Show Notes
Pastor Stephen Lauer
"Safe" Proberbs 29:25
Covenant OPC 5:00 PM service
September 21, 2025
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Feet looking to you alone for forgiveness and for healing.
[00:00:07] We thank you, O God, that you have dealt with the problem of our sin and our rebellion. You've dealt with its guilt and its punishment, for you have accounted that to Jesus, our Savior on the cross.
[00:00:29] And we thank youk too, that not only on the cross have youe resolved the guilt and punishment of our sin.
[00:00:37] But there, as he died, he also, bearing the curse and the wrath of God, he also, therefore broke the power of sin over us, so that we are no more slaves to sin. But having died to sin through our union with Christ, we are now made alive.
[00:01:03] And in the Lord Jesus. We have true and real freedom of freedom to serve you without fear or terror of God or of man, but a freedom to serve you in joy, knowing that you love us, care for us, and by the power of your spirit, are helping and enabling us to live like your Son, our Lord Jesus.
[00:01:32] So, Lord our God, we ask that now you would use your Word for the further renovation of our hearts.
[00:01:42] That you would speak to the portions of our hearts which need to be corrected, that you would soften the hardness that is there, and that you would show us our sin, that we might further repent.
[00:01:59] That you would use your Word to guide our hearts in the way of truth and life in the way of light, so that we might walk yet more diligently before you.
[00:02:15] We ask, too, that you would use your Word to set our hearts free from anxiety and fear, that we might know your love and peace, and that especially our trust in you, our faith in the Lord Jesus, our Savior, would be increased, that we might be able to rest peacefully in his arms and trust that he holds us secure and firm.
[00:02:38] No matter what happens, no matter where you call us, no matter where you lead, bless us by your word and spirit. This evening, in Jesus name we ask. Amen.
[00:02:51] Sermon text this evening is from Proverbs 29:25.
[00:02:58] Proverbs 29:25.
[00:03:04] Hear God's word.
[00:03:07] The fear of man lays a snare.
[00:03:10] But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
[00:03:15] Please be seated.
[00:03:24] Did you ever do something as a child that you look back on now and you think, man, that was silly.
[00:03:32] What a goofy thing I did.
[00:03:36] And looking back, you know why you did it.
[00:03:39] You did it maybe because you wanted to be like all of the other children around you, or maybe you wanted them to like you, and so you did whatever that silly thing was.
[00:03:57] But do you ever look back on your childhood and think, think of some things that you did that maybe weren't silly? You don't laugh when you think about them. Maybe you cringe, or worse, your heart aches as you think about the things that you did.
[00:04:13] Maybe there were things that you said, things that weren't silly, were foolish in a childish sort of way, but things that were really mean, maybe even downright cruel to one of the other children in your friend group.
[00:04:33] Did you do it simply because you wanted to or did you do it because of the other people around you?
[00:04:44] Did you do it because your friends were doing it, mocking that child or picking on him? Did you do it because you felt like if you didn't do it, you would be left out alone, they wouldn't like you anymore?
[00:04:57] You know what I'm talking about if you're a grown up. We call this peer pressure, that our peers, our fellow children, they pressure us into feeling like we need to go along with whatever it is.
[00:05:12] As a child, I remember feeling this acutely.
[00:05:16] Mom had seven of us. We were a missionary family, so we wore hand me downs. My clothing was usually at least 5 years old, maybe more like 10 years old, and had been worn by another family, not just my older brother.
[00:05:30] I was never wearing the clothes that all the other kids got to wear. And I always felt this sense of being left out of. Like I looked silly and felt silly because I wasn't like the other kids. Now, not all sense of wanting to fit in and be like everyone around us is bad.
[00:05:51] But when that peer pressure leads us to do things that are sinful, that hurt others, it's a real problem.
[00:06:02] Why do we give in to peer pressure now? I'm not going to pick on adults yet, but adults know if we're being honest, whatever happened when we were kids, it's worse when we're adults.
[00:06:13] What adults do to each other in the workplace and extended families and other friend groups, what adults do to each other because of peer pressure is usually worse than what kids do to each other.
[00:06:27] You could probably think of examples. But why do we give in to this feeling of peer pressure?
[00:06:34] And why do we give into it to such a degree that we might do things that hurt others, that aren't just silly or foolish, but are actually wrong, maybe even cruel? Most bullying that comes as a part of peer pressure.
[00:06:51] We give into this feeling usually because we're fearful.
[00:06:56] There's an anxiety that takes root in our hearts, an anxiousness that if we don't do what the other kids are doing, if we don't do what the other grownups are doing, people won't like us, they won't be pleased with us.
[00:07:13] Maybe trouble will come from it.
