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  TRUSTING IN THE LORD'S DELIVERANCE'S
  by Dan Young
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of learning to trust in
the Lord, highlighting the need to trust in God's faithfulness over our
own understanding or abilities. It discusses the blessings of trusting
in the Lord, the consequences of trusting in oneself or others, and the
need to deepen our roots in God through seasons of dryness. The sermon
also touches on the significance of bearing spiritual fruit, seeking
healing from the Lord, and being faithful in times of affliction and
persecution.

Topics: "Trust in God's Faithfulness", "Spiritual Growth in Dry Seasons"
Scripture References: Jeremiah 17:7, Proverbs 3:5, Revelation 22:1, 2 Corinthians 1:8, Psalm 1:3, Galatians 5:22

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of learning to trust in the Lord,
highlighting the need to trust in God's faithfulness over our own
understanding or abilities. It discusses the blessings of trusting in
the Lord, the consequences of trusting in oneself or others, and the
need to deepen our roots in God through seasons of dryness. The sermon
also touches on the significance of bearing spiritual fruit, seeking
healing from the Lord, and being faithful in times of affliction and
persecution.

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CONTENT
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There's a verse there that says, how I've proved him over and over, and
I'd say, I'd almost like to sing that a little differently sometimes, I
would say how he's proved himself faithful over and over to me, and we
sing that song, I'm glad I've learned to trust you, that's a wonderful
place to be, if you can say that in confidence for me, I have to say I'm
glad that I'm learning to trust in you, and that's something we have to
learn as we walk with him, we have to learn to trust in him, we should
trust in him and not be afraid. It says, blessed is the man who trusts
in the Lord, his tree will be like a tree planted by streams of water,
and he will not grow weary, and I wanted to read a little bit about that
from Jeremiah, and you know, we live in a day and age where our test of
faith comes through trusting in the Lord, and in Jeremiah 17, he was
going through the exact, he was going through the exact same thing, he
was going through a situation where he was being persecuted or going
through difficult sufferings and trials, but it was, it was causing him
to put his trust in the Lord, to see the Lord's deliverances, and we
have to, we have to learn that, and unfortunately the only way to learn
that is for him to take us through different seasons and circumstances
where we learn to trust in the Lord and not in our own strength. A lot
of the time we trust in our own abilities and our own strength, our own
understanding, but it says, cursed is the man who trusts in his own
understanding, or cursed is the man who trusts in the flesh.

