Address—T. Cedarland
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Like to speak.
This afternoon, with the Lord's help, on the subject of the will of God, the will of God.
Turn first of all to a verse in First Peter.
First Peter, chapter 4.
In verse one. For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself likewise with the same mind. For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. Now turn over please to Romans chapter 12, a well known verse in Romans chapter 12.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, verse one.
By the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable in the God which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Well, our brother in his prayer this morning prayed that we might be dead to our own wills and that we might have the Lord's will during our time here in this at this conference. And it made me think of this little subject, the will of God, as I was looking to the Lord as to what to speak about this afternoon.
And I feel, as I stand here, that we know that we're all very, very close to the coming of the Lord Jesus.
But if we're left here a very short time, there are young people, especially in this audience, who are making decisions that are going to affect them for the rest of their lives, decisions that will cause them to either have a happy life, a joyous life, or a life that could be a tragedy, a life of sorrow. So I'd like to speak a little bit with the Lord's help on this little subject of the will of God that is so important that we have the Lord's will in our lives.
We think of the purpose as was mentioned in the reading of the Lord Jesus.
Coming into this world and we know that He came here to glorify the Father and to do His will.
In John's Gospel chapter 6 and verse 38, he says, I came not down from heaven to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. In John four he says to his disciples, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish the work that he gave us me to do. In Hebrews chapter 10 and verse seven, and also in verse 10, he says, lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me, but to do thy will, O God.
We see the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane as he poured out his cries there with tears, with his sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And he could say there, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And so we see that blessed Savior is the perfect example as one who always sought the will of God in his life. And this afternoon there's none of us in this room that will ever in this life measure up to.
The perfection of the Lord Jesus. But what a blessed perfect object that we had to look at and see in the perfection of one who always did that which pleased the Father. And so we can look at that object and strive if it says in forms, mark the perfect man and consider him, and we can seek to have the Lord's will in our lives. It's His desire that each one of us would have His will when He taught his disciples to pray in Matthew 6.
Even before he said, give us this day Our Daily Bread, he said.
Thy will be done first of all and foremost. I wonder when you got up this morning, When I got up this morning.
And when we set our heard prayers, maybe some had spent more time than others. Did we pray first and foremost for the Lord's glory and for his will? Or did we pray for all the things that we wanted down here? Well, I hope as we look at these little examples in Scripture this afternoon that each one of us would be challenged to more and more desire that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The number of months ago I walked into the meeting room for an all day meeting back in the state of Washington. There was a young man that I grew up with.
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There and he and I were best of friends as we grew up together. He was in one assembly and I was in another, and we got together quite a lot. We lived close by, but he spent most of his adult life in prison. And he said to me as I saw him there, sitting in the seat in the meeting room for the first time in many, many years.
He said to me after we were visiting, he said, you know, I used to think about you and he said I used to say what a boring life Tim leads. But he said now I see that your life is the happy one and mine has been a waste. I don't say that to stand here and pretend that I have always sought to do the Lord's will in my life. But I can say this young people this afternoon that in the measure that I thought to please the Lord, he's brought happiness and joy into my life and I desire that for everyone in this this room this afternoon.
It's such a tragedy when we go our own will. Wasted lives. I got a call just a few days ago.
My wife and I and family just got back from a trip and there was a man about 45 on the phone. He'd come to gospel meetings that we had. He professed to know the Lord Jesus as his Savior. His wife also was saved several years ago, and she came out to some of the assembly meetings and she desired that her husband would be a spiritual leader in their home. But he never would come to the regular meetings. And so this man, he called me, He said, you know.
I knew all the time that God wanted me to be the spiritual leader in our home, but I refused to do it and my wife wanted to go on for the Lord and I didn't.
And he said, because I didn't allow the Lord to have His will in my life, now she wants to leave me. He was in tears. She gotten away from the Lord. She's gone out and made a mess out of her life and sinned. It's all because of not having the Lord's will in the light. And so it's so important that we would have the Lord's will. His will is perfect. It's good and acceptable. Satan would have us think that if we have the Lord's will in our life that we're going to miss out on something. But that's the happiest path that there is.
