One might want a little more context; “3 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:
2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
Trusting in God now is trusting in God; the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Faith in God does not require abandoning reason. Mind does not work that way. One may have faith that a barbeque shredded beef sandwich quality is healthful and give thanks to God at the same time.
Trust in God is comparable in some respects to trusting in your instructors the first time you make a head-first Australian repel that you won’t just fall and hit the ground. It is like trusting a guide to lead you across the desert or a navigator to make a course across the sea. Edifying Bible reading is for your own benefit. Trust in God is not retirement from effort or responsibility. As is said God has a plan for your life.
Worldly ethics differ from Christian. Christians may demure to worldly government for it is fallen though moderated. German Nazis were a minority power. Practically though once Hitler became chancellor he was a dictator. It’s wrong to blame the masses for blind allegiance to authority when they had no choice with death a likely outcome. Stalin evolving through killing off communist rivals to leadership had no need for public support from the start. He used raw secular power to subjugate everyone. He was the most absolute dictator that has ever existed. In South Africa segregation occurred because race wr was common. Zulus were not tame subjects blindly obedient to government. Eventually the paradigm of race war as normal followed by the inertia of established way of doing things became transcended so apartheid ended.
Slavery was a normal human institution worldwide until the 19th century. Paul’s advice was practical then Rome entirely eradicated Jerusalem in 70 ad with a million dead Jews, and they were the legal authority. Spartacus leading the Roman slave revolt never stood a chance and all those thousands of slaves were crucified.
There will always be secularists willing to revolt. They want worldly power. Jesus said that his kingdom is not of this world. He was not Barrabas, he is God. His ways and wisdom differ from those of the Godless
Garrison Gibson: books and blog 