Let us read together from the
Holy Word of God. You'll find it on the second
page of your hymn sheets. There's two readings and what
is upon my spirit this morning is to help us, to help you in
submission to the will of God and those things that must needs
be done or submitted to in this pandemic time, to submit to it
for the Lord's sake. So the first reading is of our
Lord's sufferings and desire to be submissive to the will
of his Heavenly Father. So it's Luke 22 and from verse
39 to 46. And he came out and went as he
was wont to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples also followed
him. And when he was at the place,
he said unto them, pray that ye enter not into temptation.'
And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled
down and prayed, saying, Father, if Thou be willing, remove this
cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto
him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony, he
prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was, as it were, great
drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose
up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them
sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise
and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. Now our second reading,
which is from 1 Peter and chapter 2, verses 13 to 25. Submit yourselves to every ordinance
of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as
supreme, or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him
for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that
do well. For so is the will of God, that
with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men, as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness,
but as the servants of God. Honor all men, love the brotherhood,
fear God, honor the King. Servants, be subject to your
masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also
to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a
man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully,
For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults,
ye shall take it patiently? But if, when ye do well, and
suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called,
because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example,
that ye should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile
found in his mouth, who when he was reviled reviled not again,
when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to
him that judgeth righteously, who his own self bare our sins
in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. Thus far the reading of God's
holy word. The two words that's on my spirit
were first from in Luke 22 and verse 42, nevertheless not my
will but thine be done. And then just the four words
in 1 Peter 2 verse 13, for the Lord's sake. And may we think
of this throughout the day and those things that come upon you
For the Lord's sake, what you endure, what you go through,
what you're called to, suffer for the Lord's sake. We think
of our Lord in the teaching of His disciples, the manner of
prayer, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. A oneness of what is done in
heaven, what is done on earth, and surely where we are called
to be His dear people, then we should really desire that that
be fulfilled in us, that His will be done. As a Christian,
as a believer, that we would be as He would have us to be
in all the changing scenes of life, however difficult and painful
and however much our flesh recoils from it, that the Lord give us
the right spirit. And so it's with those thoughts
that I bring the word before you this morning, beginning with
our Lord, beginning with His submission to the cross, His
Father's will, what He endured for us on Calvary's tree. But I want to now look at some
of the dear saints of God and the path that they were called
to walk through. And I begin with dear Jacob. You remember Jacob so resisting
sending Benjamin to go to Egypt. He didn't want to do it. He recalled
from it, he loved dear Benjamin. He lost Joseph. And, oh, he's
so hung back and hung back. And there might be that you can
really feel for him this morning, something that you may so hold
back from, draw back from. You can't bear to let it happen,
to give your assent to it, to agree to it, to let this take
part, take place. And yet people are saying to
you, except that happened, except you agree, except it goes forward,
we can't do anything, or you can't be healed, or you can't
have treatment, and you can feel for a day. Jacob, well Jacob
he comes at last and he comes to a place of resignation in
Genesis 43 and verse 11. We read there, Father Israel
said unto them, that's unto the brothers, if it must be so now,
do this. And it may be the Lord will bring
you to this, if it must be so. and bring you, like dear Jacob,
into submission to what you see now, not as what man is desiring,
but what is the Lord's will for you. Think of those words, if
it be so now. Do this. The second one I bring before
you is that of Aaron, Aaron had sons, and two sons, they were
in the priesthood, Nadab and Abihu. And they took fire, strange
fire in their senses. And there came out fire from
the Lord and devoured them, and we read they died before the
Lord. Dear Aaron, he saw his sons die,
before the Lord, and no doubt before His eyes. And we read
this, Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spake,
saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and
before all the people I will be glorified. Now Moses saw the
Lord was fulfilling His word. This was a solemn judgment upon
them. and saw it as the Lord's hand,
and we read just these words, and Aaron held his peace. And any of you have had things
happen in your families or the Lord touched by the hand of death
or affliction, or even in your own case, and you may see it
as the Lord's hand, but you realise what grace, what help was given
to dear Aaron. to hold his peace at that time. And it may be, you're in those
things, you say, I don't know what to say, I don't know what
to do. May you think of dear Aaron,
and all he did to fulfill the Lord's will and to do that which
is right in the sight of the Lord, he held his peace. And that was the blessing of
the Lord, that he could do that. The Lord help you. in whatever
path, in whatever pain and situation you are in, and whatever you
see as the Lord's hand, a solemn hand, that you hold your peace. The third one I'll bring before
you is that of Elien. It's a very similar situation. He had his sons, two sons again,
in the priesthood, and they were wicked sons, and they brought
the cause of truth into disrepute. And the Lord sent one of his
