In the sense that our Lord is
showing us how to approach God, how to pray, things we are to
pray for. But he says there in verse 9
again, after this manner, therefore pray ye. Don't you pray like
the Pharisees did. Don't do like that. First thing,
we acknowledge Him as our Father. And our Father is in Heaven.
That's why we don't rush into His presence and offer the sacrifice
of fools. He says, Be not rash with your
mouth, for God is in the heavens, and you are upon the earth. Don't
enter into his courts with the sacrifice of a fool. Don't rush
in there. Be very careful what you say
in God's presence. And then he said, Hallel, what
holy is thy name? Sanctify his name. Bring glory
to his name. And then thy kingdom come. Oh,
we want it to come in our hearts and our lives. We want it to
come in other men's hearts and lives. For the King to come and
sit upon the throne. And thy will be done in earth
as it is in heaven. Now this is what I want to deal
with again tonight. I said just a few things about
it last week. And there's two senses in which
we do the will of God. We pray thy will be done. Two
ways in which we Respond to the will of God. We want to do His
will as revealed in His word. That's active obedience. You're
here tonight because you want to do the will of God. You want
to hear the gospel. You want to be with the saints.
You want to assemble yourselves with those who believe Christ. You want to read His word. You
want to pray. You want to seek His will. You
want to do His will. You want to honor Him by the
way you conduct yourself and carry yourself. You want to adorn
the doctrine of God our Savior. As you find in His Word, His
will to be done, that's what you want done. And as they do
it in heaven, that's the way you want to do it on earth. You
want to do it joyfully, happily, thankfully, submissively, obediently,
without murmuring, without complaining. And then there's another way of doing the will of God that's
not active. The old timers called it passive.
Passive, doing the will of God passively. Now what does that
mean? It means to submit to God's will
patiently, patiently, whenever He sends great trials and great
afflictions and burdens our way. To submit to it patiently, patiently. One thing that you'll notice
when God took Israel through the wilderness, one thing He
could not abide and He punished them severely for it was murmuring
and complaining. And so when we talk about passive
obedience, our Lord had an active obedience and he had a passive
obedience. He actively did the will of God all the days of his
life and he actively did the will of God till he got on the
cross and there's where he submitted to the will of God. Not my will,
but thine be done. And so this is what I'm talking
about, waiting and patiently submissive to the will of God
whenever he afflicts us, whenever he tries us, whenever he burdens
us, whenever he puts us in the fire. And he's got all of us. Scott Richardson said this, and
this is true. This is really true. Three positions
you'll find a believer in in his life at any one given time.
He's either in trouble, coming out of trouble, or going into
trouble. Something going on all the time in the believer's life. Now this is foreign to the teaching
of today's churches and today's preachers. They teach and preach
that affliction and suffering is not of God. It's not of God. It's either the devil doing it
to you. God don't want anybody to suffer.
God doesn't cause anybody to be afflicted. God wants us to
be happy, to be healthy, to be wealthy. And that He wants us
to be. And they said if you do are afflicted,
it's because you sinned. You committed some kind of sin.
And if you'll find out what that sin is and repent of that sin,
then your burdens and your afflictions will leave you. And so they use
that to manipulate people and burden them and make them feel
guilty. And every time something happens
to them, they automatically start saying, God, what have I done?
What have I done? I've been doing the best. Show
me what I've done. Show me what I've done. And we
know that's not so. We know it's not so. You know,
the suffering of God's will, as well as doing it, that's what
I'm talking about. The suffering, like Paul and
Silas. They were in jail in Philippi. Now they suffered. They put those
men in stocks and they whipped them severely. Put them in jail. Now that was the will of God.
And they suffered. And they submitted to it patiently
and sang praises unto God in their affliction. Now that's
what I mean. They just submitted to it and
they never complained about it. They never said, Lord, we're
out here preaching. We're serving you. We're committed
to you. We've given our lives over to
you. Why are you letting us be beaten? Why are you letting us
suffer like this? That's not what they said. And
in fact, beloved, they were beaten and they were then thrown into
prison, and then at midnight they began to sing praises unto
God. They began to bless His name.
