Let us once again turn to God's most precious word, shall we, in our main text for today, which is from Proverbs 3, and we'll be looking in particular at verses 5 and 6. That's Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6 for today's sermon. The subject for today's sermon is knowing God's divine directions for our lives. Do you know of God's divine directions for your life? Today's text makes it very clear, doesn't it? Whether we understand it or not, that in life we will be directed by someone or something or some system. You know, the person who says, I'm an independent thinker, really, he is being led by someone or something. He may say, well, I'll never be put to adversity, I'm not gonna fall into the same traps as everyone else has, but he will be led by someone or something, won't he? And we, who are believers, know that that person is led a man, I don't need to be directed by a man, I don't need to be governed by a man, she will be led by someone or something, and we know that to be their sin. Our text says in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways from Southampton, and I'm sorry to say that I'm born in sin, but you know that already, don't you? I am born in sin, and we're all born in sin, aren't we? We're born with a faulty understanding. We know that from the minute we're born, we don't have to be told to do wrong, we naturally do wrong, because we're born in it, we're born sinners. And we have a nice cute little baby, almost three months old, ways of righteousness, to the law of God. And so, you know, Solomon here, who the law of God gave wisdom, and people in that, in those days, people from around the known world came to hear Solomon, Solomon's wisdom. That was God's wisdom, not the world's wisdom. And they came to hear Solomon, to hear the words of God, and let us take on board these words of truth. And people came from around the world, Let us make sure that our hearts and our minds pay attention to the Lord's words. In essence, what the inspired Solomon is saying is that it's only when we look outside of ourselves to something far greater than ourselves that we can know truth. The problem is with our culture, But you know, there is a negative here, and there is a positive. In verse five it says, lean not unto thy own understanding. You see, we have to taste the sour before we can know the sweet. Isn't that true? We have to be broken down before we can be built up. But you see here, Solomon says, yes, we need to be broken down. Yes, we cannot rely upon our own understanding, upon our own ways. But there is directions with God. We can know God savingly. We can know truth. And he says positively, in all thy ways, acknowledge him, the Lord God, your creator, and he shall direct thy paths. It is only when we look beyond ourself, our own efforts, to try and get right with God. And we see that with all the religions of the world, don't we? like with God or with man on their own, on their own ways, their own standards, with reason. But it's only when we look outside of ourself to the Almighty, to the person, the Lord Jesus, who said, I am the way, the truth and the life. It's only when we do that, friends, He is to hear you. He is a personable God. We're made in His image to have a relationship with Him. He is the fountain of all good. Every good that we feel below, love from a loved one, kindness, it's all from Almighty God. He is a personable God. You see, the false gods of the world will tell you that you've got to do something. the table of our hearts. They're written upon the table of our hearts. The Lord God has endowed us with faculties and with senses and with abilities and with directions to know Him savingly. The commandments are written upon our hearts. We have a conscience that tells us right from wrong. We know that there's a truth, don't we? Because we have a conscience. We know within that there is a light, we can show common grace and love, but also there's a darkness, we can be mean and unkind. But yet he has put directions within us. However, the God of this world, the devil, has blinded the minds of those who remain unbelieving and unrepentant, who still lean on their own understanding, world, and such that remain under the influence and the power of the devil, have had their understanding darkened. The means and the senses and the abilities and the faculties given by God to direct us to our Maker are now employed by the many in the devil's service, in making men and women slaves pointing the finger, anyone here, or anyone listening to today's sermon, think again, because I've got three fingers pointing back at me, because this was me for many, many years, and there will be people who will testify, for 28 years of my life, I was a slave to my sin, I lived for my impulses, I lived for what I thought was right, I lived for the cultural ideals, I leant on my own understanding. It was my way, it's not God's way. I was a God of my own life, friends. And so by nature we are slaves to sin. And so that begs the question, are you a child of God or are you a child