[00:07:15] Maybe they'll turn and pick on us.
[00:07:18] Maybe we'll be the next object of bullying if we don't participate in whatever this behavior is.
[00:07:29] The root. I guess what I'm trying to say, the root issue with this peer pressure is a fear or an anxiety or on the extreme end, a terror that takes root in our hearts. And because we're afraid of whatever it might be, whatever that problem is, we're willing to go along with things that are wrong.
[00:07:51] The Bible calls this fear the fear of man. And that's what this proverb is addressing. The fear of man lays a snare.
[00:08:02] That fear drives us into a trap.
[00:08:06] Now King Jesus comes to us, his children, whom he's saved out of the world, out of darkness and from sin. He's washed us clean in his blood. He's forgiven us, he's brought us into his kingdom. And he says, I don't want you to go back to that fear of man that causes so much trouble, that peer pressure that drives so much sin and angst and suffering.
[00:08:30] This is the wisdom of Jesus, our king. He's counseling us, come to me. Find safety and security by trusting in me and turn away from the fear of man.
[00:08:43] I want to look at the safety that Jesus offers us, the safety he offers us from fear, safety that he offers us through trust in him.
[00:08:51] This evening. First, looking at our first point here, I'm trying to be clever with this theme of safety.
[00:08:59] I think that's that we feel anxious, we feel unsafe.
[00:09:03] Jesus offers us safety. First, I want to look at the snare, the unsafe snare that is the fear of man. And then secondly, we'll look at the safe place that Jesus offers us through trust in Him. So first, the unsafe snare, the fear of man, and then the safety he offers us.
[00:09:24] The proverb says that the fear of man lays a snare or gives a snare, brings a snare or a. A trap to us.
[00:09:36] The fear of man, the word used for fear here, isn't the more common word. We've been talking, looked at a number of proverbs that talk about the fear of God. This is a different Hebrew word, and this word's a little more precise, a little more specific, and it deals with trembling. We could translate it as trembling or anxiety or in some cases, terror.
[00:10:01] In other words, the fear of man is the terror or anxiety of what man might do to us.
[00:10:08] There's some kind of a threat that the people around us might pose to us that causes us to respond in this kind of fear or anxiety.
[00:10:22] The result is that that anxiety drives.
[00:10:26] Drives us right towards a trap, a snare.
[00:10:31] And the snare or trap. Here are the sins that we're tempted to engage in because of the fear of man.
[00:10:39] We're anxious because of what our boss might do, what our friends might say or think about us. We're anxious because of how we might be treated. And as a result, we fall into sin.
[00:10:53] That's at root what we're being warned about here. That's the basic idea. Someone put it this way. I don't quote from people very often, from commentators and so on, but I thought this was helpful.
[00:11:06] He said this. The devil lays the trap of sin and the fear of man drives us into it.
[00:11:15] That's a great way of summarizing the first part of this proverb. The devil, devil lays the trap of sin. And then he uses the world and society and the fears that they conjure up in our hearts to drive us right into that trap.
[00:11:30] We're prey.
[00:11:33] We're like animals that hunters are hunting. And the devil is the hunter who sets the trap.
[00:11:39] And the people of this world of men are the ones who drive us right into that trap.
[00:11:46] And we don't see it coming.
[00:11:50] Let's expand on this a little bit.
[00:11:53] Let's look at the fear, the threats that men bring against us that make us feel unsafe and cause that anxiety within us. What kinds of things might we fear from men?
[00:12:08] There's a lot of different ways we could kind of parse this, all different aspects to the fear of man.
[00:12:14] But we're going to go through it in two ways. First, looking at the threats here and then looking at the sins, the snares that we could be driven into.
[00:12:24] What are some things that could lead us to fear man?
[00:12:28] The one that perhaps when we think of persecution and people giving in to persecution, when we think of that men not wanting us to profess Christ as Lord and Savior. And so the government comes and it uses the threat of putting you in jail, the threat of violence, or maybe even the threat of death, trying to get you to deny Christ your Savior There. We think of violence. Man uses violence, the threat of violence and persecution to cause us to be afraid of him and to deny Christ.
[00:13:02] See the number of examples in the Bible of this, the. This idea of the threat of violence resulting in the fear of man in our hearts. One example, most of us know if we've read through or gone in Sunday school through the book of Genesis, the life of Abraham, you know that Abraham, when there was a famine in Canaan, he took his family and his wife Sarah, and they went down to Egypt.
[00:13:30] And Abraham was afraid of the threat of violence.
[00:13:35] He was afraid that Pharaoh or someone in Egypt would look at his wife Sarah and want her for himself and so use violence against Abraham, perhaps imprisoning him or killing him. And use violence against Sarah, kidnapping her and taking her for himself.
