing it the evidence of the faith, right? The doing it is the evidence, the outworking of the faith. [00:24:53] So it is really this simple. God says this, God says not to do this, or God says to do this, I'm going to do that or not do that. It's just that simple. And whatever decision I have, that's what it means to trust God instead of a lying vanity. But see, what we do is we say, we believe the Bible and we say it's the right thing to do. But then we make a carve out and a special exception for our particular circumstance whereby we do not have to do what the Lord says in that case. [00:25:24] And we trust something else which is a lie. Because if it contradicts God's word, it's a lie and it's vain and it will fail. [00:25:33] It will fail. It's. It will ultimately fail and it will ultimately harm us. But you see, it comes down to if we're going to put our money in the deposit, the account of the Lord, if we're going to put it in something that's vain and is a lie, look at verse number nine. [00:25:53] I'll just go ahead and tell you that this one, number five, is this trusting God despite contrary circumstances. [00:26:03] You know, it's easy to trust in the Lord. It's easy to rely upon him and the direction he's given and what his word says and the truths that you know to be true when things are going well. But what happens when things are contrary? Verse number nine. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief, grief and my years with sighing. My strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed. [00:26:35] I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and a fear to mine acquaintance. They that did see me without fled from me. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind. I am like a broken vessel, for I have heard the slander of many. Fear was on every side. While they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. Now notice all that I just said. [00:27:02] He's enumerating his sorrows. He's enumerating all the things that are against him. He's enumerating both physical issues and issues and contrary things in his life and problems even with sin in his own life. And he's also describing the slander of those who are against him. They're saying bad things about me, and people are. People are against me and they don't. They're not being kind and they're not showing deference and all these things. And then notice the contrast in verse 14. [00:27:35] In contrast to all of those contrary circumstances, he says, but I trusted in the O Lord. This is trusting God despite contrary circumstances. Because. Because we know that contrary circumstances, things that disappoint us, things that bring us suffering, things that cause us disillusionment. [00:28:03] We know that things that people say and do to us, that reveal poor their opinions of us, where people do not have good opinions of us, they say nasty things about us. [00:28:16] These things cause us to question the Lord. They cause us to question his way, whether we're doing what we should be doing. Because everything's going wrong. [00:28:28] When you're trying to follow the Lord and His will and things are going, it seems the winds are all contrary, what does that make you do? [00:28:38] It makes you be like, am I doing something wrong? What's going on here? And it'll cause our trust in God to waver. [00:28:46] But he says, I said verse 14, Thou art my God. In other words, even in the midst of contrary circumstances, God alone is enough. [00:28:57] It is enough. [00:28:58] That's what it means to have all your eggs in one basket, all of your trust in his account. [00:29:09] Look at verse 15 says this. My times are in Thy hand. [00:29:20] Take a peek at Ecclesiastes, just a couple books over. Ecclesiastes chapter 3. What does it mean? My times are in your hand Are in thy hand. My times are in thy hand. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 3 to get a better understanding of this. [00:29:41] My times are in thy hand. [00:29:45] Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1 says this. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. [00:29:58] A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, a time to heal, A time to break up, and a time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get, a time to lose, A time to keep, A time to cast away, time to rend and a time to sow a Time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time. Time of war and a time of peace. You know what this is describing? [00:30:36] The various events in our lives that come to pass at certain moments over which we have almost no control. [00:30:46] Why does this happen at this time? I was meeting with Anthony, who came on Sunday night, and he was talking to me about. [00:30:54] He was in a motorcycle accident. Car pulled out in front of him back in October of last year. Why did that happen? [00:31:01] Why did that happen at that time? That was one of the times of his life. He also talked about how a loved one had passed away recently and how that had affected him. Why did that happen? [00:31:15] Why do these things come to pass at the times that they do? This is the times of