It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your
own understanding, so a lot of the time we're in situations where we
have our own understanding, we have our own reason, we have a better way
of doing it, I shared that last week, where we like to do our way, but
we have to do it according to the Lord's way, and we have to learn to
trust him in those circumstances, to say, Lord, I'm trusting you to lead
me and guide me in the path that I do not know, in a path that I do not
know. It says right here in Jeremiah 17, verse 5, it says, cursed is the
man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength and whose heart
turns away from the Lord. Now, this is one thing that you can trust in
men or you can trust in people around you, you can trust in anything,
but you can also trust in yourself, and I think sometimes this also
refers to it, where it makes flesh his strength and whose heart turns
away from the Lord, where you rely upon yourself, and really, this was
ultimately the test that Adam and Eve had in the garden, the sin that
was from the beginning, was where they had to eat from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, and no longer were they depending on the
Lord, they were depending on their own understanding to solve the
circumstance, and so we can do that, we can trust in ourselves, in our
own ways, rather than learning to just sit and rest and wait on the
Lord, and this is something that the Lord has to deal with in our lives,
and he has to sanctify us of this, and he has to cleanse us of this
confidence that we have in our flesh, this confidence that we have in
ourselves, and the only way to do that is for him to allow us to go
through dry seasons, for him to allow us to go through empty seasons,
where we don't sense the presence of the Lord, where we don't sense his
presence around us, the spirit of God doesn't seem to be moving as it
once did, I know when you're first born again, you experience waves of
the love of God, you experience waves of his presence, and every time
you pray, it seems as though there's an answer, and it seems like it
comes right away, and it gives you such joy and fervency, but as you
grow with the Lord, he removes himself, he doesn't answer those prayers
right away, in fact he allows you to go through dry seasons so that our
roots would go deep in him, so that we learn to not trust in ourselves,
but in God who raises the dead, there's so many passages in the Bible
about trusting in the Lord, and we need to remember that it's him who's
going to deliver us, it's not our own hand who's going to solve our
situation, it's him who's going to help us, the battle truly does belong
to the Lord, it says right here, 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, I mean if you drive
a few hours here up towards Kamloops, and you go into the desert there,
it's literally a dry and barren land, there's no life there, except for
snakes and other things that live underground maybe, but other than
that, there's no real joy being there, it's not a safe place to be, and
this is what happens when a man does not trust in the Lord, he trusts in
himself, it's not healthy for you, and some of us wonder why we are dry
spiritually, some of us wonder why it's difficult, some of us wonder why
we're lacking, and it might be because we're relying on ourselves and
we're not trusting in the Lord to do the work in our lives, you know one
of the greatest tests is to be patient, trusting the Lord and being
patient, they go hand in hand, did you know that? Trusting the Lord and
having to wait for the answer to come, they have to go hand in hand, and
that's a difficult place to be, because it really stretches your ability
to trust the Lord, it really stretches your capacity at which you know
the Lord, why haven't you answered this prayer yet, why haven't you come
to meet with me yet, where have you been? And so we have to, the Lord
brings us through that circumstance so that we no longer trust by the
things that we see, we no longer trust by the hearing of the ear, we
won't trust in our circumstances, we learn to trust in Him, but that's
usually not the case with us, we rely on the flesh, we rely on our
finances, we rely on our ability to do certain things, to solve
problems, because many of us here are very capable of solving the
problem, many of us here are very capable of changing our circumstance,
we are, we can do this, this, this and that, and unfortunately the Lord
has to allow those things to fail, so that we learn to say Lord it's
only your hand that's going to deliver me at this time, it's only your
hand that's going to do the work, and we have to be able to allow the
Lord to break us in that place, that's a wonderful place to be, that's
actually a good place to be, that's where you want to be, so that you
learn to trust in God, His word, and that He is faithful, and that He
will finish the work that He started, this is how you grow spiritually,
babes don't, they don't grow spiritually, they grow a lot as a baby,
because they're constantly in need of their parents, or their mom's
nourishment, things like that, but as you grow older, you don't grow as
fast, the majority of kids growing, but it's up to about 13, and then
they start to grow a little bit, a little bit, and that's how we get
stronger in the Lord, is when we learn to come to a place where we don't
always sense the presence of God, but we learn to trust Him anyways, it
says right here, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose
trust is the Lord, blessed is the man or the woman who trusts in the
Lord, and whose trust is the Lord, it's the Lord who's going to do it,
Lord I'm putting my trust in you, I'm learning to trust you, but it's
you who's going to deliver me, 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, and it will not be anxious in
the year of drought, you know, last year we had a year of drought here,
it was a, it was, it was a very hot place here, I've never experienced
heat like that in my life, I remember for three days in my house, I was,
I was so, I was so upset, because it was so hot, we don't have air
conditioning, and our upstairs was like a sauna, and I'm like, oh Lord,
I can't handle this, and, and, but this person here, in a spiritual
time, in a spiritual time, he says here that he will trust the Lord, and
he will not be anxious in a year of drought, and you know, so often we
get anxious, and last year you see a lot in the news, it's promoting, oh
man, we need to be anxious about these things, but this person here,
who's trusting in the Lord, will not be anxious in a year of drought,
and us spiritually, when we're going through dry times spiritually, and
we don't sense the presence of the Lord, and it seems as though there's
a spiritual drought in our life, and it doesn't be, there's not a lot of
life coming from us, what do we do in those situations? Do we try and
make something happen, or do we need to trust in the Lord? We need to
trust the Lord, and your roots will go deeper, you will start to feel
more of the water of the Lord, the life of the Lord coming to you, but
it's not our job at that time to just hoard the water for ourselves,
it's not at that time for us to maintain this, and some of us have been
withheld the Spirit of God, because we are not willing to give, we're
not willing to pour out our hearts for other people, we're not willing
to open the door for other people, we're not willing to do that, we're
so closed, and so the Lord sometimes has to stop the stream.

Whenever you have a sea that has no outlets, and you have a bunch of
inlets, that sea becomes stagnant and dead, and the Lord will close that
off if we are not willing to open the gates and allow that water to flow
out. The Bible says that he who waters, or she who waters, will
themselves be watered, and so we need to be willing to open up our
hearts to extend our hands, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to be
willing to share the gospel with people, to tell the people about Jesus,
to be a testimony and a witness, we need to be willing to not only that,
but to help and reach out to our brother and our sister in need, to pray
for those who persecute us, to pray for those around us who give us a
hard time, we need to pray for them, and thank them, and ask the Lord to
open our hearts to do that. It says right here, they will not be anxious
in the year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.

Now, I want to turn to Revelation. Some of us, we would say that we are
lacking fruit in our life, and Revelation 22, the last chapter of the
Bible, and we need spiritual fruit, we need to grow spiritually, guys.
When the Lord comes to our tree, does he find fruit? When does he find
the fruit of the Holy Spirit? And you know what will happen, is if you
are trying to produce fruit in your own strength, the Lord will allow
those dry seasons to come, so that you produce no fruit.

