The whole of what we believe,
the whole of what we stand for, the whole of where we need to
come to is simply stated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he taught
his disciples to learn to say, not my will, but thine be done. Have you ever thought of it like
that? See, salvation is bowing to His will. I tell you, when
you start saying God's in charge, you're gonna find out in a little
while, if you live a little while, whether you believe that or not.
The safest place to be is bowed down to His will. That's the
safest place to be. If we can just learn that and
quit fighting about, well, I don't know about this, I don't know
about that, I don't know about the other. I don't understand
life and I've been here a while. You know what? I've learned that
this little not my will but thine be done has taken the guesswork
out of all of these things for me. People get in a fuss and
a fight over wills. Well, I've got a I've got a free
will, they say. They really don't know what they're
saying. Your will is really not free. I'll tell you how free
your will is. Why don't you determine, why
don't you will that you won't eat till next week at this time?
This afternoon, your will is going to give in to your belly.
You ain't got no free will. Your belly is more powerful than
your will. You see what I'm saying? There's only one being that has
an absolute free will, and that's God Almighty. There's nothing
that coerces him. There's nothing that forces him.
There's nothing that makes him. You can't set up a circumstance
to cause him to change his mind about anything. He is absolutely
free to do according to his will, but we're not. We're free within
the confines of our nature. Let me ask you this. If a dog
were coming down the aisle right here and I said, I see a dog
in this church. You'd say, well, brother Silas,
I don't know if he's a dog or not. Let's wait and see if he barks. And here's what I'm asking you.
Does the dog become a dog when he barks, or does he bark because
he's a dog? Does a person become a sinner
when they sin, or do they sin because they're sinners? You need to learn that. A duck doesn't become a duck
when it quacks. It quacks because it's a duck. And we sin because
we're sinners. And I want you to realize this,
you've got a will and you can use your will, you can make your
decisions. The day when you eat, you can
decide whether you want a McDonald's or whether you want a steak or
whether you want a hot dog or whatever, you've got a will.
But here's what I want you to know, God's got a will too. God's
got a will. And listen, by nature, when I
came into this world for many years in my life, I wanted my
way, my will. I didn't want God's way and God's
will. And so as Barnard used to say, he said, yes sir. He
said, you got a will. You've got a will and God has
got a will. And he said, you want your way
and God wants his way. And he said, there's a battle
of wills between your will and the will of God. And he said,
you better pray that he wins because if you win, the prize
is hell. If you win, the prize is hell. Say, I don't want to win. I don't
want my will. I don't want my way. We've all
grown out of the way, his way. I don't want my works. I want
the works of Christ on the cross. You see what I'm saying?