Confidence.
I. CHRISTIANS MAY ENJOY CONFIDENCE. This is named as part of the blessedness of the restoration: "Yea, they shall dwell with confidence." Confidence is good on many accounts.
1. It glorifies God. To be forever doubting, questioning, and fearing shows an unworthy want of appreciation of God's glorious redemption. We honor God by taking him at his word, and quietly trusting in his grace.
2. It confers peace on the soul. We can possess our souls in quietness when we have confidence. Diffidence keeps up a sense of perpetual unrest.
3. It inspires energy. "They shall build houses, and plant vineyards." So long as the restored Jews expected to be surprised at any moment by their foes and driven away again from their homes, they would not have much heart to build up the walls of Zion. Tents are sufficient for sojourners. Confidence, however, will give a motive for laying good foundations and building solid structures. The confident Church will launch out in daring enterprises, or carry on long patient toil in sure expectation of enduring results.
4. It gives leisure for service. The distrustful workmen must carry the sword as well as the trowel, and thus be hampered in their work. Confidence dismisses fear of danger. The confident servant of God may give himself wholly to his Master's work.
5. It wins others to confidence. Timorous Christians will make but few converts, but one person's confidence infuses a corresponding confidence in others.
II. TRUE CONFIDENCE IS BASED ON SAFETY. Confidence is a feeling; safety is a fact. The one is only justified by the other. Confidence without security is mere bravado. There is no security in the bare sense of safety. Thus often they are most confident who have least reason to be so. The first inquiry is as to facts, not feelings. If we lack confidence our business is not to endeavor to stimulate it, to lull fear with spiritual opiates, or to rouse assurance with spiritual intoxicants. Such conduct is as foolish as it is dangerous. The right course is to look into the question of the justification of confidence. If we want to know whether the house will stand, let us have its foundations examined. When we can be assured of safety, confidence will be a natural result.
III. THE SAFETY ON WHICH TRUE CONFIDENCE IS BASED IS ACCOMPLISHED BY THE REDEEMING WORK OF GOD. The Jews were to dwell in confidence when God had destroyed the power of their enemies. Thus they were to "despise them round about them." It is shown in the Old Testament as well as the New that the sources of confidence as well as the grounds of safety are not to be found in man. We are not to be confident nor to count ourselves safe because of anything we have done, or because of our assurance of our own strength and resources. Our confidence is in God; therefore the feeblest souls may be confident, as the weakest of men may be quite safe within a strong fortress. Judgment reveals God to the wicked. Thus Zidon knows that God is the Lord (Ezekiel 28:22). Redemption reveals him still more to his people, to those who trust and acknowledge him. They will be confident when they are brought by the gracious goodness of the Lord to know him by experience as indeed "their God."