For a Christian, the happiness and being a Christian doesn't come in just receiving Christ, but oh the real joy comes in pleasing Christ and living for him. Often noticed and really been struck with the thought that in the in the New Testament we find the word Savior mentioned 24 times in the New Testament, but we find the word Lord mentioned 522 Times. Lord Lord would give out connotation of letting the Lord have everything.
And having his will in our lives, well, no one knows the product like the manufacturer. The Lord made us. He knows what's best for us. And so that the Lord's will is good and it's perfect and it's acceptable. It's the happy path. I'd like to look at a number of scriptures that would have to do with the will of God in various areas of our life. The first one I'd like to turn to is in second Peter chapter 3.
Second Peter chapter 3 and beginning with verse 9.
The Lord is not flat concerning His promises. Some men count slackness, but His long-suffering to us word.
Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Now, I know this afternoon that this is an address. It's not a gospel meeting.
But the very first step to having the Lord's will in our lives is knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and Lord. And so it says here that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. In our reading we read in John 13 about the Lord Jesus when he stooped down and washed the disciples feet. And afterwards he could say ye are clean but not all. And it tells us this. He's fake because Judas who was going to betray him was there.
My brother Dan pointed out that.
It says in verse 10, there are ye are washed by he that is washed need not only but to have his feet washed. There's two different words used there in the Greek. The one word washed means bathe, and the other word means comes from a word that means basin, which means a little cleansing or a little like feet washing. And so and there were those one pictures being washed in the blood of Jesus and the other pictures, the cleansing that we get in our daily life from the pollution of sin. The first one from the penalty of sin. The blood is for atonement. The water is for purification.
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And I wonder this afternoon if everybody in this room has come and had that the forgiveness of sin through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is there somebody here who, as we look out in this audience, has sat here, as we might say, the Lord has washed our feet and as we've been encouraged, looking at the Word of God in these wonderful Scriptures? And yet you sit here unwashed. You sit here unsaved on the road to an eternal hell. I look out here and I can't see into your hearts. But God looks down and he knows the heart.
And I think of the answer that was given by the disciples.
Judith said, is it I? Is it I? And I ask you to ask that question this afternoon at the beginning of this talk on the will of God. Are you the one who's sitting here that's not saved? Are you the one that doesn't know the Lord? I want to tell you with joy that God is not willing that you perish. God is not willing that any should perish, as it says in this verse, but that all should come to repentance. It's His will that you be saved. He wants you to be saved this afternoon. It's a horrible life to live a life without Christ.
A couple months ago, my wife and I were coming home late from visiting some of the brethren.
In Gig Harbor visiting a family was about 11:00 at night pouring down rain and we turned into the dirt Rd. that leads up to our house and they're at the corner was a lady standing there was pouring down rain so I stopped the car and looked at her and her face was covered with mud. Her clothes were tattered and all muddy and and wet and I recognized her as my neighbor.
She's just about to graduate from college and I opened the door and gave her a ride up to her home.
She came home that night. She'd come home that night and she had spent too much time drinking at the bar and she tried to take a shortcut through the woods to her house.
And there she was, she'd fallen. I don't know how long, how many hours she'd laying there in the mud, but I thought to myself, what a horrible taskmaster Satan is, what a terrible thing when we we do our own will rather than submit to God. You know, I think this afternoon, if there's somebody here that's not saved, we just plead with you right now because God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. There's another side to this too. If it's God's will, that man be saved and those of us that know the Lord Jesus Christ have a responsibility.
And getting out the gospel as well, but encouraged recently looking at Mark chapter 2, we won't turn to it, but there we see some who had compassionate hearts in sympathy without of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus could look at the multitudes and it says he had compassion on the multitude. And those men, those four men, their names are not mentioned. They saw a man who couldn't get any help, a helpless man laying there could not walk.
And so they a man that we might pass by and not even give the time of day. And yet they had compassion on this man, and they picked him up.
They wanted to get him to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see a little example of reaching out with the gospel. Not only did they have compassion, but they had persistence. They could have come and brought that man on the stretcher and seeing the people standing in the doorway and said, what's the use? There's too many people here. The scribes and the Pharisees were all on the front seats and the sick people couldn't get in the door. They say they could have said we'll have to come back another time, but no faith is persistent. They wanted to get that man to the Lord.
