"In God We Trust" March 18, 2018 AM

Jeremiah chapter 17 and looking at verses 1 through 11 this morning. Jeremiah chapter 17.

The title for the sermon this morning is In God We Trust, a familiar refrain to say the least.

In God We Trust. Thus far in Jeremiah we have been on a front row seat, so to speak, of the struggle between God and His people.

He made them. He forged them. He gave them all that they needed.

He delivered them with great power as we heard from Psalm 78 this morning. He gave them a good shepherd,

King David. He gave them other good shepherds like King Josiah. But this people, this people continue to pursue idols.

They continue to serve other gods. God laments in Jeremiah that they are to him as if a husband was betrayed by his wife and she went to live in the woods like a wild beast that would roar at her husband whenever he would draw near.

We come now to chapter 17. We've thought about the promises of judgment and salvation of the stones that were cast away and the stones that are gathered together there in Jeremiah 16.

Now we come to a passage where a very clear distinction is made between those who trust in man and those who trust in God.

I'll begin reading from verse 1. You'll notice the key verses in verse 5 and 7.

Would you please stand with me as I read the text and let us receive this message from our

Lord Jesus Christ. The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus.

With a diamond point, it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars.

As they remember their children, so they remember their altars and their asherim by green trees on the high hills.

Oh mountain of mine in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures for booty, your high places for sin throughout your borders and you will even of yourself let go of your inheritance that I gave you and I will make you serve your enemies in the land which you did not know for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.

Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength and whose heart turns away from the

Lord for he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness a land of salt without inhabitants.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the

Lord for he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots in its season extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes but its leaves will be green and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit.

The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?

I the Lord search the heart I test the mind even to give to each man according to his ways according to the results of his deeds as a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid so is he who makes a fortune but unjustly in the midst of his days it will forsake him and in the end he will be a fool.

This is the word of the Lord those who have ears to hear let them hear. You may be seated.

On September 13th 1814 in the harbor of Baltimore Maryland Fort McHenry came under assault by the

British fleet. 25 hours of shelling were witnessed by Francis Scott Key a 35 year old

American lawyer who had boarded the British flagship to deliver one of his friends from their custody.

He was successful however the British had let loose a secret that they had planned to bombard

Fort McHenry and did not allow Francis Scott Key nor his friend out of their custody.

They sent them to their ship but not would not let them leave and so from eight miles away

Francis Scott Key witnessed this 25 -hour bombardment of Fort McHenry.

The commander of Fort McHenry had some months earlier requisitioned an enormous flag to be made in his own words so that the

British would know their defiance from miles away and this flag was easily seen by Francis Scott Key and until the smoke of the bombardment hid it from view yet in the morning he could still see the flag and so he wrote down his thoughts in verse and this poem was later then published and sent out under the title of Star -Spangled

Banner. And in the fourth stanza of this poem one that has been turned into a hymn he says this, oh thus be it ever when freedom free men shall stand between their loved home and the war's desolation.

Blessed with victory and peace may the heaven -rescued land praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must when our cause it is just and this be our motto in God is our trust and the star -spangled banner in triumph shall wave or the land of the free and the home of the brave.

In God is our trust. Fifty years later at the onset of the

Civil War, a pastor from Massachusetts sent a letter to the

Treasury Department saying that we ought to deliver ourselves from the ignominy of heathenism by placing upon our currency some statement of the

Almighty God showing where our faith truly was. So the

Secretary of the Treasury Department sent a letter to the head of the mint with some suggestions of what might be written down on our coinage.

In his letter he wrote in God is our trust, famous line from the star -spangled banner.

He then, before he sent the letter, crossed out two words and replaced it with one, in God we trust.

Not only because that's better verbiage, it also is shorter and less letters to put on tiny coins.

In God we trust. And this began to be adopted on certain coins and it fell in and out of favor but mostly the coins that were produced in the

United States had this phrase on it, in God we trust. So accepted was this practice that when in 1908 a $20 coin was minted without this phrase, the public outcry was so large that Congress was forced to pass a bill to say all our coins must have this phrase, in God we trust.