of the devil? You can know very easily if you're a child of God or if you're a child of the devil in how you use the powers You can know a tree by its fruits, can't you? In our hearts God has given us directions, hasn't he? The commandments are written on the table of our hearts. We have a conscience which tells us right from wrong. There is an absolute truth to why we exist. Everything is not relative, there is a truth. We know, don't we? We can be 80, 90 years old, but we know that there is an eternity. Because we could be 80, 90, 100 years old, but yet we may still feel like we're 20. Because we're made for eternity. Now yes, the outward may be crumbling a little bit and grey hairs becoming on, but we know deep down that there is an eternity, there is an absolute eternity. We know that there is sin, and we know that there is truth, and we know that within us lies no good thing. And so we have to, the commandments are our school headmaster, that teach us that we cannot get right with God by ourself. We have to look outside to someone by faith to save us, to give us truth, to stir us up, as it were. And God gave Solomon wisdom which We would do well if we would desire to know God's savingly and know of God's heavenly directions. He says in verse five, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. The Lord God will not have him, he won't compete with his creation. You're either on his side or on the world's side. We can't bolt God on to our life, can we? We have to give Him our whole hearts. We have to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. If we desire God, we've got to look outside of ourselves. The commandments teach us that we cannot save ourselves. We have to look to our maker. And that's why it says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Don't come up with your own scripture. by nature. I'm skeptical of my own understanding. I have to look to God to save me. I have to look to His salvation. In essence, what the Lord God is telling us, that knowledge and understanding of Him, the infinite or the infinite God, the creator of the universe, He who is outside of time, the infinite cannot come. The knowledge and understanding of Him cannot come from within ourselves. It is only when we look outside of ourselves to heaven for direction. And he has built him that map within us, hasn't he? The commandments. They teach us that we're depraved, that we're sinners. And we have to look outside of ourselves. That's what the commandments do. Which one of us here could have read the 10 commandments? I put my hands up, I'm sure everyone here can put your hands up. We couldn't have written the Ten Commandments. They are righteous, they are perfect. Which one of us could have penned, thou shalt not covet? None of us. They are written by the hand of Almighty God, given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and written upon the table of our hearts. And they teach us that we need perfection in life. We need, there's a righteous standard in life. enter into heaven unless we are made righteous. And so the commandments teach us these inbuilt maps and directions God has put within us. We need to worship something, don't we? Or someone. We need to be led by someone or something. And if we will not be led by God, we'll be led by our sin. We'll be slaves to sin. We're made to worship. And that, my friends, is a great sadness we see in the world, don't we? We see that people are wanting to worship something. And if they do not have the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God in their hearts, they'll always be empty. I was empty for 28 years, I was empty. There was a great void in my heart. I tried to fill it with all sorts of things, people, things, materialism, what the culture told me to do, and that could never fill that emptiness, We're made to have a relationship with our maker in the image of God. And friends, we try to fill ourselves with the things of this world, but you see, we're made for eternity. And so how can we use temporary things to fill an eternal void? That cannot be done. We need the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the way, the truth, and his life. He will set us free from any false misconceptions He will set us free from being a slave to our sin. And herein lays one of man's greatest problems. And that, of course, is the problem of the pride of life, isn't it? The pride of life. We think we've got all the answers to life's questions, don't we? And the sad reality is, is that we don't, do we? We don't. We don't know half the truth. We don't know a quarter of the truth. And yet we pretend. Don't we? We build these great cities, as it were, like Nineveh, and we think that we've got all the answers, but we don't. It says in Psalm 146, that we read earlier, verse three, put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in other words, your fellow human being, made in the image of God, in whom there is no help. How can man help us? This isn't someone who is absolutely truthful and righteous. How can our help come from man and princes, experts, just because someone has a white lab coat and tells you that you've come from some primordial soup some billions of years ago? It is absolute rubbish, friends. We're made in the image of God. We all know it deep down, don't we? And if we lean on our own understanding or on the ever-shifting, and misleading opinions of men, we have been deceived, haven't we? And we are slaves to our sin, we're being led by the devil, we're in great peril, eternal peril. You know, we witness this in life, don't we? We see with a foundation, with a builder, someone, a builder has got to lay a foundation, and it's got to be solid, it's got to be stable. 