You want to know why? Because it will be a glory to you. You say, I did
this, or I did this, and I did that, and the true fruit of that in your
life, and you would say, well, I don't do this, I'm relying on the Lord,
I'm trusting the Lord, the true fruit of it is that you judge people who
don't do the same things that you do. The true fruit of it is that you
will look down on other believers.

That is the fruit of spiritual pride, and the fruit that's being born on
your tree is not the fruit of humility, or fruit of grace, or the fruit
of the Holy Spirit, it's actually the fruits of death, because you're
looking down, and people, when they come around you, they don't want to
be around you, because you're spiritually proud, and you know what, the
Lord, who's wonderful and patient with us, He will continually break us
down, and humble us, and allow us to fail, so that we start to bear that
fruit of graciousness, of kindness. When people come to meet us, they
can say, man, I was refreshed being around that brother, I was refreshed
being around that sister, and that's something that we should strive for
in the new year, you know, that's what I want. I would love to be more
broken, I would love to be more gracious, but that's not something I'm
going to do on my own strength, it's something that the Lord is going to
do in my life, but I would also like to trust that whatever circumstance
the Lord brings me into, that I can say, Lord, I'm learning to trust you
more in this situation, and God knows what each of us need for this
coming year.

He knows what each of us need for today, and we have to learn to trust
Him, and say, Lord, this circumstance is not very fun, I don't like it,
but I'm going to learn to trust you, I'm going to trust you that you
have my best interests in mind, and that you're going to help me in this
situation, and you're going to pour out your blessings on me at this
time. I think of Joseph, who was put in prison for how many years? He
was put in prison for for a number of years, but it says in that place
that that iron entered his soul. It says he was afflicted in bonds, and
Hosea says that he was afflicted in bonds and chains, but iron entered
his soul, and he got spiritual strength, but that was through a time of
affliction, and as we go through times of affliction, the Lord desires
to produce spiritual strength in our lives, and it says right here,
chapter 22, verse 1, it says, He showed me a river of the water of life,
clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

I remember I would talk to my brother Alim, and he would tell me about
going to the nice rivers where he would get to fish, and I remember one
time, you know, I was grateful, you know, I got to go visit him there,
and the water was so clear, and you see it, and it actually gives you
joy when you see clear water like that, and you can actually see the
fish in the water. It actually gives you peace and joy. You're like,
man, this is such a calm place.

I like this. Whenever we would go up to the creek, where we would lead
Bible studies on Wednesday nights, we would go there. There's a huge
river that runs right by their property, and we would go down and look
at it sometimes, and the water would be so clear, and you're like, man,
this is such a wonderful thing to see, but here it is in heaven that it
was clear as crystal coming from who? From the throne of God and of the
Lamb.

That's where we need to be drinking from, from the throne of God and the
Lamb, and it says in the middle of its street and on either side of the
river was the tree of life. Now, this tree of life is a tree, I believe,
where we are learning to depend on the Lord, and this is something that
we need to do, and that's where the tree of life is. Jesus imparts life
to us, and that's because we're walking in step with Him, yielding its
fruit every month, and we talked about that.

They will not cease to yield fruit in the year of drought, but these
guys yield its fruit every month. Every single month it bears fruit.
Now, I want to ask you a question.

I want you to ask yourself this question for the Lord. When was the last
time that I bore fruit for you? Can you show me this, Lord? Because some
of us, we have a high mind of, I know I do, I have a high mind of being
spiritual, but when I look at the actual fruit that's produced in my
life, that's when I start to question and say, Lord, how spiritual am I?
I can sometimes judge other pastors. I can sometimes judge other
preachers, and I can say, oh, well, that guy says the wrong thing, or
that guy says the wrong thing, but then when I look at the fruit in
their life, and I see some fruit.

Now, we talk about personal fruit, but there's also spiritual fruit.
When I look at their life, they've done so much more than I have for the
gospel, and now that's not the measure by which we say we're spiritual.
It isn't, but you look at that, and we can sit there and think ourselves
to be spiritual, but we've done nothing for the Lord.

We have no fruit to speak of, and it should burden us that that is the
case. Now, in that situation, it shouldn't discourage us. We should say,
Lord, I need you to do something deeper in my life, because obviously
there's a lack of fruit in my heart, and it must mean that I've been
drinking not from the stream of God, or from the river of God, or from
him, or I've been drinking from other streams.

