God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform He plants His footsteps on the sea And
rides upon the storm He built a cloud of noble minds of never
failing skill. He treasures up his bright designs
and works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage
take The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings on your head Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust Him for His grace. Behind a frowning providence,
behind a smiling face, His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every
hour. The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. Our God-belief is sure to err
and stag his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and
he will make it plain. If you wish to follow along,
turn to Romans chapter 12. Keep in your mind the song that
we have just sung. Romans chapter 12 and verse 1. Paul says, I beseech you, therefore,
I beg you. That's what Paul says. I beg
you. He does not say God is begging
us. God's ministers may sometimes
plead and beg with people, but not God. Not God. I beseech you, therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, not a dying sacrifice. This is not about suffering for
the Lord, It ain't about suffering for
the Lord. We will suffer for the Lord. He's ordained it so. We're accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. But this is to present your bodies a living
sacrifice. God, I am yours. Do with me as
you will. And that's what is done to a
sacrifice that's offered to deity. Deity does with the sacrifice
as he pleases. that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service. Reasonable. Paul's not talking
here about some super Christianity. Paul here's talking about, not
talking about some, as opposed to some nominal Christianity.
Paul is talking about this is just our reasonable, this is
the everyday things of life. Which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world. So much could be said
there. But be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind that there is a reason for these four things. You see it? There is a, that,
that lets me know when he says that, that there is a goal or
something to be gained, something to be had, and there may be better
words than my feeble words, but there's something to be attained
here. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God. I want to try to speak to you
this morning about proving God's perfect will. I will confess
something to you, but I will preface it first with something
else, which I hope then it will set forth the importance of what
I'm about to confess. I've been trying to preach the
gospel for 36, 37 years. I didn't figure it out exactly,
but it's been somewhere since 1984, 1985. And until just a year ago, I
did not understand what this was saying. I was taught all of my young
life, and I was brought up in church, put that in quotes. I
went to Sunday school regularly because I was made to go. And I went to church on Sundays,
Sunday nights, and Wednesdays, almost all the time. And generally,
when I heard messages about this, whether it be something a Sunday
school teacher taught in Sunday school, or something a preacher
would preach from the pulpit of regular services, or maybe
a revival service that I would be in attendance at, all the
emphasis was always on me, me, me, do, do, do. And there is
emphasis. There is emphasis on something
or things that we are to do, engage in, set our hearts and
minds toward, but there's a purpose for that. It's not so I can look
down my nose at you and tell you how you ought to live. For
the Lord. That's generally the aura in
which I heard these messages. There's a reason for this fourfold
means, and it is that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God. I will say this again, but let
me say this and then I will begin in earnest. All men, everywhere, at all times, are
always doing God's will. Yeah All being everywhere at
all times are always doing God's will Now don't write me back or call
me and try to argue with that with me or try to debate it with
me I will not debate my God God's will is as perfect as God
is. For God's will issues forth from
His immutable person. His will is perfect. And somebody
says, what is God's will? I've told you before, watch the
news on TV. What happened yesterday is what
God willed to be done. I don't care how evil it is or
how good it is. It's God Almighty's sovereign
will. And God will take, actually 10
sons, one was very young, God will take 10 brothers and suffer
them by his own sovereign will to sell their brother into slavery,
keeping about nine of them from murdering him but nevertheless
selling him into slavery, and it was God's will that it be
done, and God forgave him for it. But then he'll take another
man, a great and powerful king named Pharaoh, and he'll set
Pharaoh on the throne. And he'll put Pharaoh right there
where Pharaoh is for his own sovereign purpose, and then God
will send a man like Moses to come and tell Pharaoh not lies
to cause Pharaoh's problem, But the truth, and it hardened Pharaoh's
heart. So there is no figuring out God.