Not only did they have compassion and persistence, but these people were they all worked together. There were four of them and it took all four of them to get that man up on the roof and let him down. And so we see them working in harmony. I know gospel work is an individual work, but it's nice to see Saints working together to bring people to the Lord. It's God's will that people be saved and we should be exercised about doing our part in reaching the lost. Not only did they work together, but they dared to do something different.
I'm sure there were people standing there who said, well, you can't do that, Nobody's ever done that before.
But they didn't let that stop them. They tore up the tiles of the roof and let that man down to the Lord Jesus. And it says when he saw their fate.
Not just the faith of those that brought him, or the faith of the man who was sick, but also the faith of those who brought him until he healed them.
Those men don't have a name in Scripture, but I'd like to give them four names. One is compassionate, one is persistent, one is innovative, one is believing. Those are all different ways things that we need if we're going to reach out to the lost with the gospel, as is the Lords will in our lives. Well, we've seen that it's not God's will that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. I'd like to look at another scripture and go a little step farther. Turn with me, please, to.
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First Timothy, chapter 2.
The end of verse 3.
God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
Well, I'd like to look at this in connection with, as we've already had, it's God's will that we be saved, but not that just that we be content to be saved, but also He wants us to come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants us to enter into the whole councils of Scripture and all of those blessings that He has for us. I know that we can never exhaust them in a lifetime study of the Word of God, but God would have us learn the truth of God. He would have all men to be saved.
And come to the knowledge of the truth. I know there's young people here this afternoon.
And you're at a point in your life where you're going to have to make a decision whether or not you're going to walk in the truth. You're going to look around and you're going to meet other Christians, some who seem very happy and joyous in their Christian life, some who seem to have a real knowledge of the Bible, some who just seem to have real life. Maybe look around in the assembly where you're at and you see deadness. Maybe you see dissension problems, lots of things to be discouraged, and you're going to have to make a decision.
What you're going to do, whether you're going to walk in all the truth of God or whether you're going to compromise and take.
A shortcut and take a broader path. In the Old Testament, in First Kings chapter 21, there's a man there. His name is Naboth Naboth. And if we read about Naboth, we read that he had a vineyard and one day King Ahab was looking over the wall and he saw Naboth vineyard and he wanted it.
And he went to Naboth and he asked him to sell it. And Naboth would not sell his vineyard. He said how could I sell the inheritance of my father's? You know, I think of the truth that we have here. We sat through a wonderful reading meeting this morning and we've had the truth of God brought before us, many of us handed to us on a silver platter, godly parents, some of them who it cost them something to have what they have. There's a tendency not to appreciate what we have.
But all the scripture says by the truth and sell it not. Am I willing to settle for nothing less or nothing more than to walk in all the truth of scripture?
I was visiting with a pastor and the town where I live of one of the so-called churches there.
Very dear Christian man, I love him very much. As we were discussing some of the scriptures together afterwards, he said to me, well I guess it comes down to this. He said, I guess your circle of essentials is bigger than my circle of essentials. And we had to say to him, I didn't know there were any non essentials in the Bible. Every word of God is pure. And so I just want to encourage you young people this afternoon not to settle for anything less or anything more than the whole truth of God, God would have.
All men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
Dig into the scriptures, dig it out for yourself. Find out what is. What does it mean?
To meet on the ground of the One Body. What is the truth concerning the One Body and the truth of the Church?
And have dispensationalism and all these things that have been mentioned that are being are being given up today by the truth and sell it not.
You know, when I think about the some of the fundamentals of the truth, I think of that wonderful Scripture in Acts 2 and verse 42, it says they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. Their hearts were so taken up with the one who had set his face steadfast to go to Jerusalem for them that they did not want to settle for anything less or anything more than continuing on for the Lord Jesus. They didn't say they just continued for a little while, but they continued steadfastly.
In those four things.
