Before you say, “I don’t believe.” Chapter 4

Who do you trust?

Is our vote a statement of our confidence and trust in a politician?

Trust is a basis of society.  Most actions in life are undergirded by trust, so we are all trusting others most moments of the day.  But on the big issues of life, who do you trust?  The U.K. has largely become a Godless nation.  One of the many consequences is that trust has been destroyed.

At each election we hope for better things, but politicians have repeatedly shown that they mislead and lie.  On basic issues they ignore the wishes of the people.  They have fiddled their expenses and, for the last fifty years, have sought to legislate against the Ten Commandments.  Do you trust politicians?

We value and support the police in their difficult work, but after Hillsborough, and the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes by a police marksman, or the arrest and subsequent death of Harry Hammond in Bournemouth, it is difficult to do so.  We want to trust the police, but do you?

We used to trust the bankers, and wish we still could.  It’s not only ‘Fred the Shred’, but a host of faceless managers who have destroyed trust. I have never robbed a bank, but I can think of some occasions when I feel that they have robbed me!  Do you trust the bankers?

For decades the BBC has followed an aggressively anti-God campaign and depicted Christians as cranks.  It esteems atheists, rarely questioning their lives, attitudes and ideas. Instead Christians and Jesus Himself are mocked by sneering comedians and blasphemous artists.  But do you trust the broadcasters?  The BBC says of itself that it is the world’s best broadcaster, but the dishonesty at ‘Newsnight’, the airbrushing of Jimmy Savile and a steady flow of other BBC people, leaves most of us sceptical about their self-praise.

Even sections of the church have squandered the trust we had in them.  Instead of believing and proclaiming the Bible some have preached unbelief, whilst others have been guilty of headline-hitting immorality. Do you trust those churches that display a lack of trust in God’s Word?

And we certainly know we have to take our newspapers with a very big pinch of salt.  We know we can’t trust everything they print! Remember the Leverson enquiry?  Do you trust the NHS, celebrity sportsmen and women, the judges, and each member of the royal family?

And … do you trust yourself?  Isn’t trusting ourselves a sign that we are ignorant of who we really are?  After all, don’t we each mess up?  If we had the opportunity, wouldn’t we do the things that we criticise in others?  Look at these startling words spoken by Jesus twenty centuries ago, which explain what is happening in our society today:  “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”[1]

There is only One who is truly worthy of our trust.  He has never let down anyone who has put their faith in Him.  He has never broken a single promise of the hundreds He has made.  He is not a disappointment.  There is no conceivable situation in which it is not safe to trust in God. The more we depend on God, the more dependable we find that He is.

Corrie Ten Boom and her family had hidden Jews in their watchmaker’s shop in Haarlem, Holland in World War II. Betrayed, they were incarcerated in a German Concentration Camp.  All Corrie’s family died there.  Yet she knew God in a personal way.  Unforgettably she said, ‘Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.’

Do you trust God?  It is a question Jesus frequently posed.  He asked two blind men who had come to Him for healing, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”  He questioned a man whom He had healed, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

Then He asked His disciples, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?”  And after saying, “He who believes in me will live again, even though he dies…”, Jesus asked, “Do you believe this?”

Can I trust the map? The Bible points the way to Christ as Saviour.

Trust and belief is a matter of choice.  Today you can put your trust in the God who has given us life and loves us.  His love was such that He came into our world to seek and save the lost people of each broken society.

He paid the price of all dishonesty, corruption and godlessness when He died on the cross.  And Jesus, who rose from the dead, offers forgiveness and a new, spiritual life to all who will trust Him.

He promises to make all things new for those who turn from sin and trust in Him.  And if sorrows make us shed tears, trust in the promises of God helps us wipe them away.  Trust God even when the pieces don’t seem to fit together.  God never turns His back on people who believe even when they fail and falter.

The Bible says, ‘Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save … blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.’  It states, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’  It says, ‘Trust in the Lord.’

If trust is lacking, would you read one of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke or John – which are in the Bible?  Then rest in God’s promises.  Ask Him to forgive you on the basis of the fact that Jesus died for you, and ask the risen Jesus to become your Lord and Saviour.  Then you will be able to say as King David did 3,000 years ago, ‘I have trusted in Your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.’

[1] Mark 7:21-23