You want to know what God willed? Whatever happened yesterday,
that's God's will. Whatever's happened up to this
point, I don't care what it is. It's God's will. What happens
tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow, and there will be, we'll see
that from Revelation 20 later, It's God's will. God's will is,
again, as I said, is as perfect as God is. God's will is singular
stupendousness. You hear what I just said? It's
singular stupendousness. Job put it this way, and I've
misquoted this verse for years until I finally looked it up,
thought I need to read that verse, and realized I've been quoting
it wrong for years. I've quoted it, God is of one
mind. That puts God in subjection to
something. Right? God is of. It's like if we're of God, that
puts us subject under God. Job didn't say God is of one
mind. He said God is in one mind. And that just struck me, Mason,
as I read that. God is in one mind. Who can stay him? He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. If something takes place, anything
and all things, God's will determined it. Go to Ephesians, I'm not
gonna read it. Go to Ephesians chapter three,
sometime read verses one through 15. Whether it's death or life,
whether it's planting or gathering, whatever, time to sow and a time
to what? Rend. Time to sow and a time to re-in.
S-E-W. And a time to rip up what's sown
together. And the wise man Solomon said,
and God doeth it that men might fear before him. God controls. You're God's slave whether you
like it or not. You're under the sovereign control
of Almighty God whether you love him or not. You are a pawn in
his hands. People say, you make man to be
a robot. I wouldn't insult a robot by applying you to a robot. That's
exactly right. You have a will, but you hate
God with it. Amen. You have a heart, but you
rebel against the Most High with it. But God still, he holds the
king's heart in his hand. He turneth that heart whithersoever
he will. Amen. Now since God's will, sets
itself against man's fallen self-centeredness, then yes, men will complain,
murmur, even deny or try to ignore God's will. But according to
Isaiah, recorded in Isaiah 55, verses 6, 6 to 11, God says,
my will will be done. Even my word will prosper in
the thing whereunto I sent it. And if that prospering is to
put you in hell because of your rebellion against God's will,
it will take place. And as Joe, I think it was Joe,
pointed out, maybe it was Paul, the gospel of Christ is a saver
of life unto those that are alive in Christ. But that same gospel,
and it's always good news, but it's not good news to everybody.
And that same gospel will be a savor of death unto those that
are dead. That's a paraphrase, but that's
what it's talking about. God's will will dash our fleshly
hopes and schemes. God will take your will and God
will take my will and he'll crush it like dust under his foot. God Almighty's will will crush
our emotional earthly connections. Yeah. God's pleased too. He'll take everything emotional
that you care about and he'll take it away from you if he's
so pleased. Look at Job. Somebody says the
devil did that. Yeah, he did, but he could do
no more than what God Almighty allowed him or suffered him to
do. And as a matter of fact, God
was the one that brought up the subject of Job, and God had to
take down the hedge about Job because the devil couldn't touch
him, lest God give him say so. I had a fellow tell me, I don't
believe that. I'm just telling him what the book says. He claims
to be a Christian. Well, you don't believe that.
I don't doubt that. But you don't believe God. You
don't believe God. God's will, will explode on you
and me with depressing circumstances. It'll explode on you. God's will will crush. God's
will will crush you and will stick you and I in heart-wrenching
situations. And you won't be able to do a
thing about it. And yet, God's will is still
good, acceptable, and perfect. See that? As believers, as I've
said, we are beseeched by Paul, but commanded by God to prove
The word is simply approve of. God's will is good, acceptable,
and perfect. That doesn't mean I give God
the wink and the nod and say it's all right, God. God don't
need your all right or my all right. That's not what I'm talking
about. That's not what to approve of
means. It means to acknowledge that this is indeed God's will.
If it happens, it's God's will, and it's good, and it's acceptable,
and it's perfect. How can such Be possible I'm
not even I ain't talking about how can God's will be really
that will it is God's will I'm talking about how can I? Approve
of it as good and acceptable and perfect Because there is
a frowning providence ever been under a frowning providence Hmm. What is providence? It's a big,
you know, where are they? It is the actual carrying out
in time of what God willed before the world was. And that's whatever
takes place. But behind a frowning providence,
he does what? He hides a smiling face. That writer, William Cowper,
knew something about the grace of God and what it was to know
the God of all gods. So how can such be possible?
Believers even struggle here. If you tell me you don't struggle
with this, I will call you a liar. We'll let you come up here, get
on TV and tell everybody about how great you are, how much you
believe God, and then prove it to us. Prove it to us. I'm not preaching down to you.
The other day, Tuesday, I've been thinking about this for
a good while, ever since God actually opened my eyes to it.
And I seen what was really being said. I was always taught, do
God's will. It don't say, do God's will.