Later on in the time of the Cold War, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, spurred along by members of Congress, wanted to show that we believed in God, not like the godless

Soviets, said we are going to put on all our money, coins and bills, this phrase, in God we trust.

In fact, we're going to make it our national motto, in God we trust.

So there's the origin story of why we have that phrase on our money but I wonder if it's a complete origin story.

I wonder where Francis Scott Key got the idea to write, in God is our trust.

I wonder if he got it from Jeremiah 17 verse 7. I don't know.

I don't know if he got it from that verse but that's certainly the theme of this passage, will we trust in man or will we trust in God.

In fact, we must exchange the curse of trusting in man for the blessing of trusting

Christ. I think that's the way to capture the meaning of this passage. In God we trust.

Is that a true statement? Is that something personally true for you? Is it something that is true of our state?

The state of Mississippi has it on their seal, the state of Florida has made it their state motto. Is it true of the places in which we live?

Is it true of our nation? In God we trust. It's an important question to ask after all, as we see in the text.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind but blessed is the man who trusts in the

Lord. What a huge contrast and that contrast is set before us this morning. We got to give it due consideration.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and who makes flesh his strength.

See that verse 5? Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength.

What does it mean to be cursed? I think in popular nomenclature is the idea of somebody having a bad time.

If you get cursed then you have unexplainable pains and you have unexplainable problems happening in your life.

I must be cursed, someone might say, but that is not what it necessarily means in the Scriptures.

Cursed does mean bad things are happening, but it's really about a bad relationship.

To understand what a curse is, perhaps we should understand what a blessing is, so for that you can turn over to Numbers chapter 6.

This is a passage that I often quote at the end of a service, but it's a blessing, at least this is a blessing that was entrusted to the

Levitical priests to say to the people to bless the sons of Israel. Verse 22, the

Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to Aaron and to his son saying, Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel.

You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the

Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, give you shalom in the

Hebrew, a wholeness, a completeness, so shall they invoke my name on the sons of Israel and I then will bless them.

That's a blessing. It's a blessing that takes into account primarily our relationship with God and then therefore the goodness of our relationships with others and everything else in our world.

So what does it mean to be cursed? It's been said to read this in the reverse and we learn a curse.

Instead of the Lord bless you, the Lord curse you. Instead of him keeping you, he exiles you.

The Lord hide his face from you and be wroth with you. The Lord cast you away and give you war.

That would be a curse. It sounds pretty intense, doesn't it?

It's the opposite of a blessing. Why would someone be in this kind of relationship with the

Lord? Well, it's the same kind of relationship that God has with Judah at the moment because they do not trust in him, they trust in mankind and they have made flesh their strength.

They have made flesh their arm. How they get things done is the flesh.

What they trust in most is themselves and other people and cursed is the person who trusts in humanity, in humans, in men and women, in themselves.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. Why? Well, it's there in the passage.

We find out the diagnosis, the symptoms of those who trust in the flesh, verses 1 and 2.

We find that his passion is idolatrous. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind because his passion is idolatrous, verses 1 and 2.

The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus, with a diamond point.

It is engraved upon the tablet of their heart and on the horns of their altars.

As they remember their children, so they remember their altars and their asherim by green trees on the high hills.

Their passion is idolatrous. Do you see how deeply written it is?

How permanent it is? It's an iron stylus.

This is no reed from the side of the river. This is an iron shaft with a diamond point that carves deeply into a stone making a permanent statement on their heart, a collective heart, the social conscience of this nation.

When you peel back all the layers of who Judah is and you get down to the rock bottom of their soul, what do you find there written in permanent etches?

Idolatry. Later we'll hear the heart is more deceitful than all else.

Who can understand it? I, the Lord, understand the heart. God says, you may not understand your heart, but I understand your heart.

And when I get down to the very depths of who you are, I find carved deeply into stone in a permanent fashion, idolatry.

In the story of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, there is a stone table. And written on the side of the stone table with a stone knife are carvings that go deep, deep into the stone so that no longer how, no matter how long that stone table sits there, no matter how it is weathered over the years, the marks will remain no matter what.

What remains in your heart no matter what? What is it that's carved deeply in your heart, carved permanently on the stone tablet of your heart, that no matter what happens in the environment around you, no matter what circumstances there are, this truth never changes.