I've been drinking from the stream of the world, where the streams are
muddy, where there's nothing clean to take from it, where I've been
drinking from the stream of pride, of religion, and it's not producing
any life in me. We need to look inwardly, you guys, and ask ourselves
this question. Why is there no fruit in our life? I have to ask myself
this question.

It says here, they yield its fruit every month, and the leaves of the
tree were for the healing of the nations. The leaves of that tree were
for the healing of the nations. Now, you see today, many people are
running around to and fro, looking for healing, trying to make the world
go to be a better place, but it's not going to work.

The only thing that changes our lives and brings healing in our lives is
this river of God, this tree of life, this Jesus. It's a picture of
Jesus. It's a picture of Jesus.

It's a picture of his church that's yielding its fruit, and we need to
ask ourselves personally, Lord, there's a lack of fruit in my life, a
lack of spiritual fruit, and I'm asking you to do something in me, and
it might mean that we've been looking and trusting in other things
rather than trusting in the Lord. I'll finish in this last verse in 2
Corinthians 1. You can't be ashamed of the gospel in this year,
especially in Canada. You know, they've just passed new laws.

They just passed new laws in Canada starting January 1st. You're not
allowed to talk about homosexuality as a sin to people who may be
practicing those things. It's against the law, and you know, it's a sad
place to be in this country when you no longer preach the gospel.

There will come a time when the Bibles won't even be allowed, and they
changed the Bibles. We need to expect that. We need to say, Lord, like
this is a terrible situation, and this is in Canada.

In other countries, they've already experienced stuff like this, but now
we have our turn, and so sometimes these things can produce fear in my
heart, and we need to trust the Lord that, Lord, you're able to preserve
me, but I need to be faithful in the time that I'm in right now to seek
your face because you've given me a time of plenty, and there may be a
time of famine coming, and in that time, I may need to trust the Lord.
God will judge our nation, I believe, because of our sin, but he also
starts first with the church, and he will first start looking at us
inwardly, individually, and he will start to say, okay, there's things
in your life that I need to clean up first before he starts to deal with
the country as a whole, and so we need to, as a person, as a Christian,
we need to examine ourselves. We need to search our hearts, and I was
looking at it.

I need to examine myself. I'm searching my heart, and I'm starting to
question myself, why is there lack of spiritual fruit in my life? Why do
I find more joy in all these other things than I do in the Lord? Well,
it's a spiritual condition. That's the problem, and we need to ask
ourselves that question.

Why is it the same with us? Why do I find myself getting bitter at
people? Why do you have that? Why do you have self-pity? Why do you have
self-pity thinking that your friends have rejected you and forsaken you
when they haven't? We have to overcome self-pity. One of the biggest
challenges I know that sisters even struggle with sometimes is self-pity
because they think that they're on their own, and nobody cares. No,
brother and sister, the Lord cares, and you need to put your hope in the
Lord, and you need to shake those thoughts out of your mind.

You need to let them go. You need to cast them to the ground because God
values you. He values you, and He loves you, and those are things that
we need to battle with in this new year, but in 2 Corinthians 1, right
here, it says this, verse 8, for we do not want you to be unaware,
brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia that we were
burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even of
life.

Now, this is a man who is preaching a new covenant message. He's
preaching apparently that he has great faith, and we all are edified by
the words of Paul, but Paul came to a place that he was even despairing
of life. How many of you guys have ever been in a situation where you're
just like, I can't handle this anymore.

I'm burdened so much. I don't know what to do. I'm tired of life.

I'm tired of life. I've been there, but this man here was persecuted for
the sake of the gospel. They despaired even of life because of the
suffering that they were doing that.

It was very difficult, but we haven't yet experienced that. You want to
know why? Because we're learning to cast off the weights and hindrances
that we experience. Those are the burdens that we experience.

The love of the world, the love of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the
boastful pride of life. These are things that we experience, and we have
to cast those off. We have to throw those away so we can run the race
that's set before us.

Paul was suffering for the gospel's sake. Until we learn to overcome in
the natural sense, I don't believe the Lord will entrust to us spiritual
ministry where we can go and preach the gospel to people because we're
not spiritually strong enough. We're not actually prepared for it
because when our faith is tested in the simple situations, we fail and
we don't trust in the Lord.

But when it's tested in great situations, we're not ready for it yet.
But yet in our mind, we think that we're more spiritual than everybody
else because we can't receive from anybody else. We can't receive from
anybody.

We can only receive from ourselves or from somebody else or from the
Lord. A true test of spiritual pride is you can't receive from anyone.
You can't learn.

You can't listen to instruction. That's a terrible place to be. The Lord
will not pour out his spirit to you in that place.