They began to use a psalm. I don't know what psalm it was,
but they began to sing psalms unto God. And so when we talk
about patiently submitting to the will of God, to passive submission,
a believer should I believe a believer will. The more he's taught, the
more God deals with him, the longer he learns. Under any providence
that God sends his way, under any trouble, under any affliction,
under any burden, they should lie quietly at God's feet and
say, Thy will be done. You know, Psalms 6, 46 and 10
says, Be still and know that I am God. Now that means, beloved,
to lay quietly at his feet. To lay quietly and not murmur
and not complain at what he's doing to you. To say, this is
not good, this is not right. When David said this, he said,
it's good for me that I've been afflicted. For by thy afflictions
I've learned your statutes. And so be still and know that
I am God. Let me give you two or three
things, and I won't hold you very long. And I've seen this
happen so many times with so many people. But you know, there
are some people that submit to something because they submit
to it because they can't do anything else. They say it's destiny,
it's fate. And so they submit to it out
of necessity, not because they feel it's God's will, not because
they feel like it's God afflicting them, it's just something that's
happened to me and I can't change the fact, so I'll just bite the
bullet and I'll just out of necessity instead of out of patience and
out of waiting on God. And you see, that's what, you
know, I can't avoid it, so I'll have to suffer it. But let me
give you three things, three things that accompany, three
things that I believe that It's those who patiently submit to
God's will that they can, I believe you'll agree with me on this.
Now, believer, a child of God may be so acutely sensible of
the affliction, so acutely sensible of the burden and the trial,
and yet patiently submit to God's will, though they feel it acutely. You see, we're not stoics. We're
not made of stone. We're sensible. We're concerned
with God's dealings with us. You know, we don't just grit
our teeth and say, no, we feel it. We feel it. We're not stoic.
We're not like people who just, oh no, our Lord was sensible
when he was in the garden of Gethsemane and he sprayed and
swayed great drops of blood. He groaned in his spirit. He
was troubled in his spirit. He was sorrowful even unto death. Now that's under a great affliction.
He was sorrowful even unto death. And have you ever been so afflicted
you said, Lord, if it would please you, just go ahead and take me
on? And that's what our Lord, He was there. And He was sensible
of God's hand on Him. And the great drops of blood
began to sweat come out of His skin. And yet He says, Lord,
not My will, but Thine be done. Oh, he was sorrowful. And I say,
we can have this sorrowful and be greatly afflicted and yet
be sensible of it. But we, beloved, we can do the
same thing. We can have great agony and say,
yet, Lord, not in my will, but thine be done. In fact, we're
told in 1 Peter 5 there, he says this, he says, Humble yourselves
under the mighty hand of God, and He'll exalt you in due time.
Casting your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. And oh,
you can't humble yourself under God's hand if you're not sensible
of God's hand being on you. And if you ain't got cares, you
got no reason to cast them upon the Lord. And I'll tell you something
else about a believer. A believer may weep, may weep
and greatly cry under an affliction, under an affliction and still
patiently, still patiently submit to God's will. Just because you
weep and cry does not mean that you're not submissive to the
will of God. It would be a natural affection not to weep. I wept
yesterday. I've seen some saints yesterday.