400-year-old house that was standing firm. It must have been built upon a rock, I'm sure it was. I don't know what they built it upon, but it was solid, that was for sure. 400 years old, and it was still standing. And so these truths being true, why then do we not spend, why do we not spend, we spend such little time proportionally speaking in making sure we have the right foundation Why is it that we age and die? Of course, we know that we age and die because of our sin. That's why we age and die. We know the reason why we're wearing clothes is because of sin, don't we? Why don't the animals wear clothes? It's because of sin, it's because of shame. It does not matter You will die, and I will die one day. And we will die if we are led by our sin and not our maker. We will die in our sin, and we will face an eternity in hell, because we have neglected so great a salvation. You see, many people have accepted that one day we will die. Many people. We talk to people, I talk to colleagues, and recently one man said to me, when you die, you die. That's it, you're dead. And that's not true. When you die, then comes the judgment. Because we worship, we know that God is a God of justice, don't we? And so sin has to be punished. When you're dead, that's not it. We're made for eternity. And when we die, then comes the judgment. And we will, everyone will be judged according to righteousness. And so, if you can keep the commandments perfectly, If you want to gamble and you think you can keep the commandments perfectly, one day you'll be standing before the righteous judge of the world. And what will you say? What will you say before him? If you're in Christ and you know Christ as your father and you cry unto him, you don't look at your own understanding, you don't go your own ways, but you look to Jesus Christ alone for forgiveness, full and free. You don't know him as your judge, but your father. You cry unto him as a father, that he gave his only begotten son for you. Now, you may charge God, and I've heard this before, with being unfair, with being unfair. How can God banish me for an eternity for my sins upon earth? How can God do that? That's not fair. And I'll tell you why he can do that. Because deep down, like I said, we know that we're made for eternity. We're made for eternity, it's like the prodigal son. What did the prodigal son say? I've sinned against thee, father, and against heaven. All of us know there is an absolute truth to why we exist. And we know that we're made for eternity, so when we sin against God, we sin against him and eternity. And so, God is just to banish people to hell for eternity. Now, as I've said, the Almighty God has given us directions, a built-in map, a school headmaster that will teach us the way of salvation upon our acknowledgment, upon Him by God's grace. The commandments are written, they are in-built directions to us. They teach us that we cannot rely upon our own hearts, upon our own minds. They have been totally We can show common grace, can't we? But which one of our faculties hasn't been corrupted? My eyes? They've been corrupted. My mind? They've been corrupted. My ears have been corrupted. My heart's been corrupted. My hands have been corrupted. Every part of me is corrupted. How can that which is right come out of a bad root? It can't, can it? And so when I think upon the commandments that God has written upon my heart, how can I save myself? How can I trust all these other religions in the world that say, I have to pray five times a day, I have to do this, I have to go to bed, I have to do all these things to get right with God? I cannot. It's only when I look outside of myself, my own self-worth, my own filthy rags of righteousness, to the only savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ, only when I look to Him alone and cry unto Him for salvation, full and free, can I know of God's saving grace in my life. It says in Ephesians 2.8, we are saved by grace, through faith, and not of ourselves. That it's the gift of God. It's the gift, it's a free gift, not of works, lest we boast. Because naturally, we are boasters. You can either be transformed by God, or conformed to the world. If you've been transformed in believing in Jesus Christ as your Savior, there will be a distinct change in your affections and your will. You'll be able to say, won't you? Not my will be done, but thine be done. We learnt