Confiding and Committing

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much and hello again, dear radio friends, how in the world are you? Doing alright today? Well, I trust everything’s alright at your house, bless your heart. If perchance you’ve struck a rough one, and we all do now and then, let’s look up and say “Lord Jesus, see me through this one,” and He will, for He hath said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say “the Lord is my helper and I will not fear.” That’s the way to do it if you’ve struck a rough one, and if you’ve struck a good one, share it with Him! You don’t want your children to only speak with you when they’re crying about something. So if it’s a good day and you’re happy, sing a song to the Lord. Doesn’t matter if anybody else hears you; sing it to Him. Let your heart be lifted up with praise. Share your happinesses and your joys with God as well.

Well, we’re looking at Psalm 37 and we talked about “fret not,” and that means don’t get “burned up.” And the reasons of course for getting burned up are people who do wrong, and people who have it better than you. But don’t get burned up. Instead, trust in the Lord. Now that word “trust” means “roll it over,” confide in Him. Confide in the Lord.

Now you can’t tell your inmost secrets to very many people, and some things you can’t tell anybody. There are some things that ought to go with you, just you, to your grave. There are some things you just cannot confide. But when it comes to God, you can confide in Him. You can verbalize everything to Him, and should do so. There’s a great release, I’ve found, in getting alone with God and saying “Lord, I can’t tell this to other people; they don’t understand, but I want to share it with you.” Then you just open your heart to Him and tell Him how you feel about things or people or situations or about yourself. Confide in the Lord.

Not only that, but he says “Do what you know to be right.” Do good. The antidote for getting burned up is to confide in God and do what you know to be right, and then to delight yourself in Him. When He has filled the horizon of your soul, when He has filled the cup of your spirit to overflowing, then you’ll be praying in line with the will of God and you’ll get what you pray for. “He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” If my heart gets right with God, my praying will be right. That’s what verse 4 teaches us, there in Psalm 37.

Well, that was all review. Now we come to verses 5 and 6. “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday.” Now this word “commit,” I’m told, is a Hebrew word that actually means “roll upon” or “repose on.” Roll it over on Him. It’s the same sense that you have in a verse that says “cast thy burden on the Lord.” I think it’s the same grammatical construction. “Roll your burden over on the Lord; commit thy way unto the Lord.” Now, he says, “your way” means “what am I going to do next?” “Your way” has the idea of traveling on a road. “Go this way; he went that way.” This is the way to do it; this has an idea of procedures. So whether it’s travel or procedures or methods or relationships or travel, “your way” involves motion and decision and direction. Now, he says, you roll that over on Him. If you did it literally, it’s “roll thy way upon the Lord.” Just roll it over on Him. Why?

Well, because a man pondereth his way, the Bible says, but the Lord directeth His steps. “In all thy ways,” (Proverbs 3, 5, and 6) “acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” “Lord, I know that it is not in Man that walketh to direct his steps,” said the Psalmist. “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. Thine ear shall hear a voice behind thee saying ‘this is the way; walk ye in it.’ When ye turn to the right hand or to the left,” it is “your way.” God is interested in what you do next. Roll the whole matter over on Him.

Now that doesn’t absolve you and me from responsibility. It does, however, put us in a position where God can guide us. Now that makes a very great deal of difference. Commit your way to the Lord means roll it over on Him. Trust (that’s our word confide again) also in Him, and it says He shall bring it to pass. I wonder how many plans you and I have made that never came to fruition. Oh my, the list is endless, isn’t it?

When I was just in my salad days, just out of Moody Bible Institute and saving up enough money to go to Wheaton College, I would just walk by a certain vacant building that had once been a church; it was now vacant, used sometimes as a union meeting place, but otherwise not used at all. And I would walk past that building on Chicago’s West Side and I would say to myself, “one of these days I’m going to have that full of people. It’s going to be a place of worship. We’ll have services, and we’ll win souls, and I’ll have a choir and an orchestra,” and oh I made plans. Well, it never happened, you know. I went to Wheaton and they called me as pastor of the Glen Ellyn Gospel Tabernacle, a little handful of saints that met in the basement of a defunct bank building, and I went on through the college years that way and went on to Philadelphia to another church, and so on. Plans.

He says, ‘you commit your way.’ That involves direction and decision and method, doesn’t it? He says, you commit, roll it over on Him and confide in Him, and He will bring it to pass. I have to tell you something: there isn’t anything about which I have prayed earnestly over a period of time that hasn’t happened. God has a way of working things out; He brings it to pass. Romans says, “God calls things that are not as though they were.” God’s Word creates reality, and when God’s Word begins to work in your life, then those things that were simply plans or concepts become reality. He brings it to pass.

Now, He does two things. He’ll bring forth thy righteousness as the light. When God begins to work in your life, nobody questions whether the light is on. Your righteousness is His. “God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And it’s His righteousness unto and upon all them that believe. We’re justified that the righteousness that we have is of God, isn’t it? So, He says, it’s going to just be like turning on the light when God begins to work in your life. There won’t be any question about who’s doing it. There won’t be any question about whether or not it’s right. When God does something, you’ll know it, and so indeed will everyone else. Thy righteousness.

And then he says Thy judgment. Judgment is our word vindication. I think that’s the idea. It’s an idea of vindication. If you go back into the original language (and it’s in the plural), it’s “your vindications.” You find it in some texts. Not once but many times, questions are raised, such as “why is He doing this?” “Why is this happening?” But if you’re in the will of God and you’ve committed your way to the Lord, He’s going to work it out. Sometimes it takes a long time; in my case it has sometimes taken as long as 20 years. There was a dear Christian leader who said to me, I suppose it would have been in the 1940’s, “I have to oppose you, because I don’t believe you’re using the right methods.” Twenty years later, I hadn’t changed, I must say, but here came a letter from that same man that said “Dear Bob, I just rejoice in what the Lord is doing through you; keep on.” Twenty years.

See, you don’t have to arrange things yourself. You don’t have to prove that you’re right. You don’t have to argue with people. You don’t have to justify yourself. Don’t bother with that. Roll it over on the Lord. He’ll turn the light on, and He’ll see to it that what you have done that is in His will, will be vindicated. Let Him do that. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ saith the Lord.” You don’t have to set things straight. I’ve sometimes said to the young people at the college, “you don’t have to be God’s policemen, going around with a club and knocking heads together and trying to straighten things up.” God doesn’t work that way.

All you have to do is to be faithful and obedient, and let God work through you, and He’ll turn the light on, and He’ll prove that what He told you to do was the right thing. Your judgment (and that’s vindication) will be just like the noonday. There won’t be any question about it; it’ll be bright, it’ll be clear, you won’t have to argue it. Anytime you have to argue the rightness or wrongness of an action, it means that there is some question of doubt there. If there’s any doubt in what you’re proposing to do, go back on your knees and wait before God until you’re sure. Then go ahead. He’ll vindicate you if you let Him work in your life. Roll it over on Him, and obey Him. Good idea, wouldn’t you say? Well, we’ll get at some more of this the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today, help us to confide in Thee, and to roll the burden on Thee, and to obey Thee. In Jesus’ name, I ask, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!