Trust and Obey

10.21.09
J.A. Matteson

"The LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me….’" Number 14:11

The Lord is holy, dwelling in inapproachable light, transcendent in wisdom and power, condescending in grace to establish His covenant of redemption to a wayward and ungrateful race. Speaking to His servant, Moses, two vexing questions are posed. With regard to the first, to spurn the Lord through unbelief is to hold Him in contempt, for what a man truly believes about the Lord is not revealed in his speech, but by his actions, and what he does—or does not do—in relation to the clear Word from the Lord in Scripture.

Pilgrim, you profess your belief in the power of prayer and the prayer of power—do you pray? You profess the Lord as your provider—do you honor the Lord with the first fruits of all your increase? You profess the Lord alone as God—is there someone or something that has taken first position in your heart, stifling obedience to the Lord? You profess providence as the means by which the Lord brings to pass His sanctifying work in your life—has fear and doubt filled your heart because your circumstances are an enigma to you and the future appears foggy?

Religious men lay sport to great outward claims of piety, going so far as to accurately rehearse Scripture before the ears of mesmerized listeners, yet the fruit of their profession is bitter and lacking, not being connected to the life giving nourishment of the Vine. While the sea is calm they navigate the ship of their lives with ease, but when the winds of adversity built and the breakers beat against them the unbelief of their heart—that which serves as the foundation of their profession—becomes evident for all to behold. Truly did the Lord speak of these individuals, “But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great” (Lk. 6:49).

To doubt the Word of the Lord is to engage in character assassination of the Creator of the universe, bearing false witness against Him, violating the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex. 20:16). For the Scripture does not speak idly when it proclaims, “…let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, ‘That You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged” (Rom. 3:4). To practice unbelief of the Word of the Lord is serious, for justification from sin is by faith alone, and yet the faith that justifies is never alone, but always accompanied with the precious fruit of obedience to the Word of the Lord, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Heb. 8:10). The writer to the Hebrews explicitly states that apart from faith it is not possible to please the Lord (Heb. 11:6).

When assailed by thoughts of unbelief in the Word of the Lord, what course of action should a pilgrim choose? Confess your weakness and sin, throw yourself down upon the mercy of the Lord, beseeching Him to increase you faith—a gift from Him, pleading Him to infuse your heart with a faith pure and undefiled by doubt. Human reason and providence are typically antithetical to each other, and the depraved mind of man presumes upon the Lord that He ought to act in prescribed orderly ways, those which seems reasonable to man. The problem is man’s mind is polluted by sin and finite, incapable of grasping the secret council of the Lord and His providences; pilgrim, the Lord has spoken to your situation, will you trust Him or not?

When the providences of the Lord run as a counterintuitive stumbling block your paradigm of “oughtness” you must disregard the appearance of your circumstance and continue forward in faith based upon the clear Word the Lord has spoken, and unlike man He cannot lie. He has given you His Spirit who will lead you into all truth. As the words to the old hymn beautifully testify, “Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.”

Copyright (c) 2009 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isa. 40:8).