[00:13:53] And of course, maybe you remember too the snare or the trap that Abraham fell into.
[00:13:59] He told his wife to lie, to say that he was simply Abraham's sister and not his wife.
[00:14:07] The threat of violence caused great fear for Abraham and for Sarah. And they tried to preserve themselves in the face of that and resorted to sin.
[00:14:20] In our day, you can think of persecution. The government of China has told many Christian preachers to stop preaching. And some of them who wouldn't stop, they've thrown those men in prison and there they still sit to this day because they wouldn't succumb to the fear of man and stop preaching. But that was the threat against them. We're going to imprison you unless you stop preaching now. This threat of violence maybe isn't quite as common in our experience.
[00:14:53] It isn't even as common in general throughout Christian history. Most of the time, most people in the church aren't being threatened with violence.
[00:15:03] We're threatened with all sorts of other things, aren't we?
[00:15:06] There's the threat of financial prosperity being taken away from us or perhaps our property even being lost.
[00:15:15] Who holds that threat and fear over you? Your employer, maybe the government, Maybe others. Your employer might threaten your job if you don't go along with certain things that are immoral.
[00:15:29] And so you may be led to fear and anxiety.
[00:15:33] There's social pressure, social pressure at all sorts of levers, society at large.
[00:15:39] Maybe there's social pressure with your co workers, with your friend group, maybe you're extended family.
[00:15:47] We don't want to lose the love and affection of those who love us. And so we go along with things.
[00:15:52] We're anxious because of social pressure. We can become anxious and fearful simply about because we want to be accepted by others, even if it isn't the bigger issues of society.
[00:16:06] We want people to be pleased with us, we want to please them. Some of that's good, but it can easily become a thing of anxiety for us.
[00:16:17] We're worried constantly. Does so and so like me. Is he upset with me?
[00:16:24] The apostle Peter fell into this trap, remember? You remember the story in Galatians, Chapter 2? You can read it. Paul talks about it there.
[00:16:32] Peter was having table fellowship with the Gentile Christians at Antioch. But then men from James came up and Peter became afraid. It says he was afraid. He was fearful of what the men from James, these Jewish Christians would think.
[00:16:49] So he stopped having table fellowship with the Christian, the Gentile Christians. He stopped treating them like full Christians and only ate with the Jews. He was worried what people would think of him, whether they would be pleased with him.
[00:17:06] All sorts of this can affect all sorts of relationships. It isn't just people who are in charge. It isn't just those who are being led.
[00:17:14] Everyone can be affected.
[00:17:16] Parents often struggle with this problem.
[00:17:21] We don't want to disappoint our children.
[00:17:24] We want them to be happy.
[00:17:27] We don't want them to be upset or sad.
[00:17:30] And so we struggle.
[00:17:32] We struggle sometimes to discipline them as we ought because we want to please them and we're anxious about affects our relationships with our friends. I could go on, but there's a few examples of the ways that man can threaten us and we can feel anxious.
[00:17:53] Let's look secondly then at the snares. There's the fear. What drives us towards the trap?
[00:18:00] What kinds of traps can we fall into because of the fear of man? Basically, it's all kinds of sin.
[00:18:07] You could think of all sorts of things. We're just talking about parents. Parents are afraid. If they're afraid to displease their children, they may give in to the demands of their children and allow their children to live in sin.
[00:18:22] They may become fearful of disciplining their children.
[00:18:25] It's ironic, but that's what's going on. The parents, the grown ups, become afraid of their children, anxious about it, and the children drive the relationship and the result is sin. That's the trap.
[00:18:42] Think about in broader society. We live in a society just like every pagan society.
[00:18:48] It wants the members of its society to approve of its sins.
[00:18:53] Everywhere you go in the world, if you go to a pagan society, you will find that it wants all the members of society to approve of its sins. Whether it's idolatry, open idolatry. It wants everyone to approve of that, participate in it, or perhaps it's other immoralities. Where I grew up in Japan, it's telling white lies.
[00:19:15] That's what you do to maintain the peace.
[00:19:18] Everyone has to do that and participate in that.
[00:19:22] Our society has some pretty egregious sins that it doesn't just want Christians to be quiet about, but it wants us to approve of them, to approve of sin. Is sin.
[00:19:36] That's the trap. So society pressures us to approve of the murder of unborn children, to approve of it by calling it a woman's rights.
[00:19:49] That's the trap.
[00:19:51] When you say that's the right of a woman, you're approving of an egregious sin.
[00:20:00] We could give other examples.