I've seen some people yesterday weeping. And God's hand was heavy
on them, but they wept. It would be unnatural not to
weep when God puts his hand heavy on you. Joseph wept. He wept when he saw his father,
he wept when he saw his brethren, he wept, and these are the people
who afflicted him. Job, he was in his clothes, and he said, it's the Lord. So I'm
telling you, a person, you know, just because they weep and cry,
that doesn't mean that they're not submitting to the will of
God. Patiently, patiently. And a believer, let me show you
this. Turn with me to Psalm 142. I want you to see this. Me and
Paul Mahan talked about this the other day. You know, folks ask me all the
time, well, you know, how are you doing? I always say, always
say, I have no complaints. I have no complaints. And if
I have any complaints, I want to tell them to the Lord. I won't
tell them to the Lord. And a believer, a child of God,
may complain in his affliction, may complain in his trial, may
complain in his sickness, may complain in the great temptations
that brought, yet still be submissive to the will of God. Look what
David said here in Psalm 142, verse 1. I cried unto the Lord
with my voice, with my voice, Under the Lord did I make my
supplication. I poured out my complaint before
Him. I showed before Him my trouble. There's nothing wrong with telling
God how it hurts. There's nothing wrong with telling
God how painful it is. There's nothing wrong with telling
God how broken your heart is. There's nothing wrong with telling
God that this really hurts. Lord, this is painful. This is
an oave. And you know, that's what we
do. We say, Lord, you see, we're not complaining to, against God. We're complaining to God. When
you know you can come to God and just like a father, it's
like a child when they're sick. They're not complaining to say,
mama you made me sick or daddy you made me. They come and tell
you how sick they are, how they're hurt, where they're hurt, where
you're hurt at. And that's what they do, they come telling us
what's wrong with them. And that's why God says, come
and tell me. Pour out your trouble to him,
tell him your trouble, tell him your heartache, tell him your
fear, tell him your doubt. Tell him what's going on. Tell
him that this is in your life and this is what's going on and
I don't understand it and I want you to uphold me in this. And
we all have things that we say, Lord, I don't understand this,
I don't know why this is happening, how you come, you know, we can
tell Him, we say, Lord, help me with this. I want to tell
you, come and tell Him exactly what's going on in your heart.
Tell Him what's going on in your life. Tell Him what's going on
in your home. Tell Him what's going on in your
marriage. Tell Him what's going on. Tell Him what's going on.
Pour out your complaint to Him. And some folks say, well, but
listen, He wants us to do that. That's why the first thing He
said here, pray after this manner, Our Father! Our Father! Oh, nothing wrong with telling God
how it hurts. Lord, it hurts. You know, Peter
says, think it not strange concerning the fire trial which is to try
you. Let me tell you something about fire. It's one of the most
painful things you've ever experienced is a bad burn, ain't it? Well,
that's why he calls them fire trials. They get hot. They burn. They get painful. Oh, that's why it calls him that
way, you know. And God said, I begot you in the furnace of
affliction. You know, when God was bringing
us to ourselves, look how He afflicted our souls then. And
He relieved it then, and so even now as we're His children, we
come and tell Him, Lord, if we had a child that was sick, the
first thing you do when you go to the doctor, they say, where
does it hurt? That's what God said. That's what David said.
I went to pray. I poured out my complaint before
the Lord and said, Lord, I told him my troubles. My troubles. Oh, you think anybody can understand
it better and hear it better? Oh my, what is it to patiently
bow to the will of God? To submit to it? And what does it mean to do that?
Well, God gives us a frame. In His grace, He gives us a frame
of soul whereby we are content. We can be content to be at God's
disposal and say, Lord, God is too wise to do wrong in this
situation. You know, it's like Samuel. Samuel's just a young man, and
he was sent up to the temple to learn and be with Eli the
prophet, or Eli the priest. Eli had two sons. The sons, they
were sorry sons. Sorry sons. They hung around
at the temple door, tabernacle door, and they took bribes, and
they took money away from people, took food away from people. They
were just hirelings. And no, Eli never done anything
about it. Finally, God told Samuel. He
said, Samuel, I'm going to kill them two boys. He said, they're
wicked boys. They're wicked. They're wicked. Oh, they don't take care of the
priest's office. They don't do what's right by
me. They don't do right by what their father. And God told Samuel
that, and then Samuel, Eli said to Samuel, said, Samuel, I know
God visited you last night and told you something. I want you
to tell me what it was. Oh, Master, I don't know. Tell
me, tell me. He said, well, Eli, God said
He's going to kill both your sons at the same time. Now, you know Eli wept. You know
he cried. You know he was heartbroken.
