Ps 37:3-5 Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass. 
	This will be our third consideration of the promises kept by the Lord in this passage. We are not studying this verse in terms of the Hebrew delineation, etc., but in terms of what it entails actively in the lives we are now living, on this earth. The Word of God is not outdated neither can it be set aside. Even in the study of the Old Testament trials and dealings of God with the Children of Israel, there is much for us to consider. While we are no longer under the curse of the disobedience of the law, it is still to be cherished in our hearts. It is the manner in which God showed the very desperate need for Christ. We must always consider that these are the given Words of God. Each one is specifically chosen for the people of God. 
Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we see that we are serving a Holy God. His Holiness is not to be taken casually. We are a chosen people, chosen to serve Him Who is the Righteous Creator of all life. As such, we need to value all the things of God, most especially His Word.
	 As I have been reading and pondering the Old Testament books of Moses, and the blessings and the curses set upon the people by God, something has become very evident. It is not that He was a wrathful God in the Old Testament and a merciful God in the New Testament, as is often declared by scholars. No, what is evident is that the measures exacted in the Old Testament were directly based on the lack of the holiness of the Children of Israel. 
They were continually turning their backs to God, Who had delivered them from Egypt. They were continually turning their backs to the One, Who had saved them over and over again. They were turning their backs to the One, Who had supplied their every need in the wilderness. They were constantly turning away from God, the One Who had preserved their clothing and their sandals for more than forty years; the One Who had given them victory after victory by going before them into battle. It seems that no sooner was the battle over, the crisis ended, and the Israelites were once again chasing after the false gods of the land, playing the harlot to the Love of The Most Holy God.
	As such, the people of the Old Testament, were dealt with in terms of punishment because that is what they had earned in their human depravity. Throughout scripture the precept has always been as delineated in Gal 6:7-8, Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and  that only is what he will reap. For he who sows to his own flesh (lower nature, sensuality) will from the flesh reap decay and ruin and destruction, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 
This is a promise of God that is vitally linked to the passage of our consideration. It is fundamental to the lives that we live before man and before God. The dealings of God in the Old Testament were the deserved result of this profound truth. 
God gave the Law to His people to separate them from the rest of the world. He spoke to His people through His prophets and through His messengers, appointed to reveal the truth of God in all His Holiness and Majesty. He made the way to commune with Himself through the sacrifices which showed the sorrow of man at man’s wickedness and unholiness before the righteousness of God. But man took that avenue and made a mockery of it. Man perverted everything of God and twisted it to man’s own end. 
	Many of the priests, those chosen to represent the people to God and God to the people, sought after their own ends and their own glory and their own riches at the expense of those they were charged to guide into the ways of the Lord. The law became, not the blessing of God for His people in the midst of this corrupt world. Rather, it became a curse, as did all the things of God, to that stubborn and thick necked people who were shunning God for the sake of their own vial lusts. They deserved the punishment of God, and they received that which they so faithlessly earned. 
Yet, throughout the scripture, there is that remnant, those few who saw God in the true light of the Love that He had for man. It is in that Love that God had given His Word and His Guidance and His Covering, even through the most devastating of situations.  Those who had an eye and a heart after God could see His Hand of Love on them. 
	Our Psalms text is an indication of the value that was placed on God in those who were after the heart of God.  Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass. This is the recognition of the love, faithfulness, and delight that people can find in God, if they would only trust Him and seek Him. This is a passage of God’s promise to those who know Him in all His Holiness and Majesty. This is a passage of joy, as we have so recently considered. When it and the Galatian text are considered together, His promise becomes all the more intensified in our hearts. Please consider that we are to commit our way to the Lord, to trust Him, and to see His Hand upon our life. That is the final outcome of this passage. It begins with trust – Trust in the Lord, and it ends with trust – Trust also in Him, and the result is that He will do it. 
	The truth is that we can trust God to fulfill all that He has promised, both positively for those who abide in His truth and seek Him with all their hearts, and negatively for those who shun Him and refuse to accept His freely given means of salvation, Our Lord Jesus Christ. We have already dealt with the initial aspects of trust and faithfulness and delight, although we have hardly exhausted all that God has enveloped in these marvelous truths of Himself unto us. We have seen that the desires of God will become our every desire, if we will but give ourselves wholly unto God for Him to be our life through the Lord Jesus Christ.  