[00:20:02] Society wants us to approve of two men committing sexual sin together by calling that marriage, calling it the good bond that God has made.
[00:20:14] And yet it's a perversion of the natural order. It goes against creation and nature. But society says you need to not just allow this, but approve of it by calling it marriage.
[00:20:28] That's a sin that social pressure wants to pressure us into.
[00:20:34] But those are the egregious ones.
[00:20:37] There are all sorts of social sins that social pressure wants to pressure us into.
[00:20:45] The approval of gossip, of slander, of all sorts of other sins.
[00:20:50] These are all kinds of sins that we were taught as school children to participate in in the schoolyard. We were groomed to participate in and approve of sins from childhood via social pressure.
[00:21:05] And as you age up, that pressure continues. And it gets worse. Worse.
[00:21:11] Those are the traps that the fear of man will drive you into.
[00:21:16] It isn't just society at large. Let's apply this to me. Church leaders.
[00:21:23] The fear of man's a big problem for church readers. You read through the Bible and you find church leaders from the Old Testament all the way well into the New Testament struggling with the fear of man.
[00:21:35] We mentioned the Apostle Peter. So ministers of the New Covenant struggle with the fear of man.
[00:21:41] King Saul, he struggled with the fear of man.
[00:21:45] He was afraid of the people. Maybe you remember this story, probably went through it a couple months ago. In 1 Samuel, King Saul was afraid of the people.
[00:21:54] And so what did he do? Even though he was the king, he broke God's law and offered the sacrifice that only the priest was allowed to to do. King David, probably in a few weeks we'll hear about this. He succumbs to the fear of man when Joab kills Abner.
[00:22:12] He should have had Joab put to death, but instead he acknowledges it. He says, the sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me.
[00:22:20] And he was timid, and he succumbed to the fear of man.
[00:22:24] Church leaders like me and like our elders, we struggle with the fear of man. We have to stand here week after week, speaking to your consciences, warning you of sin, calling you to repentance.
[00:22:40] Guess what?
[00:22:41] Nobody wants to hear that.
[00:22:44] It's very easy for us to be anxious about this and tone down the message pray for us that we wouldn't do that.
[00:22:54] The fear of man affects elders, too. Not just pastors, but all elders. We may be afraid that people would leave the church if we confront them about some problem or sin. I could keep piling up examples, but you get the idea. The fear of man is something that everyone struggles with, including your pastors.
[00:23:17] Well, those are some examples of the snares, the kind of traps that you could fall into. And you also got a flavor of what kinds of pressure and who this affects.
[00:23:29] We'll summarize all of this with a final set of warnings.
[00:23:34] The fear of man is unsafe. Man is untrustworthy.
[00:23:40] Don't fear and be led by someone so untrustworthy.
[00:23:49] Man is not looking out for your best interests. He's driving you towards the trap of sin.
[00:23:55] Beware.
[00:23:57] Beware. Because the fear of man is bred in you from childhood. In fact, if you can think of all the different kinds of sins that King Jesus sets us free from in our lifetime. The fear of man is one of those social pressures that people struggle with into old age. You may conquer lust.
[00:24:16] You may get past covetousness and the love of belongings.
[00:24:22] You may no longer love money. You may love Christ more. But in your old age, you will probably still struggle with the fear of man.
[00:24:32] The fear of man affects all of us. None of us escapes from this problem.
[00:24:38] Whether it's those who are being led, the sheep, or whether it's the leaders, whether it's children or parents, all of us face the fear of man. It's everywhere. It's out there in society, it's in your workplace. It's in the home and the family. It's here in the church.
[00:24:57] None of us escapes it.
[00:25:00] And my last warning here, I think that is one of the Devil's favorite tactics for corrupting and compromising the witness of Christians.
[00:25:13] It's one of his favorite tactics. Think back to that imagery there. The Devil lays the trap, and he uses the world to drive men into it.
[00:25:23] He often. The devil often doesn't go for outright denial. If I come to you and say, deny Christ or I'll shoot you, you'll probably look at it straight in the eye and say, I know what to do.
[00:25:33] Jesus, take me. I won't give up on him.
[00:25:36] But if the devil comes with small compromising actions, give up the Sabbath, rest and come to work.
[00:25:44] Well, I can give that up because I fear my employer, and I don't want to lose my job.
[00:25:52] And you can imagine all sorts of little steps, little ways the devil uses this to compromise our faith, causing greater, deeper anxiety for us and to compromise our witness. The fear of man is an unsafe place.
[00:26:08] Flee from it and flee to Christ.
[00:26:11] Trust in him. He is our safety, and that is the safe place. That's our second point here, trusting in God.
