Beware of False Confidence

Mike Wencel

 

  CONFIDENCE IN SELF  .

▶ We will be talking today about guarding against having a false confidence in where we will spend eternity.

We will start with a passage from the old testament where God warns us about this:

       “peace”  (the Hebrew word used here is “shalom” ) BDB definition: 1) completeness, soundness, welfare,

       peace, safety, soundness (in body), welfare, health, prosperity, quiet, tranquility, contentment, friendship in

       human relationships, friendship with God especially in covenant relationship

     

      One could apply this warning to so many things that are going on in today’s world

         ● The liberties man has taken in worship

         ● The ideas of atheism and secular humanism

         ● The tolerance and promoting of grievous sins that God calls abominations

         ● Calling that which is evil good and that which is good evil. ▶ We are told that all of this is fine as long as  

            we are sincere.

 

▶ Jeremiah preached the same warning to the Jews hundreds of years later:

    Jeremiah is talking here about false teachers who try to give people a warm- fuzzy feeling that they can do

    whatever they want, whatever their heart desires and they will have peace and be just fine. What a deceitful 

    and soul-destroying teaching that was (and still is). The watered down plan of salvation, so prevalent in the

    world today, is a modern example of exactly what Moses and Jeremiah were speaking of - whereby man violates

    God’s command to not add or subtract anything from his word (Deuteronomy 4:2)

 

▶ Both Solomon and Paul tell us where our trust should be:

    Our trust should be not in ourselves, but in God. Trusting in anyone else, even ourselves is foolish.

   

▶ This concept  of foolishness is well documented by the wisest man on earth (Solomon) and one of the great

    prophets (Isaiah):

     WOE: deep sorrow, grief, or affliction. Isaiah explains this woe in more detail a few verses down.

 

▶  The Holy Spirit,  through Isaiah, uses an even stronger metaphor:

     Barnes: “their root shall be as rottenness”  Be rotten; or decayed - furnishing no moisture for the support of the

    plant. The idea is, that all the sources of national prosperity among the Jews would be destroyed. The word  

    “root” is often used to denote the source of strength or prosperity (Isaiah 14:30 / Hosea 9:16 / Job 18:16).

    “And their blossom will ascend like dust” – The word blossom means tender branch or flower. As the root would

    be destroyed, the flower, lacking nourishment, would become dry, and turn to dust, and blow away. Their  

    strength, and the sources of their prosperity would be destroyed.

 

▶ Paul warns us against worldliness, in many passages, such as this one:

     Barnes: A literal translation of the Greek will give this sense: “what you think of or seek for yourself, seek

    also for your brethren.”

     ● “high things” refers to the highly coveted things in life like notoriety, honors, riches, power – basically “fame 

     and fortune”. These are not to be our primary objectives in life.

     ●  Paul’s advise to associate with humble is the exact opposite of what most of the elites of our society do. They

    associate with other elites who they can benefit from in some way, they certainly do not desire to mix with the

    “lower class”. They prefer to stay in their ivory towers. 

 

  CONFIDENCE IN OUTWARD RESOURCES  .

 

    Anybody here own a chariot? A horse? How may have a bow and arrow? A sword?

    So how are these admonitions relevant to us today? Substitute car or home for chariot, substitute politicians for

    horsemen, substitute personal wealth and possessions for horses and you can see how we are just as

    susceptible to  putting our trust in the wrong things today as people were who lived thousands of years ago. The

    materials are different but the danger is the same – putting our trust in things or people instead of God.

 

▶ Jeremiah paints an equally dismal picture of people with misplaced trust:

    ● Chemosh being taken into captivity implies the total ruin of those under his “protection”. Chemosh will not be

       able to save those who are faithful to him – God will destroy them all.  It is interesting to note that worship of

       this particular god was introduced into Jerusalem by Solomon and abolished by king Josiah of Judah.

    ● God is pretty serious about this tendency of men to trust anything and everything instead of Him.

    

▶  Trusting in material wealth is given special attention in the Scriptures:

     Moral: Your money can’t save you or your family or friends, only the atoning blood of Christ can do that,  if

               you are obedient to the plan of salvation.

