TRUSTING IN THE SAVIOUR
Proverbs 14:32 (from “but the righteous”)
This scripture has been before me since the Lord took home our dear brother, and I have been confirmed in thinking about it by the hymn which we have just sung:-
‘Thou gav’st Thyself our love to win,
Our full confiding trust’ (Hymn 6)
Our dear brother whose body we will bury today was an example of this scripture. He trusted in his Saviour, the Lord Jesus. I would like to speak about that. The translator offers another form of words for “trusteth”, which is ‘is full of confidence’2. A person who is righteous according to God is full of confidence, even in his death, and that marked our dear brother. He trusted in the One whom he had come to love early in his life. More than 80 years ago, our brother put his confidence and trust in Christ as his Saviour.
It is the righteous who are spoken of here; “the righteous trusteth, even in his death”. Practical righteousness is a product of the righteousness that is according to God, and our brother was righteous according to God. We sang about that in our hymn too:-
‘Jesus, the One who knew not sin,
Made sin to make us just’.
The word ‘just’ means righteous. In trusting in the Lord Jesus, we come to know the One of whom the scripture speaks as “Him who knew not sin”. He was “made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him” (2 Cor.5:21). Every believer in the Lord Jesus is among the righteous. It would be wonderful if someone here who has not yet trusted in Christ were to put their faith in Him now, trusting in the One who has been made sin to make us just and coming into the good of the righteousness that is according to God. “God’s righteousness” – what a standard of righteousness that is, and our dear brother was on that ground, the ground of God’s righteousness, as trusting in his Saviour, in Jesus. There is no other righteousness. If the standard was our righteousness, how short we would fall, but God has in mind that people should be before Him in His righteousness, as set out in Christ, and available to everyone who believes in our Lord Jesus, the One who has done the work.
What a work was done by the One who was made sin, involving suffering that we cannot fathom, a matter worked out between that Man suffering on the cross and His God to God’s full and eternal satisfaction, and giving God a righteous basis to confer righteousness on those who believe in His Son. Our brother did that many, many years ago, and trusted in his Saviour. The trust that he had in Jesus came out in his conversation. How attractive it was to take account of that. How blessed it is to have your trust, your full confidence, in One who is the Son of God, who has died for your sins, who is raised, and is living and glorified now, unassailably beyond the power of death. That is where Jesus is, and He is available for every one of us as an Object for our faith, trust and confidence. Our dear brother enjoyed that, and we saw it in him. It is a fine thing to read a scripture, and see that a believer whom you have known has manifested that scripture – it is the work of God substantially and reliably in that person. There would be no point in having confidence in myself in the face of death. Death is man’s greatest weakness, as has often been said, but our brother’s trust and confidence were not in himself but in Another who is entirely worthy of it.
There is another scripture in which the apostle Paul speaks of being “confident … and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord” (2 Cor.5:8). Our brother is now absent from the body and present with the Lord. He had complete confidence that that would be so, and in his time here, he looked forward keenly to being with his Saviour. He is with Him now. What was true by faith in the life here of our dear brother, he is enjoying now in the presence and the company of the One who died for him, who lives now, and in whom our brother placed his trust. He is with Him, and enjoying the presence of that One he so longed to see.
That happy, confiding trust that our brother had in his Saviour, that assurance and joy and confidence, is available to everyone. If there is someone here who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, there is nothing to prevent you from placing your trust in that blessed One now, and knowing for yourself the joy of confidence in One who has been here as a blessed Man, who has died in love for us, who has been raised and lives now. A link with the Man in glory – what a completely sound and eternal Object of confidence and trust, a blessed Man beyond death in glory. Our brother trusted Him, and enjoyed that confidence and trust, and he displayed it. It is because of who Jesus is that our confidence and trust can be fully in Him. May we be comforted and encouraged by these thoughts, for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Given at a meeting for ministry on the occasion of a burial, Grangemouth
20 December
A.M. Brown