about the Lord's Prayer recently. God gets all the glory in the Lord's Prayer, doesn't he? It's all about him. And true believers know it's not about us, it's all about him. It's all about him. He, can, the arm of the Lord, it's not, it's not, I can't remember, can the arm of the Lord, Isn't it? It's him that does the work, friends. There will be a distinct change in your life if you're saved. A Christian, even in the valley of the shadow of death, can say, thou art with me. Even, like David, can say, although I have these enemies, enemies from what else? Saul, Absalom, Goliath, and the host of conspirators conspiring against me to take me away from God, the crown away from me, to oppose God's causes, and I have my own sin. All these enemies. But Lord, thou art with me in the valley of the shadow of death. And how we need that, don't we, nowadays? The darkness of the UK now. And we've abandoned the God that has put the great into Great Britain. It's because of our Christian heritage that we have the freedoms. You go to Iran, you go to Egypt, you go to other countries, that have not embraced Christianity in days gone past. And look at the turmoil, look at the confusion, look at the oppression. It's because of our heritage. And so we need to cry unto that Lord again. We're in dark times, friends. And there are even worse times coming. And I'll tell you something, if you're not in Christ, if you do not know your sins forgiven, and are totally depending upon Him, you're in big trouble. We are in the end times. We don't know exactly when the Lord's gonna come. But if you're not in Jesus Christ, you need to, friends, you need to look outside of yourself to Him and be saved. Job said, didn't he, in Job 13, 15, though He slay me, ye now will trust in Him. Though He slay me, I've lost my children, I've lost everything, my income is destroyed, everything is destroyed. And even my wife is telling me to curse The God that gave me everything. And I'm coming to boilers. And I just need a friend. I need a friend to come and to comfort me. And my friends come and they tell me that I've done something wrong. These lousy comforters, as it were. And though he slay me, yet I will trust in him. You see, Joe understood, didn't he? in the sovereignty of God. He is the giver of all that we have. The strength that we have, it's from Him. Everything that we have, it's from Him. So if the Lord chooses to take things away from us, blessed, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away that which He giveth. Blessed be the name of the Lord. How can I complain? He has given me dust. I don't even deserve And so if he takes things away, how different from the worldling. You see, when the worldling will do something, oh, I blame God. Oh, why are you trusting in God? But not the Christian, because we understand the giver. We understand the giver. Can you say with a psalmist in Psalm 25, verses four and five, show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait all the day. You see, you see the dependence the psalmist had upon the Lord God. Show me thy ways. Not my own ways, I'm not looking to my own reasoning. Show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths, the paths of righteousness. Help me to have a higher view of your commandments. They will point. I'm your mercy alone, the prophesied Messiah. I'm trusting in the promises of God. I trust and believe in the promises of God. Like Abraham, that will be accounted to me for righteousness. Are we trusting in the promises of God? Or are we trusting in the empty promises of man? Lead me, he says, in thy truth. Which directions are we going in? We're either led by ourselves or led by God. We're seeking independence, don't we? Thou art the God of my salvation. On Thee do I wait all the day. I dare not trust in my own self. I dare not trust in my own abilities, in my own reason. I have to be taught by you. I have to be led by you, Lord. If you truly look to Christ, If you seek salvation His way, you will find it. The problem with much of Christianity today is it's worldly, isn't it? It's nominal. We're seeking Christianity, aren't we? I want to bolt on God. I don't want to give up my sin. I don't want to turn from my sin and live and look to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. I want to bolt God onto my life. I don't want to search Him with all my heart to seek Him. I don't want to forsake my own understanding. I want to bolt Him on. of Christianity we have today, dear friends, and it's not biblical, is it? The commandments will no longer make you feel uncomfortable when you become a Christian. Rather, you will delight in them. Like David, I meditate upon your commandments. It's a blessing to be here on the Lord's day. People say, don't go, COVID-19, don't go to the Lord's house, don't do this, don't do that. What does God say? Whose side are we on? Are we on God's side, or are we on the world's side? We need to do things His way. Friends, if there be any listening who do not delight in God's commandments and words, their form of Christianity is