servants to warn Eli about them. And then the Lord raised up Samuel. And the very first time that
the Lord spoke to Samuel, and he had that same message, and
Samuel so feared to bring it to Eli. because it was against
his house. But you know when Samuel was
able to speak and to bring the message, we read in 1 Samuel
and chapter 3 and verse 18. And Samuel told him every wit
and heard nothing from him. Now this is what Eli did how
he responded, and he said, It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. There's two things there. One,
he recognised that it was the Lord. The Lord helped you in
your path, in those things that come and what the Lord may reveal
and show is the path before you. It is the Lord. might be man
speaking, and here it was Samuel speaking, but he realizes it's
not Samuel, it's the Lord. The Lord has appeared, the Lord
has spoken. May we also be able to recognize
the handiwork of the Lord, who so is wise and will observe these
things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord,
the changing scenes in Psalm 107, many times brought down,
many times to cry unto the Lord in their trouble, but He delivered
them out of their troubles. And we're to not only just see
the lovingkindness of the Lord in pleasant things, but understand
that lovingkindness in those cross-handed blessings, and even
in His judgments, even in those judgments upon our own families. Whoso loveth father or mother,
child more than me, not worthy of me. It's a solemn path, but
what a privilege, what a blessing. Why me? Why was I made to hear
his voice? Why is the Lord be pleased to
bless my soul and visit my soul? And so may we speak that word
that Eli did as well. Not only it is the Lord, but
let him do what seemeth him good. Like the same spirit as David,
when he numbered Israel, let me now fall into the hand of
the Lord. Why? Because the Lord was good
and gracious. He knew the Lord. You do too,
don't you? You know the Lord. Has He failed
you? Has He disappointed you? Has
He done wrong by you at all? Or are you not able to trust
Him? You have trusted Him through
life. The Lord helped you to do it now and to lean again sweetly
upon Him in whatever the trial, the bitter trial, the hard thing,
the thing that the flesh rises up against. The fourth one I
bring before you is that of The Apostle Paul. He had given
him by the Lord a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to
buffet him. And three times he asked the
Lord that this thing be removed from him. We read, for this thing
I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. Maybe
there are those of you, and there's those things you've been praying,
Lord, to remove this, to change this thing, to deal with it. Do take it away. This is as a
messenger of Satan. A dear friend years ago, he said,
it may not be the affliction that comes or the actual thing,
but it's what Satan does with it. How he makes us to fret,
how he makes us angry, how he stirs up our spirit, how he accuses
us in it, when the pain is through the night season. When the troubles,
the trial, it just goes on then through the day. And maybe there
are those things you've cried and cried to the Lord, Lord do
remove it. And you feel, Lord hasn't answered my prayer. But
the Lord says to Paul, my grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in
weakness. And you know, when Paul realized
that, he said, Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmity,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. You know, from
that time, I believe he was not beseeching of the Lord that this
be taken away. That part of his prayer was stopped.
but what he would have asked for again and again. And may
we join with him. Lord, give me grace. Give me
grace to bear this trial, this pain, this affliction. Give me
grace to get through this day. For the Lord's sake, for the
Lord's sake, and for the peace of my soul, may I rest in thy
most perfect will and in that path appointed for me. I bring
one last one before you, and that is in the little book of
Philemon. In the epistle of Paul to Philemon,
we have Paul writing concerning about a runaway slave. Philemon's slave, Onesimus, ran
away, and he ran away to Paul, that slave he couldn't bear to
be a slave. he kicked against it, but then
he comes to Paul, and Paul is the Lord's servant, not a slave,
a servant, and here he is in Rome, and he is in chains, and
the Lord is pleased to use that, and dear Onesimus is converted. He is to become a son. The apostle, he says, I beseech
thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds,
which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable
to thee and to me, whom I have sent again. And you know there's
nothing. about Onesimus, saying, I'm not
going to go back to my master. I'm not going to submit to him.
The Lord made him willing. Sometimes in our lives, we've
got to retrace our steps, haven't we? We may have been so unwilling. We've kicked against the Lord's
hand. We kicked against the providence.
We've run away from it. Then the Lord has brought us
to be humble before him and submissive. and we must retrace our steps. And it takes a lot of grace to
retrace our steps, dear Onesimus here, to return and willing to
return. And the Lord give us that grace
and submission. You might think, well, I've said
this, I've done this, it's too late now. Is it too late? Or is it that we're able to return? Maybe something that we need
to turn again and say, dear brother, dear sister, I'm sorry. I acted
wrong, I spoke wrong, I had a wrong spirit in that, and in that there's
a willingness to return, a spirit of submission for the Lord's
sake, and that takes a lot of grace. I do pray that the message
this morning might be used to help you. I know you will have
a nature like I have. There's many things I struggle
with and wrestle with and find very difficult to cope with and
often I have a wrong spirit. but the Word of God sets us to
see the Lord and His dear people who have gone before us, the
struggles that they have, like dear Jacob had, but also how
the Lord gave them grace and helped them to overcome and to
walk in a way that glorified His dear name. The Lord bless
you, dear friends, in the same way. Residents, staff alike,
we're each needed at this time, so difficult when we can't meet
together. You can't see all of your dear
loved ones, your relatives. You feel it greatly. You must
do. And I feel for you. But the Lord
make his word a help this morning, for this what the Lord has brought
on our land, and in our homes, your home, and amongst us. And
may you see his sweet presence and grace and help to be with
you in this divine appointment. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.