Confidence in God the True Safeguard from Temptation

‘The Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” — iii. 26.

AWAKE of mistakes here. Let us not deceive ourselves by words without meaning. Do not say God is your confidence, if he be only your dread. An appalling amount of hypocrisy exists in Christendom, and passes current for devotion. He who is in Himself most worthy, and has done most for us, is often more disliked than any other being; and, as if this ingratitude were not enough, men double the sin by professing that they have their confidence in Him.

I have observed that seagoing ships do not trust to themselves in the windings of a river. Where they are hemmed in between rock and quicksand, grazing now the one and now the other, they take care to have a steam-tug, both to bear them forward and guide them aright. They hang implicitly upon its power; they make no ‘attempt at independent action. But I have also observed, that as soon as they get clear of the narrows — as soon as they have attained a good offing and an open sea, they heave off, and hoist their own sails. They never want a steamer until they come to narrow waters again.

Such is the trust in God which the unreconciled experience. In distress they are fain to lean on the Almighty. While they are in the narrows, death seeming, near on every side, conscious that they have no power and no skill, they would hang on the help of a Deliverer. “My God, we know thee” (Hos. viii. 2), is then their cry. Most devout they are, and most earnest. At every hour of their day and night they are exercised in spirit about pleasing God, and gaining his help in their need. The line of their dependence seems ever tight by their constant leaning. But when they begin to creep out of these shoals of life — when the path opens up wide and clear and safe again, they heave off, and throw themselves on their own resources. They become a God unto themselves, whenever dangers are out of sight. Forthwith and henceforth they live without God in the world, until they are driven into straits again. Then they remember God and pray, as a distressed ship makes signals for help when she is entering a tortuous channel (Isa. xxvi. 16; Ps. lxxviii. 34-37). This is not to have confidence in God; this is to provoke Him to anger. He deserves a soul’s confidence, and desires it.

Confidence in God is not to be attained by a wish whenever you please. You may, when you like, say, “Lord, I trust in Thee,” but to make the just Judge his confidence, does not lie in the power of a sinner’s will. There is a way of reaching it; and the way is open, and all are welcome, but no man can reach it except by that way. Coming through Christ, and being accepted in the beloved, you will indeed confide in God; but this is to be turned from darkness to light, to pass from death unto life. When any man enters by this way into favour, he will be ready to confess that it is the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in his eyes.

It is this confidence that has power for good on the life. It is not terror, but trust, that becomes a safeguard from the dominion of sin. It is a peculiar and touching promise that God, when He becomes your confidence, “will keep your foot from being taken.” Here incidentally the terrible truth glances out, that snares are laid for the traveller’s feet in all the paths of life, in all the haunts of men. Our adversary, like a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Alas, multitudes are entrapped, like birds in the fowler’s snare. Many who set forth hopefully in the morning of life are caught ere they have gone far in some of these pit-falls, and bound over unto the second death. It is a fearful thing to pass by and hear their screaming, and have no power to help.

In my childhood, I sometimes saw rabbits that damaged the corn-fields, caught in snares. My first experience of the process melted me, and the scene is not effaced from my memory yet. The creature was caught by the foot. It was a captive, but living. Oh the agonized look it cast on us when we approached it! The scared, helpless, despairing look of that living creature sank deep in the sensitive powers of my nature. As a child, I could not conceive of any more touching thrilling appeal than the soft rolling eyes of that dumb captive; but “when I became a man,” and entered both on the experience of the world and the ministry of the word, I met with scenes that cast these earlier emotions down into the place of “childish things.” Soon after I began to go my rounds as a watchman on my allotted field, I fell upon a youth (and the same experience has been several times repeated since) who but lately was bounding hopefully along, bidding fair for the better land, and seeming to lead others on, caught by the foot in a snare. I went up to him, surprised to find him halting so; but, ah, the look, the glare from his eyes, soon told that the immortal was fast in the devil’s toils. He lived; but he was held. All his companions passed on, and soon were out of sight, while he lay beating himself on the ground. He lives; but it is in chains. The chains have sunk into his flesh. They ran through the marrow of his bones, and are wrapped around his soul, filthy as firm, firm as filthly.. Oh, wretched man, who shall deliver him? Not I; not any man. We must pass on, and leave him. The same voice that wrenched from Death his prisoner is needed to give liberty to this captive. Only one word can we utter in presence of such a case: “Nothing is impossible with God.” Having uttered it, we pass on with a sigh.

Cure in such a case is difficult — is all but impossible; is there any method of prevention 1 Yes: the Lord thy confidence will keep thy foot from being taken; the Lord your dread will not do it, almighty though He be. Many who have an agonizing fear of a just God in their conscience, plunge deeper even than others into abominable sins. It is the peace of God in the heart that has power to keep the feet out of evil in the path of life. lt He that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself even as He is pure.” “Sin shall not have dominion over you;” and the reason is added — “for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. vi. 14). A son has wantonly offended an affectionate father, and fled from his face. After many days of sullen distance, the prodigal returns, and at nightfall approaches his father’s dwelling. He is standing outside, shivering in the blast, yet afraid to enter, and meet the frown of an injured parent. Some abandoned youths, companions of his guilt, pass by, and hail him. By a little coaxing, they break kis resolution of repentance, and carry him off to their haunts of vice. It was easy to sweep him off when they found him trembling in terror outside. He was like chaff; and iniquities, like the wind, carried him away. But if the youth had entered before the tempters came up, and the father, instead of frowning or upbraiding, had fallen on his neck and kissed him, setting him in the circle of brothers and sisters, and showering on him the manifold affections of a united family and a happy home — and if the same godless band had been passing then, and had beckoned him to join their revelry, they would not have succeeded so easily. The soul of this youth is like a ship at anchor now, and the current does not carry him away. Specifically, it is “the God of peace” who will bruise Satan under our feet (Rom. xvi. 20). Those who stand outside, with just as much religion as makes them afraid, are easily taken in the tempter’s snare: the reconciled whom the Father has welcomed back with weeping, has now another joy, and that joy becomes his strength: “his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord” (Ps. czii. 7).

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