I wonder how those four things are in relation to your life and to mine. Are you sitting this afternoon on A4 legged stool? Or perhaps maybe you're sitting on a three legged stool. Maybe, maybe A2 legged stool. I've even seen A1 legged stool. Takes a lot of effort to sit on A1 legged stool. You know, it's hard when we leave some of these things out of our Christian life, but I wonder if every one of us here are grounded on that 4 legged stool.
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If we're continuing steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, if we know the word of God, if we're learning it, digging out these truths, being there at the meetings where we can learn them, are we continuing in the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer? You know, that's another thing we can easily say is the will of God, that he would have believers remember him in his death, remember the Lord Jesus. He could say this, do in remembrance of me. I ask you this afternoon, is there any scripture plainer than that?
Is there any any doubt or question in what the Lord Jesus meant when he made that statement?
Recently, several months ago, back home, I was early in the morning still lying in bed. It was about 6:00 and my wife and I were there visiting, talking and all of a sudden I heard a little patter of feet and my 9 year old son came into the room and he said I want to talk to dad. I want to talk to Dad. Well.
I gave Karen one of those looks that maybe she should leave and.
She got up and left.
And he said, Dad, I want to remember the Lord in his death.
About a year before that, we were coming home from meeting and he burst into tears and he said those same words.
And I put him off. And so I said, OK, then I said, I'll mention it to the brethren. Well, a little bit later that day, I thought, well, how's his older brother going to take that? He's 11. He's not at the Lord's table, 11 years old. Maybe he'll resent his younger brother taking that step before him.
That evening, as we were going to bed, Joe comes into the room. He says, Dad, I want to remember the Lord too.
I said fine, why do you want to remember the Lord?
He said because I love him, because I love him. I thought to myself, is there any higher motive than that? He didn't give me any profound deep scriptural answer. He just said because I love him. You know, we, we went to meeting and shared that with the brethren. On the way home there was another young man. After he heard that, he said to his dad, Dad, I want to remember the Lord too. He'd been exercised about it for a long time. So all three of them were announced the following Lord's Day and after aid.
And a little girl sitting there in the back row with her parents burst into tears. And she said, I want to remember the Lord, too.
She was baptized the next week and received at the Lord's table. The oldest of those three is or those four are 11 years old. How old are you this afternoon, dear young person, do you love the Lord Jesus? He said this do in remembrance of me. Well, I just want to encourage you to go on in the truth of God by the truth and sell it not you're at that point where you're going to have to make a decision. Satan is going to do everything possible to get you away from what is.
On the ground of structure, you can get out with a group of believers that are way out in left field and Satan doesn't bother them, he leaves them alone.
But the closer you get to the truth, the harder Satan will attack you. Find a little group of believers that are seeking to go on and hold fast the truth of God.
And Satan will attack that group of believers like he will no other. Well, you want happiness in your life.
If you want joy, don't settle for anything less or anything more than the whole truth of God. Don't compromise the scriptures. I meet Christians, I want to talk about verses that have to do with the gospel. They're all for that or missions or all of those things. But if you mention some of Pauls doctrine, women keeping silent in the assembly head coverings, any of those things, they don't want those truths. They want to take a cow path through the word of God. They just want to encourage you to go on in the truth by the truth.
And sell it not?
Or we've had God's will for salvation. We've looked a little bit about God's will that we come to the knowledge of the truth.
Like to look at another one? It's in connection with another point in our life and that has to do with our work.
For our jobs, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 6.
Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 6.
Maybe verse 5 servants, so be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in singleness of heart is under Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, doing the will of God from the heart.
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This shows me that in our jobs and our occupations we should have the will of God. I know that there's a tendency today to look at people who have lots of material things. Brother mentioned in his prayer this morning that we've been robbed by materialism. And Paul wrote to Timothy in First Timothy chapter 6, and he says, Thou, O man of God, flee these things. He says godliness with.
Contentment is great gain and there's a real tendency among us to look at others and want to have what they have.
And I'm not saying that we shouldn't allow the Lord to use us to the full potential of abilities that He has for us. But the philosophy of the world is to strive and be to the top. Be the best that you can be in this world and get a high paying job and get lots more materialistic gain than the person next to you. And it can be a status thing in the world, and it can even be a status thing in the assembly. But I want to encourage you to seek the Lord's mind in the job that you have.