You know he felt his guilt for how he let his children get by. The things he let them do and
not reprove them and rebuke them. You know he was hurt and he was
heartbroken. And yet he said, it's the Lord.
It's the Lord. Let him do what seemeth good.
Let me show you over here in Acts 26. Here's another illustration
of the very same thing. Acts 26. God gives us in His
grace. Now we can't do this naturally.
We can't do this naturally. Our first reaction is like Paul
when he had those Acts 21, excuse me. Did I say 26? Acts 21. Acts 21. He asked the Lord three
times. He had that thorn in his flesh. And this goes to show you how
the afflictions of God are good for us. He asked the Lord three
times, take this thorn out of my side, take this affliction
from me. And he says God sent that affliction to him. He said,
I'm not going to take it away. I'm not going to take it. It's
good for you to have this thorn. It's good for you to have this
affliction. I'm going to give you grace to bear it. But he
says the reason he gave that, he said, lest he be exalted.
He had had revelations. He had been caught up into the
third heaven. He had seen Christ. He had talked with Christ. He
had visions of Christ. He went and had conversations
with Christ. He learned the gospel right from
the very mouth of Christ himself. Then he was called up whether
in or out of the body, he didn't know. But he had all these glorious
rivers used mightily of God. Wrote almost all of the New Testament
in the epistles. And he said, lest I be exalted
above measure, there was a thorn given to me. God said, I'm not
going to let you get high. I'm not going to let you be exalted.
I'm not going to let you be proud. And so what did He do? You imagine what would happen
to us if God didn't put us in the fire occasionally. Look what
a state we get in when He does put us in the fire. When He does
tries us, we still get in pretty sorry shape. I mean, I'm just
speaking for me. Look here in Acts 21, in verse
11. Verse 10, excuse me. And as we
tarried there many days, there came down from Judea a certain
prophet named Agamas. And when he was come unto us,
he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said,
Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind
the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the
hands of the Gentiles. And when he heard these things,
and when we heard these things, both we and they of that place
besought him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered,
What mean ye to weep, and to break mine heart? For I am ready
not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he would not be persuaded,
we ceased saying, The will of the Lord be done. They didn't want Paul to suffer.
They didn't want Paul to go to Jerusalem. They didn't want Paul
to be bound. And they began to weep and cry
and plead with him, don't go, don't go. And he says, I'm going. I'm going to go. I'm going to
Jerusalem. I'm going up there at this feast
time. I'm going up there to bear witness to Christ, live or die. And they said finally, they said,
well, God's will be done. God's will be done. They just
submitted to the will of God. And another thing is when we
patiently submit and just passively, passively submit to the will
of God is this. You see, you cannot acknowledge
God's hand and submit to it unless you see God's hand in everything. You know, that's most folks'
problem. They do not see God's hand. They don't understand that
God is control and God rules and reigns over everything. You
know, before you can submit and passively and patiently submit
to the will of God, you've got to acknowledge God's hand in
everything that goes on in this world. If you don't do that,
then you're going to always be in a turmoil. You're going to
never have any peace. Every time something goes against
you, you're going to get upset. Every time things come up against
you, you're going to get mad about it. You're going to think
you deserve better. But whenever you see that God's
hand It's God's hand. This world and everything's in
it's in His hand. And I'm telling you people say,
well I just can't hardly believe that. I'm going to say it this
way. I'd rather be in God's hands
than anybody else's hands in this universe. I'd rather have
God's will, His active will, His afflictive will, whatever
will it is, His will of decree, it makes no difference to me.
I'd rather be in God's hand in any time and under my life than
anybody else's. I certainly don't want to be
in my hands. I don't want to be in your hands.
