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In Whom Do We Trust?
April 10, 2021

In whom should we place our trust as Christians? In a time when the world is seeing light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, do we place our trust in scientists, government officials, or should our trust be placed elsewhere? Before we continue, this study is not about whether or not you should or should not be vaccinated because that is a medical decision to made by you in consultation with your health professionals. This study is also not about fighting public health guidelines as I am confident the health professionals who have developed these guidelines know more about infectious diseases than this author and probably you, too.

The question remains, as Christians, in whom should we place our trust? Let’s begin our study closer to home. Would you trust your friends? This thought was part of what the prophet Micah wrote about. Micah, one of the minor prophets wrote about a time when oppression of people was common immediately before and at the fall of Jerusalem to Sennacherib in 701 BC. He wrote of people who from their bed devise schemes to take away money from other people. Today, there are still people who think like these people from the time of Micah. Micah wrote about a Jerusalem that might have had different technology available to it, but that also sounds familiar to life as we know it today. Micah also wrote about trusting friends.

Micah 7:5-7
Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

Micah very bluntly shares to essentially trust no man, not your friends, advisors, or even people in your own family, sharing that people are betrayed by family. Micah also shared that he would look to the Lord and wait for God. Micah trusted in God. Other prophets living near that time, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos, also wrote about problems they saw.

Jeremiah wrote about trusting man and trusting God. He clearly proclaims a curse on people who trust in man because people who place their trust in men and not God forget about God. He adds that people who forget God live in a place where God cannot bless them, comparing their existence to a person in a parched desert. Jeremiah concludes by stating that not only is the human heart deceitful above all things and incredibly wicked, the human heart is impossible to know and therefore imprudent to trust.

Jeremiah 17:5-9
Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For 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. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as 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. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Isaiah wrote of people who trusted in foreign nations other than God, because ultimately people who look to other people for help will come to a point in their life where they no longer rely on God, no longer having trust in God.

Isaiah 31:1-9
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD! Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of them that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together. For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it. Turn ye unto him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted. For in that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin. Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited. And he shall pass over to his strong hold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the LORD, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.

Hosea writes of a time when there is no truth, mercy, or knowledge of God in the land and how this results in all forms of evil. As a punishment for this time, Hosea writes of a time of environmental distress, where the land mourns, and farms are not fully productive. He adds that it will be a time of challenge for livestock, birds, and aquatic life. Hosea also writes that during this time there will be those who think of themselves as religious yet succumb to the sins of the world around them. All of this results from forgetting the law of God with a further penalty of God forgetting about the children of these people. Hosea shows that God proclaims His people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, not the knowledge that is based on the falsehoods of this world, but the knowledge that is based on the truth of the Bible, mercy, and the knowledge of God.

Hosea 4:1-10
Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away. Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest. Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame. They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings. For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.

Amos wrote of a time of distress personified as Israel where cities are decimated with a huge loss in population. Through Amos, God tells those who will hear that those who seek God will live. He tells those who turn judgment into condemnation who also conveniently forget about righteousness to seek God. The evil is so intense at this time that God inspired Amos to write that the prudent will keep silent. It is during this time that evil multiplies exponentially and that the negative fallout from speaking the truth will be far greater than any change of heart by the people who hear the message of truth. Yet, during this time as in all times, God’s people are told to seek good and not evil, so that we might live. We are still to hate the evil and love the good so that judgment might be established and so there might be a hope for the remaining people.

Amos 5:1-15
Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name: That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

In the New Testament, Jesus spoke simply of what we are to do. With this knowledge of evil that we see about us, and the imagery of the prophecies we read, it would be normal to be concerned about our future existence, because we compare what we read about these future events to the life we have today. Jesus tells us not to worry about our physical life, because God not only knows what our physical needs are, God will provide these needs to us.

Matthew 6:25-33
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Because we live in a physical world we are surrounded by other people. We need to remember that in every situation we have on this side of eternity, we are interacting with other people who are subject to the corrupting forces of evil. These people will never be in a position to offer us salvation. All they might be able to do is make life on this side of eternity more tolerable for the moment, provided what they offer us is aligned to the will of God in our life. In our minds there should never be a question about whom we trust. We can maintain deep respect and regard for the knowledge and professionalism of the medical community and scientists. Whether you like a politician or not will likely be determined on your own political bias. But none of these people is worthy of our trust because none of these people can offer us salvation. The truth is there is no person on earth who can offer you salvation, not even a person whom you may regard as deeply religious. The answer to in whom we should place our trust is very clear. It is God and Jesus Christ in Whom we should place our trust.

All verses are from the King James Version.
This site provided by Tom Laign. To all who may believe differently, I also extend peace and love.
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