[00:26:21] Proverbs very clear. The fair man lays a snare. But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. Safety is found through trusting in the Lord Jesus.
[00:26:34] And what does this safety, this safe place, consist?
[00:26:39] And deal with this in two big parts, too.
[00:26:44] First, there's a safety found in trusting the Lord, a safety from the fear of man.
[00:26:55] As we come to trust the Lord Jesus, the more we trust him, the more we're set free from the fear of man, and we no longer experience that anxiety and that terror.
[00:27:06] There's safety in trusting the Lord Jesus. That itself brings safety.
[00:27:12] No, he also says that there's safety in trusting the Lord. So there's a second part to it. But the first part is that beginning to trust Jesus brings safety itself. What do we mean? Well, we can begin with the big picture.
[00:27:29] Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
[00:27:33] If you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven by which men can be saved, Jesus will save you. He will take you and put you under his arms, under his wings. And there is safety and shelter there. There's safety and shelter from sin, from the storms of this life, and most of all, from the wrath of God that you deserved for your sin.
[00:27:57] If you're a Christian, you've heard this again and again, and you know it.
[00:28:01] But as you come to trust in the Lord Jesus, you're delivered out of darkness and chaos and judgment, and you're brought into his kingdom of safety and security.
[00:28:13] And you come to know the God who saves you, the Jesus who loves you.
[00:28:19] And what happens?
[00:28:22] Look at Psalm 56. We sang Psalm 56. Look at verse 3 and verse 4 of Psalm 56.
[00:28:31] This Psalm talks about evildoers, bad men, the world that wants to cause us terror, torment us, hurt us, drive us into traps of sin.
[00:28:45] And the psalmist acknowledges it made him fearful. He says, when I am afraid, when I see what the evil man is doing and all the trouble that's coming, I get afraid.
[00:29:00] But he says, when I am afraid, I trust in you, God.
[00:29:07] Are we going to be afraid? Is the fear of man going to come upon us sometimes, even after we've been saved by the Lord Jesus? Yes.
[00:29:14] What do we do?
[00:29:16] We take that fear and we say, I know what to do with this. I bring this to Jesus, my king, and I put my trust in him. And look at the next verse. What happens?
[00:29:28] I put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise, in God I trust.
[00:29:36] What is he talking about there?
[00:29:39] The Word of God, God's promises.
[00:29:42] Promises of safety, of salvation, of forgiveness of sins. Promises that he's our God and we're his people, that he's dealt with our enemies and he's going to one day judge them on the last day and that he will make all things well. You can go to all the promises of Scripture and consider them.
[00:30:02] That's what he's doing. In God whose word I praise, in God I trust.
[00:30:09] Now, having contemplated God's promises in His Word, he goes from fear to trust.
[00:30:17] To what now? He says, I shall not be afraid.
[00:30:23] I was afraid.
[00:30:24] I trusted in God. I remembered his promises. I know who it is I've placed my hope in, under whose wings I take shelter, who it is that's delivered me from sin and judgment, who holds me in his hands, who gives me eternal life, who says that no one can snatch me from his hands and no one can snatch me from the Father's hands. Who's greater than I.
[00:30:50] The psalmist says, I know these things to be true. That's where my trust is. And what happens to the fear? It's gone.
[00:30:58] He says, I trust in God and I shall not be afraid.
[00:31:04] And his conclusion? This evil man with all of his evil devices and all the things he wants to do to me.
[00:31:12] What can man do to me?
[00:31:15] What can. I'm afraid. I put my trust in God. You see, there it is. We could probably stop.
[00:31:20] We've illustrated the truth of the proverb. But we can go a little more.
[00:31:24] We can say a little more maybe.
[00:31:27] How? How could we work through this? In the moment that fear begins to grip us, we're anxious because of some problem. We're stuck in something. Maybe our children are causing us anxiety. We don't know what to do. We know what we should do, but we think that things are going to get worse if we do that. So how do I handle this situation? What do I do?
[00:31:49] I'm at work. There's a problem.
[00:31:52] My boss wants me to do this or my co workers want me to do that. And I'm anxious and afraid and it's not going to go well. If I do what I know God wants me to do, what do I do? The psalmist says, go to God.
[00:32:06] Take a moment and say my trust is in him, and think about The God who you put your trust in.
[00:32:12] You put your trust in God Almighty, who governs all things in his providence. What's that mean? That means that the very circumstances of this problem situation, your employer, your children, something out there in society with your friends, whatever it is, someone has a gun to your head. It doesn't matter what God in His almighty Providence put you in those circumstances.
[00:32:37] My trust is in that God who made no mistakes in putting me right here where I am. This uncomfortable, anxious situation.