Some of the young people here I know this afternoon are at a point where, as we said, you're you're making a decision that's going to affect you the rest of your life. And you could get into a job that would take you away from fellowship, a job that might have you working hours and hours and unable to get to the meetings, unable to be encouraged by your brethren.
Maybe you're not a young person, but maybe you want that promotion or something that's going to give you a little more income, but it may be something that is going to rob your soul.
When a promotion comes, does it always come from the Lord?
I don't believe that it necessarily always does well. We should be exercised about having that job that the Lord wants us to have. I know a certain brother.
He he's got a brilliant mind. He could have gone to just about any university in the country.
And yet, as he prayed about what he should do, he decided that he'd be a mailman, a postman, because he felt as he walked along on his route, that he could meditate on the Scriptures, he could read along the way, he could listen to tapes. And so here's this man with a brilliant mind, and yet he spent his time learning the word of God. If I have a question, something I don't know back home, I can get on the phone and call this brother and he usually has an answer. He can help me. He's been a valuable asset to the assembly.
Where he's at, well, some might say, well, what a waste, he's just a postman.
No, I believe He chose the profession that the Lord wanted him to be. Well, may the Lord exercise us about these things, that we might have what He wants and then if we do, we can have that confidence and assurance no matter what happens. That is. Well, I can remember when my wife and I first.
Sought to serve the Lord. Remember getting down on my knees and praying and saying, Lord, whatever you want us to do, if you want me to go to Africa and live in a mud Hut, then that's what I want to do.
If you want me to continue to work this job that you have, that's what I want to do, whatever you want.
That's what we want, but in some way we want to be used to see souls come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I believe every believer should be full time in the Lord's work, whether they're working in an office or going to school or raising their children. Everyone should be full time in the Lord's work. And then when the tests come and the difficulties come, then there'll be peace because we'll know that we're in the will of God. To be able to lay your head down on the pillow at night and say in some with that contentment, to be able to say I've spent the day.
In some measure, as the Lord would have me spend it godliness with contentment.
His great game. Remember recently my wife and I.
In sometimes in the, in serving the Lord, you don't always have a great abundance. And I can remember seeing some bills that needed to be paid. And I could see that the time for paying those bills was getting closer and closer, but it just seemed like the Lord wasn't sending the money. And so as the time came, we prayed more and more earnestly, and finally the day came to pay those bills.
And there was number money to pay the bills. I discovered something about the Lord, and that is that he's never late.
But he sold them early and we.
Were really exercised about it. I did something that I've often done before.
Took the money and wrote out the checks to pay the bills. Put them in envelopes, put stamps on them.
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Went down to the post office to mail them. Usually in a case like that I just open up the box.
And there's the money that is needed to pay those bills. Well, I went down to the post office, opened up the box, the money wasn't there.
I went home and told Karen. I said something's wrong. I said we need to pray. I said it seems like the Lord has let us down.
And she said, no, look, the Lord called us to this. See how faithful he's been in the past. There's no mistakes with God.
We got down on her knees and prayed about it. Got up from my knees, Karen says to me, dear, why don't you check the balance in the checkbook?
Well, I called the bank and got the balance, got the checks that hadn't come back and checked it out.
Found out that we've made a mistake. Our balance was off and the money was there all the time. Well, there was that peace and that assurance to know that we were in the will of God by His grace and that it was well. No matter how things looked outwardly, if we're in the will of God, we can know that we can trust the Lord. Well, I'm not here to just use a lot of personal illustrations, but I just hope that in some way these will be an encouragement to you to want the will of God for your life.
Well, I'd like to look at another subject in connection with the will of God. We've had salvation, we've had walking in the truth. We've looked at our occupation, having the Lord's will in that. And the next one I'd like to look at has to do with marriage. Probably not a greater decision that you make in your life other than receiving the Lord, then who that person is that you marry. But first of all, let's look at a scripture in First Corinthians or Second Corinthians.
Excuse me, First Corinthians chapter 6.
First Corinthians chapter 6 and verse.