God's doing his will. It says, that we may prove what
is that good, acceptable, perfect will of God. I've been thinking
about that ever since my eyes were opened to this. It was Tuesday
of this week. Yes, it's still Saturday. And
it was Tuesday, and I thought, I want to get home. Penny's got
to be home late. I'm going to work on my message. I could keep
the TV off, I could work on this because I've been seeing things
in my heart and my mind, making a few little notes. I get off
work usually at 3.30, 3 o'clock. A building has a massive sewage
backup and is backing up in all the rooms. Well, guess who has
to stay over for an hour and a half and take care of the sewer
problem? But I just believe God, Joe.
It's all right. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Do what you got to do and go
on. I thought, well, I'm already late. I'm an hour and a half
late. I'll stop by and see Penny for a couple of minutes. First,
I thought, well, I just got to go on. I thought, no, stop and
see here for a couple of minutes. Well, some of you maybe know
the one lane, or both lanes of 460, the four lanes close down,
so you got to go through what's called Worridge Road. Now, I'm
not telling you that we forget about this. We know this. We're
just so wicked, and our flesh is so wicked. So here I am, and
I'm headed down Lurch Road. I'm an hour and a half late,
but I'm headed home. We're gonna write some of these
things down. God's already put a quietus, a wide-eyed plan for
an hour and a half, but it's okay. I get on Lurch Road, and
I'm behind a guy driving 25 mile an hour. One lane wide enough generally
for two cars, but one lane road. And I start murmuring and complaining
and wishing I could run him over. Now y'all laughing. I felt pretty
bad. I wanted to kill the guy. But that's my God's will. And
people think, well, if you're going to do the business of the
Lord, God won't throw no snags in your way. No, that's when
He'll throw the snags in your way. Sit on your backside, on
your derriere, and He may just let you breeze through life with
no problems at all. He might even give you welfare. but you set yourself to seeking
to obey God, to honor his son, to preach his gospel, and it'll
seem like sometimes the demons of hell are being unleashed,
and usually they ain't even the demons of hell. It's right in
here. So we struggle with this. You see, folks, God must rule
over us. He must work in us both the will and the do of his good
pleasure, but that doesn't mean you sit down on your backside.
Because here Paul makes it clear. We have responsibilities and
means that God ordained to the end that we might prove what
is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Right? Right here it is. These are means.
Just like gospel preaching is a means. These are means. Here's
the four parts of it. Be always mindful of God's mercies. That's the way we must always
start. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by what? By the mercies
of God. And he's just talked about it
in chapter 8, 9, 10, and 11. Yes, sir. Sovereign mercy. Amen. Sovereign mercy. But it's a mercy where God says
all things work together for your good if you love God, if
you're one of the called according to his purpose. You know what
that means? God's going to put you through hell on this earth.
Read chapter 8. but this is still God's loving
Christ for you. Chapter nine, God is sovereign in this mercy.
He's sovereign in this mercy. Chapter 10 lets us know that
it's not fatalistic. Those to whom God shows mercy,
he brings to bow and believe the personal work of Jesus Christ.
And chapter 11 says, don't count God out of anything. He's in
sovereign control of it all. Israel, the Gentiles, the whole
nine yards. I beseech you, therefore, by
the mercies of God. And if the mercies of God didn't
float your boat, then you ain't got a boat. As Henry Mahan used
to say, if the mercies of God don't ring your bell, then you
ain't got a clapper. Second thing he says, decisive
dedication of our very bodies to God's service. Beseech you
therefore the mercies of God. That's the first part of the
means. That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy
and acceptable unto God, and that's just our reasonable service. And you'd think that'd be the
easiest thing in the world to do. But any sacrifice to a fallen
son and daughter of Adam just grits our teeth together like
nobody's business. And I will say, especially in
our country, we want it our way, when we want it, as we want it,
and like we want it. Now don't we? Decisive dedication of our very
bodies to God's service, that's the second part of it. Number
three, reject this world's customary beliefs and be not conformed
to this world. Now, boy, I used to hear a lot
of messes way back yonder about this. You don't do this, you
don't do that, you ought to do this, you ought to do that. And
some of those things were probably good advice. But one thing they
never talked about, in light of what, so that we might prove
what is it good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Is it?