What are those, what are those things written down on the stone tablet of your heart? On Judah's heart, it was idolatry.

And in fact, it wasn't just written on their heart, it was written on the horns of the altar.

The altar of God had four horns. It sat in the courtyard of the temple.

Upon these horns, blood was to be placed. Above the, on the altar, sacrifices were to be placed.

Blood was to be sprinkled, offerings to God in faith that he is a God who is holy, and he is a

God who is merciful, and he is a God who will forgive those who trust in him. But upon their altar, upon their altar as it was on their hearts, so they had engraved the truths of idolatry.

Whatever was written on their hearts was also written on the horns of their altar.

Do you understand what that means? Whatever is most deeply written on the stone tablet of your heart is what you worship.

Whatever is written on the heart is written on the altar. It's true of Judah, it's true of us.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind because his passion is idolatrous. How is it that he's trusting in idols, worshiping the

Asherim, and the Baals, and Molech, and Chemosh, and all these false gods, and the Queen of Heaven?

How is it that they're worshiping these gods, yet it is that they trust in mankind? All of these gods were made by men.

All of these gods are made by men, and men are telling them, this is so, and this is thus, about this

God and this goddess. And so in the end, it's nothing but trusting in man. What man can invent, man -made religion.

There are many man -made religions in the world today, and all those who worship the gods and goddesses invented by these man -made religions are cursed because they trust in mankind.

It's all by effort. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes flesh his strength, that makes his own effort his own confidence.

There is one woman left, and she is courageous.

There is one woman left at the corner of Southwest 44th and Blackwelder.

One woman left protesting the place where they murder infants.

One woman. She is there, she's on her knees in her black habit, and she has her prayer beads, and she has her crucifix, and she's waging war.

But her religion teaches her it is by effort that she will succeed. It is by how much she will do that will truly matter.

And we ought to labor hard in prayer, but it will not be by the amount of effort that we give, but by the power of the one that we serve, that victory will be achieved over evil.

I think we need to remember that, and how closely, how closely man -made religion comes to our own hearts.

How precious it can seem to us. As they think of their children, it says in verse 2, as they think of their children, so they think of the

Asherim. How often do you think of your children, parents? How often do you think of your children?

That's how near idolatry can be to your hearts. Something that you think of as often as your children, as precious to you as your children.

So idols can be, and so deeply graven upon your heart is your love for your children.

So also, so deeply graven upon your heart can be your love of idols. And indeed, they must have loved these idols as dearly as their children, for they were handing the eternal destiny of their children over to these idols.

And whatever you worship deep down in your heart, whatever it is, if it's fame, if it's success, if it's money, if it's recognition, whatever it is, whatever you worship most deeply down in the depths of your heart, as precious to you as your children are, will be what ultimately you are handing them over to for their future.

It is your trajectory, and you're trying to launch your children according to what you greatly value. May we greatly value

Christ. May we greatly value the Scriptures. May we greatly value the church.

May we greatly value what God greatly values. Curses the man who trusts in mankind, who makes flesh his strength, because his passion is idolatrous, and his way is rebellious.

Verse 5 concludes this way, whose heart turns away from the Lord. Just so we're clear, curse is the man who trusts in mankind, and whose heart, who makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the

Lord. Just so we're clear, those who trust in mankind and makes flesh their strength necessarily turns his or her heart away from the

Lord. These two things cannot go together. You cannot make flesh your strength and God your glory.

You can't. These things cannot coexist, and so to trust in the flesh necessitates that our way is rebellious.

We value independence. We value independence. We surely do.

We value independence as a nation. We value independence in our history. We value independence in our own autonomy as personal individuals, but if we try to establish independence from God Almighty, that is rebellion, because God is our

Creator. God is our Creator. He made us in this image to love him supremely.

We live independent from that. We are in rebellion, as was Judah. Cursed are we, exiled at war with God, if we trust in the flesh, because our way is rebellious, and our heart is devious.

The heart is devious. Verse 9 says, the heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick.

Who can understand it? Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. Why? Because when you begin to rely on mankind, if your source of truth comes from what most people are saying most of the time, you think the weather in Oklahoma changes often.