Sorry, I think it's the second Corinthians chapter 6.
14.
Was right the first time. Second Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14. Be not unequally yoked together.
With unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness With unrighteousness, And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? And what part hath he that believeth With an infidel?
So first and foremost, we can see that it's never the will of God for a believer to marry an unbeliever.
If there's somebody in this room who is dating somebody who's not a Christian, I would tell you to break it off. Break it off. You can never be wiser than the word of God. And here we see that that warning be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. It's a serious thing to see somebody who goes out and marries an unbeliever. It's better to be single than to wish you were. So it's possible that a person may marry.
In the Lord a believer, but not necessarily marry of the Lord. I think in Amos 33 we have that scripture. Can two walk together?
Except they'd be agreed. Remember when the servant in Genesis 24 went to seek a bride for his?
For Isaac he got down on his knees and he prayed these words. He said, Let her be the one that thou has chosen, let her be the one that thou has chosen. What a contrast from Sampson who said, get her for me, for she pleaseth me well.
It's I was at a wedding sometime back down in California, standing next to the bridegroom, and the judge came up and he said to the young man who had just gotten married. He said to him, to him, where did you ever find such a beautiful wife?
As Cindy and without a moment's hesitation, that young man made this reply. He said on my knees. On my knees. Well, I just would encourage you young brothers and young sisters here.
To look for a wife on your knees, don't look like Samson did on the outward appearance and say get her for me before she pleases me well, but let her be the one that God has chosen. Have the will of God in your life.
I can remember when my wife and I first began to visit together.
She grew up in an assembly South of where we live, not very far away, but we never talked.
One day I was on a pair of crutches and sprained my ankle and sometimes I like to tease her and say, well, I couldn't get away.
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And she came up and talked to me on the steps of the old Seattle meeting room.
And afterwards I remember that she just spoke about the things of the Lord, remember going away saying I've never met anybody who I could enjoy.
Speaking about the things of the Lord with like I could with Karen, I was refreshed. She gave me a drink of water. And, you know, our conversations went on like that every time we met. And it was sometime later, even after I'd already asked her to marry me, that one day I was thinking, you know, she's a really a beautiful girl, too. Lord, you've really given me a beautiful wife. But it wasn't the outward that attracted, but it was the inward. Remember Amos 33, Can two walk together?
Except they be agreed. May the Lord help us to have his will and the person that we marry.
In connection with this, before we get off the subject, I'd like to look at another verse in First Thessalonians 413.
That has to do with the will of God.
In connection with.
The marriage subject.
1St Thessalonians 4.
13.
Excuse me 4 verse 3.
It says, for this let's This is the will of God. Here it is again, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.
That everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor.
Well here we see that it's the will of God to abstain from fornication, something that is thrown out by the world today. Something is looked at as old fashioned, but yet I believe it's the path of happiness and joy in the Christian life. I was speaking to a group of young people some time ago and there was a couple sitting in the back who had fallen into moral sin before they were married. And in our conversation I was speaking on that scripture. Flee fornication.
To these young people, and afterwards I mentioned to this young brother and sister, I said, isn't it wonderful?
That in spite of our mistakes, the Lord can come in and bring blessing.
He said to me, yes, he said, that's true, but it's never as good as it could have been, never as good as it could have been. We can never be wiser than the word of God. We read that verse in Romans chapter 12. Present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable in the garden, which is your reasonable service. In my Bible, I have that word wholly underlying. You know, it's not just young people that have problems with these moral questions, moral problems.
Sad to say it comes into the older ones.
And travel around a little bit and find out that it's not just young people that have these difficulties. David was about 50 years old, as far as I can tell. And looking at that in the scriptures, when he looked over the roof of the palace, off the roof of the palace, and he saw Bathsheba and he coveted her and he took her and committed murder. I was talking to an older brother once, way up in his 70s, white hair. He said, you know, it never gets easier as time goes on.
Well, here's the will of God for our life to abstain from fornication. And I just want to encourage the young people, keep yourselves holy. The Word of God says it's good for a man not to touch a woman, to set standards in your relationship with other young people. And even if there's somebody here that's engaged right up until the very end, Satan is going to try to attack you in this area. But we have this scripture here that it's the will of God to abstain.