[00:32:48] God put me here.
[00:32:50] That's the God I trust in.
[00:32:54] And not only is he all powerful, but he is all wise.
[00:32:58] And my trust is in a wise God and in a wise king, Jesus, who makes no mistakes.
[00:33:07] There's no accident.
[00:33:09] Jesus didn't forget about me. And that's why I'm in this difficult situation. No, no. He led me here in his wisdom, in his love, in his almighty power.
[00:33:23] That's the God. That's the king in whom I trust.
[00:33:28] I can trust his wisdom.
[00:33:30] I can trust his power to bring me through this.
[00:33:34] I can trust his power and his wisdom to guide me in this situation.
[00:33:38] You can begin thinking about who God is that you put your trust in.
[00:33:43] Now, of course, as you consider the God in whom you trust and you put your eyes off of your situation and off of the fear of man and his threats and, and onto God, you're also reminded that God, in His wisdom and in his almighty power, he loves you, he cares for you, and he may allow those threats to happen.
[00:34:12] The difficult things may come. Your kids may throw a bigger tantrum and fit, and you may have to work through that with them.
[00:34:20] You may not get the promotion because you took a stand for what was right at work.
[00:34:26] The bad thing might happen, but your trust and hope isn't in man or in your children. It's in God. Think about the story of Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
[00:34:40] You remember real quick. Nebuchadnezzar erects the image, the idol, and he says, everyone has to bow down to it. And the three friends say, nope, King, we only worship the true and living God. We won't worship your idol. Nebuchadnezzar comes to them and he says, but you know, I have the power to throw you in that fiery furnace and to take your lives.
[00:35:03] Do you remember their answer?
[00:35:05] They said, oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
[00:35:12] If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.
[00:35:21] If you bring that threat against us, the God in whom we trust, who's all powerful and all wise and brought us into this circumstance, he can deliver us from the fiery furnace. And if you remember the story, he did, but they go on if he doesn't.
[00:35:44] If you throw us into the furnace and we burn alive and we're destroyed because God chose in his wisdom and almighty power not to deliver us from the furnace.
[00:35:55] If not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
[00:36:07] It doesn't matter whether God saves us from the furnace or he allows us to burn up in the furnace.
[00:36:14] Our trust is in him and we rest in him and our hope is in him and not in you.
[00:36:23] As you begin to put your trust in God in that moment of terror and angst, and your thoughts turn to God and you begin to have peace in your heart, you may have to be at peace with the fact that something bad may happen, but even that's not outside of God's wisdom or power.
[00:36:46] They trusted those three friends, trusted in God's wisdom and power. They entrusted themselves to God and not to man.
[00:36:56] I think that's important. When we put our fear in man, we became anxious of him and do what he wants us to do. There's a way in which not only are we not trusting God, but we're trusting man.
[00:37:09] Don't do that.
[00:37:11] Put your trust in God and he'll take that anxiety away and replace it with peace.
[00:37:19] Trust sets us free from the fear of man and brings us safety.
[00:37:28] Trust in God's wisdom and in his power.
[00:37:32] It allows us to look to him when things get bad.
[00:37:37] It doesn't just deal with the threats though.
[00:37:40] I think it also deals with the problems.
[00:37:43] We can apply this from different angles.
[00:37:48] We can trust that God will help us to deal with our children with grace and with love. We don't just trust in him. We also trust him to help us go through the situation.
[00:38:01] We'll look to him and seek his help and trust that he'll help us know how to speak to our children, how to deal with them, and if need be, how to discipline them.
[00:38:11] We also trust in God for them.
[00:38:14] Not only will he give us grace with how to speak, but he'll give our children grace and help them through this situation.
[00:38:24] You could think of this in the context of dealing with difficult co workers, an employer, or as pastors who have to speak to you about the fear of man and push on sensitive consciences.
[00:38:40] My hope is not in me. My hope is not that you will listen because my words were persuasive. My hope is in God.
[00:38:49] My trust is in Him.
[00:38:51] To use the word of God that I bring to you, to deal with your hearts, to help you, his sheep.
[00:39:05] If you keep working on this, you keep working through the scriptures on this and thinking about as we place our trust in God, what happens?
[00:39:15] Not only does the fear begin to go away, but you go to passages like Joshua, chapter one.
[00:39:23] Joshua and the children of Israel. God sending them into battle.
[00:39:29] Years of battles, years of fighting against the Canaanite nations.
[00:39:36] Nations that were powerful. Big, thick walls, right?
[00:39:40] They have giants. We felt like grasshoppers next to them. Fear of man. Yeah, understandably so.
