Volume 27, Issue 3
Page 14
WisconsinChristianNews.com
Finding Rest in a Hurried World – (Conclusion)
Saving Faith? I want to share with you what this means, be- cause some folks, they’ll read this, but they’re not saved. They have no idea what it means to rest in an understanding of the God who is sovereign. “I don’t even know God. What does His sovereignty have to do with anything?” Well, for those people, what is saving faith? What does it mean to be born again? Let me give you a few facts about saving faith. First of all, saving faith responds to the one true and living God. You see, your faith is only as good as the object in which you place it. So, who is the God that you have trusted? Is it the God of the Scriptures, or is it the god of your own choosing or making? See, that would be an idol. I’m alerted to the fact that people are serving idols every time I hear somebody say, “Well, my God… ” Well, if you’re my brother, we serve the same God, so I don’t know who this “my God” is. This “my God” is usually a preface for “Well, my God is this” or “My God wouldn’t do that,” or “My God is this.” Well, what does the Scripture say? Because that’s the bottom line, not your opinion. Saving faith responds to the one true and living God. Now, you can know — the Bible says you can know and be sure that you are born again. You can be sure. Several places I think of immediately when I make that statement: John chapter 20, where John says, “These things have been written so that you might know the One in whom you’ve believed in.” So that you might know. Secondly, saving faith trusts in the promises of God. You see, our faith was meant to be practical. The Christian faith is meant to be lived out day by day. It’s not some pie-in-the-sky set of rules and regulations that you have to strive for every day to try and attain. No, saving faith rests in and trusts in the promises of God. And God’s promises are ap- plicable, they’re workable, they’re livable; they make sense in the everyday 24/7 grind that we call life. So I encourage you to investigate those. Thirdly, saving faith depends on the Word of God. You know, you must be involved in a regular read- ing, studying, meditation upon the Word of God. Whatever “regular” looks like for you, but do it on a systematic, regular basis. Why? Because it is the Word of God. It is the medium by which He speaks to us. Now, He’ll speak to us as we’re in the Word of God, studying and meditating on it by the Holy Spirit—the Holy Spirit gives us understanding, right? But we must be in the Word on a regular basis. So, saving faith depends on the Word of God. If you’re a believer and you say you claim faith in God, and yet you never read the Scripture, and you blow the dust off of it so that you can bring it with you on Sunday, something’s wrong there. Continued on Page 15
By Dr. Mike Spaulding Summer 2026 EDITOR’S NOTE: Previous parts of this series can be found on the Wisconsin Chris- tian News web- site.
1, verses 13 through 16 and see what that has to say that applies to this.
“Behold, he travails” (verse 14) “with wickedness, and he conceives mischief and brings forth false- hood.” Notice what happens to someone who gives their life to that kind of behavior. Verse 15: “He,” the evil one, has dug a pit, hollowed it out, and “has fallen into the hole which he made.”
So, what happens then, when we understand that we can rest in God’s sovereignty because He’s got it under control? He is our Defender; He’s not going to allow evil to continue indefinitely. There is a day marked for judgment. When we rest in all of
The godly believer, man or woman, rests in God’s sovereignty, understanding that no one gets away with anything, and eventually, the rotten fruit of sin will manifest itself — that’s verses 14 through 16, and I want you to see this. This encourages me. I hope that it encourages you. God Will Deal With All Wickedness “Behold, he” (now, little ‘h’ — now He’s talking about the evil ones, those that were pursuing David, those that were slandering His name, those that were His adversaries) — “Behold, he travails with wickedness, and he conceives mischief and brings forth falsehood.” How many of you have known people in your life who just seem to thrive on causing problems? We say things like, “Man, why are they always stirring the pot?” We know people like that, don’t we? Now, dis- claimer: it’s okay if you’re stirring the pot and you’re just having fun. There’s a difference. I like jokesters myself. I like people who play pranks, and you know, that’s fun. I like that. That’s not what this is. This is trying to cause others to stumble through plotting evil.
We have a phrase for that: “What goes around, comes around.” Yeah, see, people who commit evil, people who rejoice in their sin and try to get others to stumble into sin, sooner or later, their own lives are going to implode because of their behav- ior. They’re not going to get away with it forever.
that, not only is the burden lifted off of us, because that can be very depressing looking at the world today and thinking, “Man, how long can this go on?” Does anybody else think about that besides me? “How long can this go on, Lord?” Well, what hap- pens as a result of all of that? When you go through this process of thinking through all these things, and you arrive at an understanding of God’s sov- ereignty, you rejoice in His goodness, in His plan, and your salvation, and it leads to worship. Worship Is A Natural Result Of Resting In God That’s what verse 17 says. Notice, David says, “I will give thanks to the Lord according to His right- eousness.” After working through all of these things and understanding what is necessary to live a right- eous, blameless, holy life before God, evaluating yourself accurately, asking God to evaluate your- self, resting in God’s sovereignty — that is going to lead you, ultimately, to a place of worship, where you can worship the Lord. In Matthew 11, verses 28 through 30, Jesus calls us to peace and rest. That should be what charac- terizes our lives — peace and rest. Now that seems to be a contrast that’s not doable in our culture, but I’m here to tell you that it is. But you’ve got to set up and organize your life in such a way that you can have that peace and rest. You’ve got to elimi- nate all those things in your life that cause disrup- tion, that cause drama. And sometimes, that’s people. However, that applies in your own life, sometimes that’s people. But we can rest from the hardships of life because Jesus has already worked it out on our behalf.
For supplemental reading, look at James, chapter
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