NT Restoration Commentary: It is impossible for a man who trusts in riches – whose affections are set on riches, who makes the gaining of riches the end of his labors, who refuses to give up his riches to serve the cause of God and the good of man – to bring himself under the laws of God. We tend to apply it to the millionaire, and think it does not apply to us; but it means all whose affections are placed on money. A man who lets the attainment of five dollars hinder his obedience to God as much falls under the condemnation of this law as he who lets the attainment of ten thousand dollars come between him and obedience to God. It is the spirit with which we view money, not the amount. There are two classes of men whom Jesus considers rich and are here condemned. Namely, one who loves his riches, and makes an idol of them; the other who supremely desires to be rich. In other words, one who already "has it" and is making an idol of it, and one who does not have it, but is seeking it through undue means, and will make an idol of it if he gets it. Note that Christ did not condemn riches but the abuse of riches--the love of it.

 

  CONFIDENCE IN MEN

 

    ● How many people put their trust in man today? Think of the propaganda being foisted upon naive citizens by 

       the liberal news outlets – people just trust the words of these people without any research, as if those words

       were gospel. This is how dictators brainwash their people.

    ● Think about dictatorships like North Korea where people are told who they must worship and what they must

       think. If they voice any other allegiance out loud, they can be sentenced to a life of hard labor or simply 

       eliminated. Fear is the main tool that dictators use to coerce their subjects into believing what they tell them

       to believe.

    ● God, on the other hand, does not rely primarily on fear to get his message across but on truth and love. He

       gives man free will to choose or reject that truth and love.

    ● Obviously fear does come into play, but only among those who rebel against God – they have a lot to fear. But

       those who choose to side with God have nothing to fear. Fear should not be present in their mind at all.   

 

▶ Incredibly, sometimes men would rather trust their enemies than God:

     Israel would rather ask their enemies for help than God? -  How crazy is that? Kind of reminds me of our

    relationship with China today.

 

  EXAMPLES OF FALSE CONFIDENCE E

▶ At Babel

    Their thought seems to have been “we can be like gods”. Their faith in themselves was greatly misplaced. For a

    few verses later we see God’s displeasure at their arrogance: 

 

▶ King Asa, in relying on Syria rather than on God

     King Asa did some foolish and ungodly things - trusting the king of Syria rather than God was just one of them,

    and the results were calamitous - bringing wars upon his kingdom and all the suffering that goes along with it. 

    Trusting your enemies is never a smart course of action.

 

▶ People ignoring God’s commands

John Gill:  When it was a day of trouble, when Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrian army; then did the Lord call to weeping and to mourning; to confess and mourn over their sins, the cause of these calamities; to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and, by prayer and supplication, with tears to implore his help and assistance, and grant them deliverance; and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth; which were external signs of inward sorrow and repentance; the former of which was done by shaving the head, or plucking off the hair.

     How many people in today’s word have this sentiment as their personal motto: Let’s eat and drink and be 

     merry  for tomorrow we die! Or perhaps it would have to updated a bit to say: Let us eat and drink, and

     smoke,  and  snort, and inject, and party, and fornicate, for tomorrow we die!

     But these folks do have one part right: “tomorrow we die”, but that should be cause for pursuing godly behavior

     not debauchery.

Barnes: Probably if the real feelings of the great mass of worldly people were expressed, they could not be better expressed than in this passage of Isaiah: To paraphrase: ‘We must soon die - we cannot avoid that, for it is the common lot of all. And since we have been sent into a dying world; since we had no agency in being placed here; since it is impossible to prevent this doom, we may as well “enjoy” life while it lasts, and give ourselves to pleasure, dissipation, and revelry.

 

▶ Peter’s inflated self-confidence

    ● Talk is cheap. It is easy to talk the talk but much more difficult to walk the walk. No one is infallible and we  

       are foolish and vastly over-confident if we think we are. 

    ● The denominational world needs to know that just saying you believe is meaningless if it is not accompanied 

       by  complete obedience to God’s word. If you say you believe in God but not in his word you are deceiving 

       yourself  and giving yourself a false sense of security if you think you are a saved individual.

    ● The last thing you want on judgment day is to be surprised when learning your “belief” alone is not enough to

       get you into heaven. Unfortunately, many will be surprised and it will not be a good surprise.