[00:39:48] But not only does God take away the fear of his people and replace it with trust. The generation that goes into the land was a generation that trusted in God. Their hope was in Him.
[00:39:59] He takes the fear away during those 40 years. He replaces it with trust. And as he sends them in, what does he tell his people?
[00:40:07] Be strong and courageous.
[00:40:11] Do not be dismayed, or do not be afraid.
[00:40:15] For the Lord your God is with you wherever you will go.
[00:40:20] You see how the trusting in God takes away the fear of man and replaces it even with a courage.
[00:40:27] He's with me. Whatever he takes me through, no matter how hard, no matter how much I used to fear it.
[00:40:33] I'm safe because he's with me. And my hope and trust are in Him.
[00:40:40] You see how the trust in God itself brings safety. I hope.
[00:40:46] But I don't think that's the safe place that this proverb is referring to.
[00:40:52] There's lots of safety there. And trusting in God, wonderful things. But look again. Whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
[00:41:02] That word safe is in contrast with the word snare.
[00:41:09] Fear of man lays a snare.
[00:41:12] But whoever trusts in God is safe. Yes, there's safety in trusting in God. It deals with the fear of man.
[00:41:21] Fear of man versus trusting God. But the safety, that safe place is in contrast to the snare.
[00:41:30] And what did we say? The snares are Sin.
[00:41:35] The sin that we would fall into.
[00:41:39] The proverb is saying that when we trust in God, he keeps us safe from sin.
[00:41:46] What should we really be afraid of?
[00:41:49] Not man, not what man can do to us.
[00:41:54] But we ought to really be terrified of falling into sin, which is a snare, a trap that would lead us away from God, away from his love, away from his grace. That's what sin does. It pulls us away from God and His life and over towards death. That's the real problem.
[00:42:13] That's the thing that we're not scared of in the moment, but is truly scary. That's the real, you might say, boogeyman.
[00:42:22] It's the sin.
[00:42:25] And the promise here is that as you trust in God, he will keep you safe from falling into sin.
[00:42:33] If coming to trust in Jesus Christ brings forgiveness of sins, eternal life, the guilt of sin is taken away. We're washed clean in his blood. God now loves us, we're in his kingdom here. We see that God now, as we trust in him, is going to keep us safe from falling in into sin. Now that's a wonderful promise because we're no longer afraid of man, but we're trusting in God. He's going to keep us from those traps.
[00:43:06] Now, two sides here.
[00:43:10] First, I want to consider that the safety that he brings us into means that all of the sin that we ever fell into because of the fear of man in the past. And if you've been sitting here thinking about your own life and your own struggles, I know this.
[00:43:29] There are many, many times that we have fallen into all kinds of sin because of the fear of man.
[00:43:35] Guess what? Part of the safety that the Lord Jesus gives us as we trust in him is that he has forgiven us for all of that sin, all of our past fear of man and the sins that flowed from it, he forgives us.
[00:43:51] He takes us, takes that away and he took it on himself.
[00:43:56] That's safety.
[00:43:58] Does your conscience torment you? Is there guilt and anxiety about past sins and past anxieties?
[00:44:05] Jesus says, I forgive you.
[00:44:08] Be at peace, be washed clean.
[00:44:14] Secondly, he deals with the sin that's in front of you, or I should say, the temptation to sin that's in front of you.
[00:44:21] As the Christian trusts in God, he's no longer led into that trap, but instead led away from it to a safe place.
[00:44:32] Think back to Daniel and his three friends.
[00:44:37] We looked at the three friends, right?
[00:44:41] The temptation. The easy way out, the hard way was that fiery furnace, right? Burning 10 times hotter.
[00:44:49] @ any moment they could have said, we'll just bow down in front of that idol and we don't have to face it.
[00:44:56] But that was the trap, right? That was the sin that they might fall into idolatry.
[00:45:04] In fact, if you looked at the sins of the Old Testament, that's really the worst one, isn't it?
[00:45:09] That's the reason God sends his people into exile, because they turned their backs on him and went after idols. And Daniel and his three friends knew what a trap that was. It was the trap that led Israel into exile.
[00:45:24] And God, by granting them faith and turning them and their hearts to himself in trust, he turned them away from that trap.
[00:45:33] You get the same thing with Daniel just a couple chapters later. What's he faced with? The king issues the decree of the Medes and Persians. That can't be changed, right?
[00:45:44] Only pray to me, the king. You can't pray to any God or anyone else. And what does Daniel do? He trusts in God.
[00:45:53] He says, I don't care if you throw me in a lion's den. I worship and serve only the living and true God.
[00:45:59] He trusted in God and God delivered him from idolatry.
[00:46:05] What was worse than the fiery furnace and the den of lions to fall into sin?