Truth, as far as the world is concerned, changes more often than the weather here. If you try to believe what most of the people are saying most of the time, you're gonna have to change what you believe all the time, because the heart is deceitful, more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick.

If you try to rely on the flesh, if you try to depend on yourself, I'm just gonna follow my heart.

The heart is more devious and deceitful than all else. Who can really follow your own heart?

God forbid. God forbid that you would follow your own heart. God forbid that I would follow my own heart.

Down deep on the stone tablets of my heart is sin, etched deep, and unless God reaches down and erases that sin and writes his law on the tablets of my heart, my passions will not be in line with his.

God forbid that we would ever follow our own heart. This is my desire, this is my emotion, this is my experience, this is what

I feel like. God forbid that we would follow our own hearts. Do not let your heart guide you.

You can watch Disney movies, just don't believe the message. Don't follow your own heart.

His treasure is worthless as well. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. His passion is idolatrous, his way is rebellious, his heart is devious, and his treasure is worthless.

Verse 11 is meant to be humorous. We don't live in Jeremiah's day, so we don't get the joke.

As a partridge that hatches eggs which it has not laid, so is he who makes a fortune but unjustly.

In the midst of his days it will forsake him, and in the end he will be a fool. You can translate this one way or the other.

The partridge, the picture is this. The partridge is a bird that does not live in a pear tree.

The partridge is a bird that was known to Jeremiah and his countrymen as a bird who would go and steal eggs from other birds that had left them unattended.

Not to eat them, but to take them to its own nest, so its nest got bigger and bigger and bigger. And this partridge would have all kinds of eggs in its nest that weren't its own.

You might find a partridge with an ostrich egg, and this partridge can't hatch it because it's not big enough.

And or the ones that it does hatch of these other species of birds are hatched, and it's completely different from the mother, and they either die or if somehow they survive, they leave because the partridge is not of their own kind.

So what a foolish bird is the partridge that gathers all these eggs into her nest and has a mound of eggs, but when hatching time comes it's a foolish bird for they either won't hatch or they will and they die or they do and they leave.

And where's your treasure now, oh partridge? So also is the one who makes a fortune but unjustly.

So also is the one who makes a fortune but unjustly. This includes those who would lend to the poor and charge them enormous interest rates simply to prey upon the desperation of the poor.

You get a lot of those businesses in our neighborhood. It includes those. It also includes the people of Judah when they would seek to ally themselves with pagan nations to perhaps add to their own security, perhaps add to their own wealth through trade because they share the same gods.

But what's the point? Gather all the eggs you can, but they're not going to hatch well.

Curse is the man who trusted mankind who relies upon the flesh to do things to accumulate for himself a good and successful life because in the end his treasure is worthless.

This is one of the reasons why there was a clamor to place upon our coinage, upon our currency, the phrase in God we trust.

To remind ourselves that it's not the money that we hoard that makes us who we are, but it's

God who made and preserves us a nation. He should be our trust.

Now interwoven along with these four things about a man's passion and way and heart and treasure is his future and we read about this in verses 3 and 4 and verse 6 and verse 10.

But in verses 3 and 4 God says of Judah, of Jerusalem, O mountain of mine in the countryside

I will give over your wealth and all your treasures for booty your high places for sin throughout your borders and you will even of yourself let go of your inheritance that I gave you and I will make you serve your enemies in a land which you did not know for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.

Jeremiah has already been instructed not to pray for the deliverance of Judah because it's not going to happen. They are going to be taken away into exile.

Everything that they had is going to be gone. Their wealth, their country, their idols, their plans, their families, their society, everything will be gone.

They decided to go their own way and their own way led to disaster. Look at verse 6.

Speaking of the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength whose heart turns away from the Lord he will be like a bush in the desert.

Have you ever been to a desert? Have you ever been to a wasteland? Not the big dunes of sand.

Stop thinking about those. Think of a big flat plain, cracked ground, hardly any vegetation, hot wind, and in one of the cracks of this dry and arid place there's a bush.

It is not an impressive bush. You wonder if this bush is alive and perhaps it barely is alive.