nominal at best. Because the Lord God said in His word, didn't He? He said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. But you see, His commandments have got to be built upon the right foundation. If it's just trying to keep the commandments, But when we look outside of ourselves, and the commandments, we're convicted that we cannot save ourselves, the commandments cannot save us, we can't be justified by the commandments, and we look to Jesus Christ, it directs us to look to Him, it directs us to look to someone higher than we are, powerful than we are, righteous, far more righteous than we are, and we look to Him, we can say, look unto me, all the ends of the world, and be ye saved. saved? Is it an intellectual ascent that does not yet know the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Many people know Jesus Christ, don't they? They've been told, but they don't know the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why set our minds and our hearts upon things which are going to be burnt up, friends? Let us set our minds upon eternity. Christ lives and he is interceding for you. You're at the knees of Christ. He lives. And so what are we waiting for, friends? Why carry on in sin where you can live and live for eternity in paradise like the thief upon the cross? He saw the Lord being ridiculed and he said, Lord, remember me. Remember me. He didn't say, forgive me. He said, just remember me. I know I'm not worthy of you, Lord. I know I don't deserve to know you. I don't deserve to be forgiven, Lord. But just remember me. Have pity on me. Have mercy upon me when you're in your kingdom. Friends, it's only when we look outside of ourselves to Jesus Christ alone to save us. The pearl of great price. We sell it all, don't we? So that we can get that pearl of great price. So we sell all our fields so that we can get that pearl. We found it, we tell our friends. I found the pearl of great price. The things I've got. I've been looking for all these times. I've been so, I've been living a life that's been a lie. Now I have the truth in me. I have the pearl of great price. I'll sell everything. I'll count everything but dumb and I may win Christ. When you're Christ, you can save the Apostle Paul. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. Shame comes when we do not try to seek after God. And there's no shame if there's someone here who has not yet saved, who's trusting alone in Jesus Christ. There's no shame in that. if you're not yet Christ. The shame comes if you do not seek Him. Because people are saved at different times. The shame comes if you know within your heart you're not truly His. The shame comes if you do not truly seek Him with all your heart, friends. And by faith and by prayer, look to Him alone for the free gift of salvation, to God's glory alone. And then you'll be governed by scripture alone. Our entire confidence needs to be in God's way of salvation, not our own. And this clearly points to that, doesn't it? And the Holy Scriptures clearly points to that. What it comes down to really is this. Will you believe in God's directions through Christ for salvation and righteousness, that imputed righteousness he gives you? Or will you continue to be led by Salath and by man? Most churches and the Christianity, the normal Christianity, tell you you can have both. You can have a bit of the world, you can have mammon and a bit of God. You cannot. You cannot sit on the fence. You've got to make a decision by God's grace. You're either fully on Christ's side or you're fully on the devil's. You either look to heaven or you're looking to hell. Your decision making process is either made in heaven or it's made in hell. You either believe upon Him by faith and depend upon the power of God, or the buzzword for today is you're either empowering yourself. This word, you hear that? Empowering. I need to empower myself. I can do it. Self-determination. Independent spirit. No, friends. You either look to God's promises found in Holy Scripture or man's empty promises. You can either cast all your care and burdens upon him and know of his tender loving kindness as a tender father, you can cast all your care upon him and your understanding, or, of course, you can cast your care upon the world, which will soon be destroyed. What will it be? What will it be? God's divine directions, which I've explained, or the broad road that leads to sinners who do not look to Christ alone. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. And no doubt, you who are gathered here today, who trust in the Lord, and are saved by grace, and trust in the power of His blood to cleanse you from all sins, you too will serve the Lord, because you are bought with a great price. And may this beauty of God's glory alone let us, Let us sing to God's praise, shall we? Hymn 541. 541. I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus. Lift up your voice, friends, come, Jesus, come. I doubt my portion, and my living bread. In Him I lend, while all in dust I fear. He saves from death, destruction, and despair.