	This is the same promise that He offered to the Children of Israel, when it is seen in the light of His eternal plan and purpose. The sacrifices and the keeping of the law were a means of their salvation, if they would but seek after God to be their life. It was not drudgery and an occasion for sorrow at the loss of what the other nations were doing. No, it was a liberation from the filth and horror that characterized the other nations. Those nations were defiled in the worst depravities in man’s degrading ability to become as animals. Consider for a moment, Sodom and Gomorrah. Those two cities were so corrupt that God could no longer bear the stench of their immorality and wickedness. He wiped them out as an example to all the nations of what the sowing of hatred and lecherousness would bring upon any people so utterly defiant to the simple standards of morality and common decency. These cities were the epitome of the heart of man apart from God, and their ungodliness brought about their utter destruction. Since then, they have become the continued examples of what man deserves of his own accord and how vile man can make himself before God. They sowed wickedness and they reaped destruction. Yet, even in this, God had made provision that, if but a few of them would turn to Him, He would spare them all. None did and none but Lot and his family survived.
	This was an example of how far mankind can push himself away from God. This was an example of why God had to give His Holy Standards to His people, to guard them from the same wallows of depravity. This was the outreach of the most Holy and Awesome God unto those He had chosen unto Himself, to bring them, in safety, and in holiness, into a loving relationship with Himself. And, it was a warning to all the nations of the consequences of defiling themselves in the realm of corruption. Rather than seeing Sodom and Gomorrah as an act of destruction, view it as the means whereby God tried to save His people from the same fate. He chose them unto Himself. He desired that they would be set apart from the rest of the nations. He desired a chosen priesthood to share together in the bounty of His Love. The example of the destruction of the corruptness, which so readily plagues man’s inner thoughts and lusts, was to be a guiding factor in their hearts after God. They were to know what could happen if they disobeyed the righteousness of God and prostituted themselves to this world. They were not without warning. They were without excuse. They fully knew and accepted the reality of the choices they made in turning their backs unto God. Out of the love of His heart and the faithfulness of His Word and the Holiness of His Being, God was compelled to honor the choices that were made before Him. 
	There is no excuse to the turning away from God. Scripture is very explicit on this point. In Rom 1:18-25, Paul writes the following, For God's [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative. For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and  godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves]. And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it).
	God cannot be untrue to His Word. Those who choose to deny Him will be subject to the course of the sowing of their vain hearts. They will be as Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed in the waste of their own depravity and sin. Again we hearken back to Gal 6, Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and  that only is what he will reap. For he who sows to his own flesh (lower nature, sensuality) will from the flesh reap decay and ruin and destruction, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 
We have discussed, to a point, the negative; now let us consider the positive aspects of the promise of God held within our passage. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. Please note, this portion of our text comes after we have seen the desires of our heart fulfilled by God. We are not asked to go out on a limb or to jump off a cliff and expect God to manifest Himself, although He could if that was His desire. No, we are to trust God, to seek Him with all our hearts, to delight in Him. Our delight in life is our delight in the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives, as our lives. We come to the point in our sojourn, that desires to know Him and Him alone as Lord of our hearts. We become sick of the filth and the lies and the facades erected in this age. We become disengaged with the selfish wishes of this world. We begin to recognize that there is nothing of this world that means anything to us. We see Christ Alone. We desire Christ Alone. We lean on Christ Alone. We value Christ Alone. And, we yearn for a greater and increasing knowledge of Him. That is why the Word of God becomes so vital to us. We hunger and thirst after His righteousness and find it in the words that He breathed into the hearts of those men writing under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We value the way of the Holy Spirit in our beings. We long to hear Him ever more clearly apart from the noisy din of this humanity. Rather than being a strict policeman, as some have so falsely labeled Him, the Holy Spirit becomes our greatest source of life and comfort. We trust Him to guide us in our daily activities and to be our source of understanding, wisdom, and strength to face the challenges of each day in this world. We esteem the gift of God in His Holy Spirit and learn to more and more rely upon His every guiding whisper in our heart. When we falter, we do not dread punishment. We dread disappointing our Heavenly Father. We dread letting down our Lord Jesus. And we dread the grieving that we cause the Holy Spirit. Rather than the fear of being disciplined, we are filled with sincere remorse at our actions before God. This is a prime example of how our ways are committed to our Lord Jesus Christ. 
The citizens of this world are not driven by their commitment to anyone but themselves. If they are caught in an act of corruption, they search for someone else to blame. If a person, a scapegoat, is not readily at hand, they place the blame on an influence from earlier in their life or the pressures of the circumstances over which they have no control. They take no responsibility for anything that would bring them ridicule or disgrace in the eyes of their family and friends. There is no concern for others, only themselves and their desire after those things which gratify the flesh. That is why they are so uneasy with the idea that we can live out from Christ in our daily walk. They want to be the one in charge, master in their own lives. They want to control the areas that they seem to be able to control in their feeble efforts of their limited life on this earth. They are seeking the glory of this realm and are blinded to the fact that they will never have it. The power of this age holds it out as bait, as a means of enticing mankind away from man’s true purpose of being completely unto God with all man’s heart and soul. 