[00:46:13] God offers us safety as we put our trust in. He says, I'm going to bring you out of sin, and in my kingdom I'm going to give you freedom. Freedom from man and his terror, freedom from sin and idolatry, freedom from lust and whatever else has tormented you.
[00:46:31] And I'm going to give you the freedom of serving me in joy.
[00:46:37] Paul says that in Galatians 5, right? You were called to freedom. Brethren, don't turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh.
[00:46:47] Jesus came to give us freedom from sin, and that's a safe place.
[00:46:57] As we close, I want to leave you with just a few thoughts of those who face the fear of man in terrible situations, who put their trust in God.
[00:47:08] You know, Hebrews 11 gives us the roll call of the men of faith, right? By faith, they did this, they did that, and they were saved.
[00:47:16] And now by faith, we inherit the kingdom.
[00:47:20] Here's the roll call of men who stood up against fear of man, and God delivered them. We talked about Daniel and his three friends. They faced a lion's den, a fiery furnace. They trusted in God.
[00:47:31] He delivered them from both the terrible thing and from sin.
[00:47:38] David we saw a few weeks ago, King David was faced with his whole his men wanting to mutiny against him. When Ziklag was burned and everybody's women and children were carried off, what did David do? He strengthened himself in the Lord. He put his trust in God and God delivered him.
[00:47:59] He didn't fear his men. He trusted God and he had victory.
[00:48:05] It doesn't always end well, though, from a human perspective.
[00:48:10] You remember that very first martyr, the first deacon who went on to preach Stephen.
[00:48:18] He preached that beautiful, wonderful sermon giving testimony to Jesus as king and savior before the Jewish court, the Sanhedrin.
[00:48:26] He testified that he saw Jesus standing at the right Hand of God. The King is there, raised from the dead in heaven, reigning.
[00:48:38] And you need to serve him and repent.
[00:48:43] He put his trust in God, and guess what?
[00:48:46] They stoned him to death for it. Sometimes the bad things happen.
[00:48:51] But it's okay. Our trust is in God.
[00:48:55] It isn't just mere men, though.
[00:48:59] I want you to call your attention to one final example.
[00:49:04] When King Jesus comes to you and says, don't fear men.
[00:49:07] Trust in me and I will keep you safe. I'll save you from the fear of men. I'll save you from sin.
[00:49:15] You're following someone who himself has gone through this very thing.
[00:49:22] Jesus knows what man can do. He knows what a terrifying thing it is to be put on the cross.
[00:49:29] If you go to the Garden of Gethsemane, you see Jesus there, agonizing in prayer, pleading with the Father.
[00:49:39] He's terrified of the death that he's about to face.
[00:49:43] It's real.
[00:49:45] He says, father, if it's possible, take this cup from me.
[00:49:52] But what did he do?
[00:49:54] He entrusted himself to his Father's will. He says, not my will, but yours be done.
[00:49:59] I trust in you.
[00:50:01] And the Book of Hebrews says that he entrusted himself to God, who judges justly. In other words, Jesus trusted his Father. That his Father would find him to be righteous because he had lived a righteous life. And on the basis of that, that the Father would raise him from the dead.
[00:50:19] Jesus himself had to face the fear of man and trust God that God would raise him from the dead.
[00:50:27] The thing he calls us to do in this proverb is a thing he himself has done.
[00:50:33] And guess what?
[00:50:34] He rose victorious.
[00:50:36] And so will you, if you trust in him. Let's pray.
[00:50:42] Lord Jesus, our God and our King.
[00:50:45] We confess that our hearts not just tremble, but they are often tormented in agony, anxiousness because of things around us, people around us, this world, sometimes even people new to us that we love, who love us. We struggle with the fear of man with them.
[00:51:07] O God, we confess that we are truly weak as we peer into our hearts. By the aid of your word this evening we find that we are but a worm and not even a man.
[00:51:23] But, O Lord our God, we thank you that Jesus Christ, the God man, came and faced all these things for us, going even to the cross, that we might be delivered, set free, and that we might have the freedom to serve you in him.
[00:51:39] O Lord our God, we ask that you would strengthen our faith. It is very weak.
[00:51:46] Come, Lord Jesus, by the power of your spirit and help us to see you, to see more of you, to see more of your love, to see more of your power, to see more of your grace, to be drawn closer to you every day.
[00:51:59] Help us when we are afraid like this, almost to flee to you, to cling to you.
[00:52:08] And we ask that you would hear us, that you would receive us, that you would bathe our hearts in your smile, in your love.
[00:52:17] Help us to know that in you we are truly safe, that we might have courage to go forth and serve you with joy. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.