I don't want you to decide my will for me, what I'm supposed
to bear and what I'm not supposed to bear, who I'm supposed to
be and where I'm not supposed to be, what I'm supposed to suffer
and what I'm not supposed to suffer. I don't want you to decide
that for me. I don't want the government to
decide it for me. So you see, so I tell you what,
that's why Job, he said, it's the Lord, He gives and it's the
Lord He took away. Oh, his wife said, curse God,
curse God and go ahead and die, you done lost everything. He
said, blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord give and the
Lord take it away. Woman, are you foolish? Would
we charge God foolishly? Oh my! Oh, he doesn't complain
of the second causes. He doesn't blame them. He sees
God in all of his affliction. Oh, there was Sabians that had
come down and killed his servants. There was Chaldeans that had
come down and stole all of his cattle. And one thing, there
was a great tornado and lightning come down, tore the house down,
killed all the kids. He didn't say, boy, if it hadn't
been for that tornado, I thought I just got the kids out of the
house. He said, if I just had an army to camp up there in them
Sabians, wouldn't have come down here and took all my stuff? Killed
all my servants. No, no. You know what he says?
The Lord gave. And the Lord took it. He never considered the second
cause at all. Never the second cause. Poor
little old Molly, yesterday afternoon, put that little old bitty tiny
casket in the ground. Her heart was so broken. And she said, you know, I don't
understand this, but he said, I know it's the right thing to
do. I know it's the right thing that's been done. This is a girl's
unconverted. This is the right thing that's
been done. God does what's right. And I don't either. So we don't
have to have answers here. And when we get there, we won't
want the answers. We won't want them. We'll have them all then.
And we can't submit to God's will until we acknowledge God's
hand in all things. And I've told you this before.
I've told you this before. When Brother Henry's first son
got killed in Vietnam, you know, just a very few days, they brought
him back. He was having his funeral. And
a fellow, you know, this year, back in 1969, somebody said, He said, here's this preacher
who preached God's sovereignty and God controls everything. He says, now, wonder where his
God was when his son got killed. And he took him from the pulpit.
He said, he was in the same place when his son was killed. He was
on his throne. Now, that's why he could lean over
and look at his daughter and say, sweetheart, I'll see you
soon. That's why Rupert Reichenbach
can get up after your daughter commits suicide and we're here
to kiss the hand of God's providence this morning. That's why Bill Grisham can come
here every service and never complain about his lot in life
after God took his wife and she had four cancers. Four cancers
in his life and you never heard him complain about it. They said, it's the Lord. This is the Lord's doing. And
if you don't know that, you know how painful it would be to live
in this world? You'd be upset all the time,
wouldn't you? Ain't you grateful you're in God's hands? Ain't
you grateful? If you get the news tomorrow,
boy, oh boy, you've got four or five arteries clogged up and
you're going to clean all of them out. You're going to die
if I don't get in there and clean them out. Well, let's get them cleaned
down. If I live, it's okay. If I don't,
I really get well. You just don't fall to pieces
over these things. You don't. Bless His name. Well, impatient
submissions to God's will has to do with justifying God. Let
me show you that in Psalm 22. We justify God in His dealings
with us. Now, the world knows nothing
about this. Psalm 22. The world knows nothing about
this. You know, when God afflicts us
and God puts us down, God sends trials and burdens and heartaches
our way. When we submit to it, what we
do, it has to do with justifying God. We justify Him, we clear
Him, and He's dealing with us. He says in verse 2 here, Psalm
22, Oh my God, I cry in the daytime,
but you don't hear me. And I cry in the night season,
And I'm not silent, I just keep on crying. But oh Lord, regardless of what
I'm going through, You're holy. You're the one that inhabits
the praises of Israel. And that's what we do. That's
what we do. Whatever's going on, however we cry, we say the
Lord It's the Lord. God, you're holy and just regardless
of what's going on in me, what you're doing with me. You're
holy and just. If I'm crying on my bed at night, if I can't
sleep, if I've got heartaches and troubles and fears and anxieties,
God, you're holy and just. If my body's wracked with pain
and I'm sick, God, you're just. You see, God's not only just
in punishing the wicked, but He's also just in afflicting
His people. And I tell you, whatever He calls us to bear, we vindicate
it on Him. We vindicate His righteousness.