From fornication. Well, marriage can be, as someone has said, like heaven on earth.
Where it can be a tremendous tragedy. And so we just want to encourage you to seek the will of God.
In your marriage relationship, Well, another thing in connection with the will of God that I think of this afternoon is the assembly.
The assembly Maybe we could turn over to a verse in Mark's Gospel, chapter 10.
Mark chapter 10 and verse 45.
Says for even the Son of Man.
Not to be ministered undo, but to minister.
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And to give his life a ransom for many.
I'll explain why I read this verse in a moment.
But I just want to say that I believe it's important to have the will of God in the assembly where we're at. It's easy to maybe.
Look at the meeting where we're at and say, well, I wish that I was in a different meeting. I wish there were more young people here.
I wish the older brethren weren't so narrow. I wish there wasn't such legality.
Or whatever.
We can be discontent with the place that the Lord has put us.
My lifetime I've been in four assemblies and two of them have been very happy experiences and two of them I would go to the brothers meetings and leave. Sick at heart seemed like a chaos and disorder and I'd leave and say I'm never going back to another brother's meeting. But I thank the Lord for those experiences because the Lord taught me things then that had been a help and valuable to me even now. And so it's easy to wish that we were in a different meeting.
Or in different circumstances.
But you know, the Lord has a purpose for where we're at. He's placed us in the assembly where we're at, not to just have our needs met, not to be catered to. This first says, For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. I have the privilege of speaking to a lot of different Christians from different places. You know, they always want to tell me about their church. And most of all what they want to tell me is what they get out of it. They go to church. Some of them, most Christians that I've met go where they go for what they can get out of it. They say there's a great.
Preacher, they're very dynamic. He builds me up, he lifts me up. I go away feeling good. There's a super, there's a great choir, a wonderful orchestra which I like to play in. So that's why I go to this church or that church. But that's not the reason that we go to meeting. We don't go to have our needs met, but we we go to give rather than to get and we'll always come away with more than what we came with. Well, the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister the Lord Jesus could say.
That Paul spoke in Acts 20, it's more blessed to give.
Than to receive, when you look around the meeting where you're at, do you say, how can I be a help? How can I be an encouragement? Maybe we sit through the gospel meetings and say, boy, that was a boring gospel meeting. Well, did you go to prayer for the gospel? Did you pray about the meeting ahead of time?
Maybe we.
See some older brethren that we think are a little bit narrow and have some funny ideas. Do we ever pray for those older brethren? Do we seek to encourage them? Maybe we'll find out when we visit them that they're not as narrow as we think that they might be. Well.
We don't go to the assembly just to get, but we come to give. And so we should ask ourselves, how can I be a help in the assembly where I'm at? We could look at a number of other things in connection with the will of God. We could maybe look at what town we live in and.
Maybe the Lord would want us to move somewhere and see another assembly established. Or maybe he wants us to live where we're at. We could look at our neighborhoods. Maybe the Lord wants me to live in a neighborhood where I can be reach out to others.
One Christian said to somebody, he said, you know, we just moved into a neighborhood and we found the people next to us on both sides and across the street are Christians. And somebody said, well, how unfortunate could you ever thank the Lord? Might want you to be in a place where you could reach out and be a light and be a testimony.
Well, these things exercise my own heart. It's so important that we have the will of God.
In our lives, there's nothing happier than to be walking in the will of God. Doesn't mean that there won't be problems. There won't be difficulties. Jonah in the Old Testament, he got into a storm because of his disobedience to God. But the disciples in the New Testament, in mark four, got into a storm because of their obedience to the Lord. The Lord Jesus could say, let us go over to the other side and they obeyed him. They were in his perfect will, and he led him right through a storm.
And but in that storm, they learned more of the person of the Lord Jesus.
I'm sure if we were to go up to Matthew or to Peter and James and John after that storm a day or two later and say we heard about that storm you went through, must have been a terrible experience. I'm sure they would have said something like this. We wouldn't have missed it for anything. It was wonderful. It was wonderful.