You want to know why? Because Adam and Eve did the same thing. They
wouldn't listen to the instruction that God gave them. Don't eat from
that tree.

And then they said, you know what? I can do this on my own. I'm going to
do and eat this from that tree. And because of it, because of it, they
became kicked out of the garden.

They no longer could have fellowship with God. And you know what? Our
fellowship with Jesus breaks when we do the exact same thing. When we do
the exact same thing, we need to have an honest and a true estimation of
our spiritual condition.

I know some brothers, they think that they're so spiritual. And I know I
do too. I can do the exact same thing.

But when you look at the spiritual fruit in their lives and the things
that they've accomplished for the Lord, I have to say, you know what? We
need to be honest with ourselves. It would be like me on the basketball
team and I'm thinking I'm the best player, but I'm sitting on the bench.
I'm sitting on the team.

I'm on the team. I have a jersey, praise God. I've been given a jersey,
but I'm sitting on the bench.

I'm sitting on the bench and I do nothing. But in my mind, I think that
I'm the best player in the world because I won't receive instruction.
And every time the coach tries to teach the kid to do this, to do this,
to do this, they don't listen.

They go do their own thing. They go and just say, I'm going to make my
own decision. I'm going to play my own way.

And you know what's going to happen? You're going to stay on the bench.
You're not going to be in the game. You're not going to be useful to the
master because you're doing it your own way.

Paul was able to be entrusted with the spiritual riches of Christ
because he was faithful. It was 14 years he went down to Jerusalem. And
then a short while later, he was commissioned by the Lord.

Where are you at in your spiritual walk? Are you able to be prepared to
be commissioned by the Lord? If you can't be faithful in the natural
things, if you can't learn to receive instruction in the natural things,
you won't be able to receive it in the spiritual things. And this is why
I can say, Lord, you haven't used me in a greater measure. You haven't
used me in a greater measure because of this.

I love everything else but you. We have to learn to get rid of those
things so that one day we can learn to say when we are persecuted for
the gospel, those things don't have a hold on my life. I could say,
Lord, I'm ready.

I'm ready to serve you. You know, when you're young in the Lord, you
think that you can take on the world. But as you get older, man, you
start to realize your weakness.

You start to realize your failures. And that you can do nothing without
the Lord. So we have, I hope that I learn it sooner.

I would probably experience more of his presence at that point. I pray
that this year you have the desire, the presence of the Lord in your
life. They despair even of life.

Indeed, we have the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we
should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. We don't
trust in ourselves our own abilities. We have to trust in God who raises
the dead.

He is able to raise the dead. It's amazing that he said that in that
situation. Who delivered us from so great a peril of death and he will
deliver us.

He on whom we have set our hope and he will yet deliver us. Hope on
Jesus goes hand in hand with trusting in him. We on whom we have set our
hope and he will yet deliver us.

I love it. He has delivered us, he will deliver us, and he will continue
to deliver us. He has, he does, and he will deliver us.

You know, if you look at your life this past year, the Lord delivered
you from circumstances. You know what? It's a shame to us because we
don't write these things down. We try to remember them, but if you look
back, you guys probably don't remember the things that the Lord did for
you this year, but we don't write it down.

Some of us may, but I haven't. There was time in my life where I did.
You know what you need to do? You need to set those milestones down on a
piece of paper and you need to write it down a little notebook.

The Lord answered this prayer. The Lord did this for me and you know
what? We will start to realize that the Lord has delivered us and our
trust in him will grow. Our trust in him will grow as we look back to
the things that he's done.

Some people say don't ever look back. No, I want to look back to see if
all the times that the Lord has delivered me, all the times that he's
brought about a change, and every single time I'm questioning him or I'm
grumbling or complaining, I need to get in that book and I need to
realize what he's done, and then I'm going to turn my complaints into
praise, and you become more spiritual when you can praise the Lord, and
if he doesn't deliver you, praise God. You know what? I'll finish here.

He has, he does, and he will. That testimony that I told you to listen
to of that Diebler Rose lady, wonderful testimony, but she says this,
that true faith is not when you have hope realized and it gets given to
you, the things you hope for. True faith is when that thing that you
hope for doesn't get given to you.

He withholds it from your hand, and yet you still trust the Lord. You
still praise the Lord, and I cried when I read that, because I heard
that, because I was like, man, that is such a strong spiritual place to
be. When you realize those things that you hope for and you don't get
them, you can still say, thank you, Lord.

Thank you for doing what you're doing in my life. I'm going to trust you
and realize that this is good for me in the end. Thank you.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/idkSc2iMaq0.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/dan-young/trusting-in-the-lords-deliverances/
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