If you were to go up to this bush and nudge it with your toe you may uproot it and end its miserable little existence.

Such is the one who trusts in the flesh. Such is the one who makes flesh his strength.

He'll be like a bush in the desert. There will be no prosperity. There will be no inhabitants. He will live in stony wastes in the wilderness.

That is a good picture of what it means to be cursed. To be made in the image of God but devoid of the life of God.

To be cursed. Here in verse 6. Also verse 10. I the

Lord search the heart I test the mind even to give to each man according to his ways according to the results of his deeds.

God said to Israel if you will live by my law if you will keep my covenant

I will let you stay in the land and bless you and prosper you but if you do not these things will fall upon you in worsening succession until the time at which you are exiled from your land.

He promised them that in Deuteronomy. It was all scripted out and they're following the script to the bitter end.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. This is everyone. This is everyone who was born of Adam and lives as Adam.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. Trust in the flesh. To rely on self.

To do things one's own way. Cursed is the one who trusts in themselves.

Who trusts in the flesh. I'm so glad for thee. Many references in the

New Testament that Jesus Christ spoke as the

Father instructed him to speak and did all that the Father told him to do.

That Jesus Christ trusted his Father and did all that the

Father wanted. Blessed is the man who trusts in the

Lord. I know of no one who trusted the Lord more than Christ and I know no one who was more blessed than him.

I think it's important for us to remember as we think about the message also in verses 7 through 8.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. Verse 7, did you hear that?

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. It's an interesting way of putting it.

On our coins and on our currency it says in God we trust. Blessed is the man who trusts in the

Lord. What we do not have on our currency is the following. God is our trust.

That would be a good idea. What's the difference? It's the difference between subjective and objective.

It's the difference between hearing the tornado siren and running for the storm shelter.

I am taking refuge and then being in the storm shelter looking around at your refuge.

You're taking refuge in the refuge. I'm trusting in the

Lord who is my trust. The subjective side is me trusting God but the objective eternal truth which never will be changed is

God is our trust. He is our refuge. He is the faithful all -powerful good

God who never backs down off his promises. Blessed is the man who not only trusts in the

Lord and says in God we trust but whose trust is the

Lord. You can tell when someone's trust is the

Lord because they refuse to depend on themselves.

I will not follow my heart in this situation. My heart will lead me astray.

My heart will lead me into idolatry. My heart will lead me into conflict. You can tell when someone's trust is the

Lord because they don't depend on the flesh. They're not out for themselves.

They're not gathering worthless treasure. They're not determining for themselves right and wrong.

They are depending on the Lord. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord whose trust is the

Lord. There's a blessedness here that Jeremiah speaks of which can best be understood from Psalm chapter 1 and Psalm chapter 2.

So if you back up a little bit to Psalm and look there in chapter 1 and chapter 2, we can see some passages that Jeremiah must have been meditating on as he was receiving this message from the

Lord. An echo of the Holy Spirit from the writers to the prophets.

Notice the similarity of language in Psalm 1. How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the seat path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

In other words, how blessed is the man who does not trust in mankind, who does not make flesh his strength, but his delight is in the law of the

Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. Here's the man who trusts in the

Lord and in whom the Lord is his trust. What does that practically look like?

If we're not depending upon the flesh, then we are delighting in the

Scriptures. My heart is devious, but God's Word is true.

I will be led by the Scriptures, not my many advisors.

Not my circumstances. Not my many emotions. I will be led by the

Scriptures. In his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season.

Its leaf does not wither and whatever he does, he prospers. That sounds like Jeremiah 17 verse 8.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes, but its leaves will turn green and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit.

You hear the similarities? How blessed is the one who makes the

Lord their trust, who trusts in the Lord. Also notice the idea of refuge there at the end of Psalm 2.

Although as we see in verses 1 through 9, those who trust in mankind and making the flesh their strength, rebelling against God, but now therefore, verse 10,

O King, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

Do homage to the Son, that's Jesus Christ, so that he not become angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled.

How blessed are all those who take refuge in him. How blessed. How blessed is the one who trusts in the

Lord and the Lord is their trust. How blessed. We see this blessedness in verse 8 because the man who trusts in the

Lord, the person, the man or the woman or the child who trusts in the Lord, they are blessed because their life is abundant.