But, when we trust in the Lord, dwell fully in that trust established in our vital living relationship with the most Holy and Loving One, we have no desire after ourselves. It is a desire after that alone which will bring glory to God. In line with that, we know that there are things about our selves that need to be dealt with by God, to make us ever more clearly the vessels through whom Christ can shine forth to this age. We know that we are in need of the loving Hand of God directing, chastening, and holding us close to His heart. The discipline of the Lord is not to be dreaded, but to be sought after because it is a further correlation that we are truly the Sons of God. Solomon, with all his earthly wisdom, understood that the chastening of the Lord was not to be feared, but to be desired. Prov 3:11-12, My son, do not despise or shrink from the chastening of the Lord [His correction by punishment or by subjection to suffering or trial]; neither be weary of or impatient about or loathe or abhor His reproof, For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.  
How opposite this is from the ways of the world. How utterly foolish it sounds to the learned of this age, that the only true life is one that is lived completely and commitedly unto God. It runs against every grain of human dignity and understanding, because it takes away our glory and places God’s glory above all else in our lives. That is the commitment we make in our lives unto God, don’t you see. We are no longer living for our benefit, but for His glory. Our desire is no longer that we will find happiness and satisfaction, but that He will take pleasure in the relationship that we have in Him. We are utterly desirous that He will be satisfied in the Love He shed upon us in Jesus Christ; satisfied that His Love has done its complete work in our lives, to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. This world would commit us to an insane asylum, while we wholeheartedly commit this world to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We beseech Him to make Himself known, by whatever means to those around us. We give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit to make and to mold us into that which would be of complete service to the purpose of God on this earth. Our heart’s yearning is that our family members, our friends, our workmates, our acquaintances will all come into the same relationship that we have with the Lord. We echo the Love of God that gave His only Begotten Son to love the inhabitants of this world. We pray that none will be lost and we trust Him to be faithful in all His dealings with those whom we lift before Him in prayer. 
We know that He will do that which He has promised. Our heart is that everyone will come to know Him as we know Him, in all His grace and mercy and truth. We recognize that this world is falling apart in decay and corruption. There is no salvation to be found in science and in the knowledge of man. Mankind is such a selfish creature snubbing his nose at the One Who created him. There is no hope in this world. It is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Hope. He is our Joy. He is our Peace in all the storms of this age. He is the only One in Whom all the glory of the ages will be found. God will do it. He has promised it. There is no doubt in our hearts and no doubt about it in His Word.  
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting, in the King James. Do not be deceived by the decrepit foolishness of the lost of this world. They are sowing unto themselves in the vain glory of their humanity. The corruption they will reap will be calamitous beyond all description. Even the demolishing of Sodom and Gomorrah will pale in the destruction that is being sewn and will be reaped by this age. It will happen. There is no doubt. The glory of this age will become the rubble of wailing and gnashing of teeth because it has turned its back on the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Our place on this earth is to live in the promise of God. We are to commit our lives to Him; to seek after Him; to trust Him; to find our delight in Him and Him, Alone. As we sow our hearts unto the Holy Spirit, we will recognize the complete need for Him to be our everything. There will spring forth the knowledge that, in Christ, He will bring out, from among the inhabitants of this age, those who will respond to His heart of Love. It will be through the prayers and the testimony of the saints, of those who have accepted Christ, that He will be presented as a lifeline to those is such dire need. 
We will find that our commitment will be met with derision and with persecution in the anger of this age. That is to be expected. However, in our sowing unto the Holy Spirit, in our decision that God Alone deserves all the glory of creation, we will find that the harvest of Christ continues to multiply with each prayer, with each kindness, with each witness, with each willing act of Love emanating forth from us unto those whom He calls. 
Live this promise of God unto this world. Live in the promise of His glory above all else. Respond to His Word as He shows Himself forth in scripture. Seek to value God and all the things of God above all else on this earth. Let us find our delight in Him only and we will find that He will faithfully become our heart’s every desire. These are not mere words to be filed away as wonderful truths to ponder sometime in the future. This is a challenge beyond any that we have yet considered! The time is at hand when the people of God must live the life that He has established in Christ. So very much depends on the sowing of our hearts, in the purity of God’s love, unto this humanity. Everything is centered in Our Lord Jesus Christ! We dare not treat this lightly! Let us fully comprehend that there is no excuse, no ducking the issue, no meager interpretation of motives. We must, with all our desire, in all earnestness, and with every fiber of our being, give ourselves to Him, no matter what road we are called to travel! No matter what the cost! No matter what the tribulation that is laid upon us for His name’s sake! We must be His and His alone! His glory above all else, that is our life!
Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.