It is certainly easy to trust God when you either know the end result or even just understand the plan. But, as we all well know, most often we don’t have either of those things. And that leaves us with one question – are the promises of God sufficient for us? Do we trust God to be faithful and accomplish His good and gracious will even when everything around us would seem to indicate the very opposite. We are not the first to wrestle with this. Job, the patriarch Jacob, and the government official whose son was near death. They had no proof in front of them. The only thing that they could turn to was what God Himself had promised. Job had lost everything. Jacob was caught with God in a struggle to the death. And the official had nothing more than Jesus’ words “Go; your son lives.” The apostle Paul writes “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1) This is the true worship of God – to believe what God has said without any proof. It is enough that God Almighty has spoken it. If He has promised it, then faith knows it will come about and it can’t be any other way, even if at the moment the very opposite seems to be true. This is why we need to hear the Word of God every day. We are surrounded by temptations and evil. We are afflicted within and without. It is the promises of deliverance and salvation that alone are able to sustain us. You don’t need signs and wonders. You have something infinitely better – you have the Word of God with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. When once God has spoken, it is absolutely certain that that is exactly what will happen, regardless of what may happen in the intervening time. I look forward to seeing you all this coming Lord’s Day as we gather together to hear again the true and eternal Word of God who has given us life and promises to sustain us as we make our way toward eternal life where faith will be laid aside and replaced by sight.
Pastor Ulmer