our lives, right? These are the events and what the psalmist says in Psalm 31, he says this. [00:31:28] He says, my times are in thy hand. [00:31:34] What does that mean? How does that relate to trust? [00:31:38] That means we recognize and accept and receive and believe that the various events in our lives that come to pass at various times, they are God's providence in our lives. That God is overruling and watching over and guiding all things in our life. Do you believe that? [00:32:08] Do you believe that? [00:32:10] That doesn't make it easy when things are unpleasant things. Although why is it that we always concentrate on the unpleasant things? We never think about the good times that God brings into our lives. We always remember the evil times, right? Do we not? But the good God brings just as well as. Just as well as the evil. All of that. The Bible says, in his hand, that's a trust. [00:32:32] That's a matter of trust. [00:32:36] And we respond in trust. Verse number 19, Psalm 31, verse 19. Get back there. [00:32:49] Oh, how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men. On trust. Here it is. Trusting God before others such that they can see. [00:33:06] I wonder if there's anybody in your life or my life that they can see with their eyes. [00:33:16] Acts of trust toward God that we have in our life. That's what it says, to trust in thee before the sons of men. You know, it's a shame and it's a reproach when the world sees God's people turn to the world or money man, and not to the Lord. [00:33:42] That's a reproach. [00:33:44] He's not worthy of trust, you see? [00:33:50] And so it means to trust God before others such that they can see a Trust in God. And that shows that God is worthy of trust. The last thing I want you to see is in the next to the Last verse, verse 23. [00:34:05] O love the Lord, all ye his saints. For the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. The Lord preserveth the faithful. That word faithful is kind of curious. You know, there's some passages you read, and it means one thing and you read another, and it kind of says something different. It means something different. There's actually three definitions to the word faithful as we use it. But it's all based on the word faith. Right? The first definition means to be constant in allegiance or affection. To be loyal, to be true. In other words, you are a person, okay? To be constant in allegiance. Leave it at that. Like this. Proverbs 20:6. Most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness. But a faithful man who can find right, a man who is loyal. Right? Matthew 25, verse 21. The Lord says, well done, thou good. And what does it say? Faithful. He's loyal, he's true. He has done what he has promised. [00:35:08] All right, then you have this definition. [00:35:12] Faithful can be defined as that which may be believed or relied upon. Trustworthy, reliable, dependable, like this. 1st Corinthians 4:2. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. In other words, we commit this man this. The Lord commits things to his care. He must be one who can be trusted. First Timothy 1:15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. This is true. This statement is true. It's worthy to be trusted. But I don't think that's what we're talking about. In Psalm 31, verse 23, the Lord preserveth the faithful. [00:35:49] There's one more definition, and it's this. [00:35:53] Full of or characterized by faith, believing, trusting. Galatians 3:9. Listen to this. [00:36:02] So then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. [00:36:09] This is not talking about Abraham's loyalty to God or his obedience. [00:36:13] No. Or consistency. This is talking about Abraham's faith. He was a man of faith, a believing man, a man who trusted God. That's what we're talking about here. Not only that, think about this verse as well. John 20:27, the Lord speaking to Thomas. Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands. And reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side. Be not faithful, less but believing or faithful. [00:36:46] Right? [00:36:49] Now go back to verse 23 and we'll be done. O love the Lord, all ye his saints, for the Lord preserveth the faithful. What does that mean? [00:37:00] The Lord preserves those that put their trust in God. He is not. When we take what he says, when we commit our way to him, when we hold fast to his word, when we act upon what he has said in trust, when we call upon him in our distress, even when we think we might be able to handle it without him, we still intentionally and consciously put God before us and say, no Lord, I need you. When we make God our trust and put our money in his account, our trust in Him, God says, I will preserve you. [00:37:43] You will not be ashamed. You will not be left out in the cold. [00:37:49] I will not leave you hanging. I will preserve you because you're trusting in me. [00:37:57] So this is not saying God will preserve those who obey Him. That's not what it's saying. It's saying God will preserve those whose trust is in him. And actually verse 23 goes back to the first verse in Psalm 31. Let's pray.