In order, beloved, to submit patiently to the will of God,
we must see and understand to some degree the necessity of
our affliction. If need be, you're in heaviness
through manifold temptations. God doesn't send anything our
way that's not absolutely necessary. You know what he said that Israel's
problem was? They had the sin of their sister
Sodom. They were fat and creased with
bread. They were fat and full of pride
and bread. And I forget the other one. But
anyway, it's when we get fat and full of pride and everything's
going well, that's when we're in sad shit. It's when we forget
God. We forget Him. And you reckon He's going to
let us forget Him? Is He going to let us go through this world
and not think of Him very often? What a mercy it is that God,
you know, whom He loves, He chastens. And every son whom He receives,
He chastens. And if He don't chasten you,
that means that you're not one of His. You're a bastard. And
a bastard is an illegitimate child. And He says the only children
that He chastises is His own. He don't whip somebody that's
not His own. And He'll afflict His own people. He'll afflict
them, He'll put His hand heavy on them. And the reason He does
this is because it's necessary. And He never does anything that's
not necessary. That's why, and I know every
one of you have prayed this at times, said, Lord, whatever it
takes, whatever it takes to make me, to make me a believer that's
that loves you and desires you and needs you, whatever it takes
to make me submissive to your will and to know you and desire
you, but whatever it takes to make me live to your glory, just
break me, humble me, teach me, afflict me, do whatever you need
to do to bring me to where you are everything in my life. You're
it! Don't let me get up and forget
you. Oh, to be in the ministry, God,
just take me, turn me upside and do whatever you've got to
do to get my attention, to keep me looking to you. Losing a few hours of sleep is
nothing compared to having God forsake you and leave you alone
and say, oh, He's not mine. Oh, my. And He speaks just to
keep us humble. Oh, for us to see God's power,
God's grace, God's love, God's mercy in bringing us up out of
these great trials. And I'll tell you what, He always
helps us to bear it. He said, I'll never put no more
upon you than you're able to bear. And with your temptation,
I'll make a way to escape. And He told us that there's coming
a time that He'd wipe away our tears in the midst of our afflictions.
Wipe away our tears. And beloved, I know this for
sure. I know this absolutely for sure. I know this without a shadow
of a doubt. That it's the goodness, it's
the kindness, it's the love of God Himself that sends every
affliction to kindness and love of God.
You imagine, you know how it upsets us when we see people
who's got children that's absolutely out of control. Never disciplined. Cuss them, you know, just back
talk their mother and father. Just let them go and do anything
they want to. They come in your house and they're jumping on
your couch, running across your walls, and climbing up on your
kitchen tables. And you get upset and say, boy,
don't these folks do anything for their kids? Don't they know
how to train a child? And you see these kids come out
of control. That's what we would be if God
didn't put his hands on us. That's what we would be. Ain't
that right? And we say, you know, if you
don't love your child, you'll never discipline. Only people
who don't discipline are children who love themselves. And God
loves us too much to let us, let us be anything else. that he is. And our blessing
for it. Oh, our Father, how wonderfully
gracious you are. Thank you for this, your word
tonight. Bless it to hearts, bless it to our souls, bless
it to our understanding. Lord, it's easy for us to stand
here and talk about these things and preach these things. And
yet, dear Lord, it's another story whenever it happens. So
I pray that you would bring these things to our remembrance. And
Father, I thank you for these dear saints. I've seen so many
and they bear so much. And Lord, you've upheld them.
And I thank you for that. God bless. God strengthen. Lord
Jesus, bless Larry and Cindy and that dear family, Molly and
Jess, and Dorothy and Carlos. Peggy, Lord, God touch her body.
and others among us, and all the troubles that people have
in their own home, and fears and anxieties that they have,
the doubts and the worries, the desires and the fears. Oh Lord,
You know them. You're their Father. And we know
that You, as their Father and our Father, You'll always do
what's right with us. We bless You for that in Christ's
name. Amen. Hmm.