Verse 8 begins this way. He will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes, but its leaves will be green.

It will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. There's abundance. There is fruitfulness in the life of the one who trusts in the

Lord and the Lord is their trust. There is fruitfulness in that life. What kind of fruitfulness?

It's the kind of fruitfulness of the image of God being filled with the life of God.

The fruitfulness of this person is a person who loves God supremely and everybody can tell.

The fruitfulness of this person's life is someone who loves others rightly and you can tell.

Somebody who cares for the creation around them responsibly, takes care of their own things in a responsible, generous,

God -honoring way and it's clear. That kind of fruitfulness because they're a tree planted by the water, right?

Where's the best place to put a tree? What's the best environment to put a tree? Think of the best place to put a tree and watch that tree flourish in season and out of season no matter what happens because the tree is filled with the life that God gave it in just the right way.

Look how fruitful and abundant that tree is. That's who we are in the image of God when we trust in the

Lord and the Lord is our trust. We are as fruitful and bountiful as God ever intended for us to be in all the ways he wants us to be.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the

Lord. That person's life is abundant and that person's future is secure.

His future is secure. He will not fear, verse 8 says, he will not fear when the heat comes.

He will not be, it will not be anxious. This tree, this man, this woman will not be anxious in a year of drought.

Why not? Because we're not trusting in mankind and making the flesh our strength.

We're trusting in the Lord and the Lord is our trust and he doesn't change. He doesn't wither.

We may be up and down but he's always the same. The same good and gracious God.

In God we trust. That is a good motto for our country.

It's a good motto for a state. It's a good motto for us personally. In God we trust.

Ultimately that only makes sense if God is our trust. Interesting thing happened around September 11th, 2001.

All around the country in government schools that have been intensely secularized, posters started going up.

They said in God we trust. Nobody made a fuss and they were allowed to hang there for a time.

In 2003, a survey revealed that 90 % of Americans greatly, strongly approved of the motto in God we trust as our national motto.

And that makes sense. We're so close to 9 -11. Yet even in 2011, the

House of Representatives voted 396 to 9 to maintain in God we trust as our national motto.

And it's interesting that throughout the years there have been challenges that come through the courts under some tortured rendering of the

Constitution to say that we ought not have God in any of our government whatsoever. Ever mentioned as if he had nothing to do with our nation.

And the attacks on this motto have been noted. But it's interesting to me that one of the very first attacks upon the motto was refused to be heard, was denied by a

Fifth Circuit court. And this is the way they defended it. They defended the motto by saying its primary purpose is secular so we can leave it be.

From 1979. Defending in God we trust by saying it's a secular motto so we can leave it alone.

It doesn't breach these concerns. Isn't that a tortured abuse of human language?

Spank our children if they tried that. That's a lie. Blatant one at that.

So I think the motto is secure. I don't think the motto is going anywhere. I think the motto is secure but I don't think its meaning is secure.

And we have may have mottos in our lives but is the meaning of these mottos secure? In God we trust only if God is our trust.

I was listening to a radio program just briefly a snippet of something my wife pointed me to.

I was like oh yes this is good to listen to. John Stone Street was talking about living in this world, training our children in this strange world we live in.

And he talked about the fact that very often as we speak with people we're using the same vocabulary and using different dictionaries.

So we need to labor, we need to labor to ensure in our own lives that we're not trusting in the flesh.

But we are trusting in the Lord and that man is not our strength but that the

Lord is our trust. And we need to labor this in our own lives personally and as we begin to exhort those around us in our lives.

Let's remember that the motto may be the same vocabulary but let's make sure that we're using the same dictionary.

There would be many in Jeremiah's day that would say oh yes we trust in the Lord but it would not be so.

May it be so in our lives this morning. Let's pray. Father I thank you for the time you've given us in your

Word. I pray that we would see and contemplate, meditate, apply this contrast.

Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind but blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. The Lord is his trust.

Father may that be true of us as we look to Christ. May we abandon any hope in ourselves but only cling to Christ.

And may you make us very fruitful in renewing us in your image. We may be a bright light and flavorful salt in this world.