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But how am I going
to approve of that? I have trouble with the first
two things, let alone rejecting the world's customary beliefs,
but they're summed up as two opposite ends of the pole. That
kind of God is cruel. You ever heard that? Well, I
wouldn't serve a God like that. You're right, you wouldn't, knowingly. Knowingly, but bless God you
are, whether you like it or not. The fact here for us, though,
is to knowingly, willingly, lovingly serve him, is it not? Mason,
that's what this is talking about. This is not me even gritting
my teeth. Well, this is God's will and I'll put up with it.
When you gonna put up with it, whether you like it or not. And
if you don't, he might put you in a crazy house. They'd be feeding
you Thorazine. Do they still give Thorazine
nowadays? They're feeding you something. Because you lost your
mind. Why? Because God took it from
you. Because God's not gonna let you have your way. Well, I wouldn't serve that kind
of God. Here's the thing, I told you this. I forgot the preacher's
name. The preacher was preaching when
Henry Mayhem was first converted. Somebody get Rolf Barnard. The
man came to Rolf one time and said, God's a monster. He said,
well, you prepare to stand before a monster. And let me tell you
who that monster is. It's Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
He's the man that all mankind will stand before one day. Why,
that kind of God's cruel, he's a monster. Or, well, God's not
really that sovereign. God's mostly sovereign. So that
means God's mostly God. Yes or no? Yes or no? I mean, you don't have to be
a theologian or even have a doctorate to understand that. If God's
only mostly sovereign, then God's only mostly God. But he's God
Almighty. Everything about him is God in
deed and fact, not just in name. And the customary beliefs of
this world is to go to one extreme or the other. That's right, and
I'm not even talking about a middle ground, because God's gonna take
your road like this. Your road ain't never gonna be
like this. And it's gonna be like this. God, for his people, gonna rip
every idol out of our hands, that means anything to us in
this life, and then finally free us from it in the life to come. But we will fight with those
idols throughout this sojourn here on earth. So reject, Paul
says, this world's customary beliefs. Number four, engage
in scripture-based different mind transformation. And this
book's the only thing that's gonna transfer your mind. This
ain't some religious exercise that you can do. I'm gonna go
meditate and pray a lot and all of a sudden I'll be proving this
a whole lot better. No you won't, you'll drive yourself
mad. You'll drive yourself mad. Read this book and read it to
find out who God is. And beg God to kill all of your
prejudices while you do it. God show me who you really are.
no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much it frightens
me. These four are the impetus of
the that ye may prove, right? Isn't that what this says? That
ye may prove, because if you don't, if I don't, if we don't
engage in these four things, we'll be out there in la-la land.
And I'm not saying we're gonna be lost, you'll be out there
in la-la land. As Henry Mahanigan once said,
he said, everything you grip ahold of in this world, you better
hold on with loose fingers because God will break your fingers to
take it away from you. The creator cannot be judged
by creature opinion. Well, that just don't sound right
to me. Who God is and what God does
is right because he's God. And as believers, we are told
to engage these means that we might prove what is that good
and acceptable and perfect will of God. These things are the
impetus to that. Never fall into the trap of slothfulness
in spiritual matters. Engage these things. Examine
these things. Give diligence to these things.
Lay hold of God's wise instruction. Hmm you see if we really believe
God. We know there's wise instruction
That don't mean you go hide in the corner you do like Mary did
remember Christ came to see Mary and Martha Lazarus Poor Martha
was working you ladies some of you you know us like to get up
early you made food so we could eat together That's not easy,
and I figure they had a crowd there I Martha's in there working
in the kitchen or whatever it was, and she's preparing things
for guests, and you want your guests to be happy and comfortable,
correct? And where was her sister? She
had chosen that good part. She was sitting at the feet of
Christ, listening to Christ's instruction. Was she not? Martha said, go tell her to come
help me, Lord. He said, no. Now that wasn't the way he put
it. He put it even, she's chosen that good thing and it won't
be taken away from her. You don't control this thing, Martha. Right? You don't control me, Christ
said, Martha. And Martha knew that. But Martha was cumbered about
much work. Sit at the feet of Christ. And
that way, when you do have to work, you'll have at least a
little more knowledge in here. All men do God's will, period. Paul makes that clear in Romans
9, verses 19 and 20. Don't you argue against God?
How can God yet find fault for who has resisted His will? Because
God wants to find fault. Because there is fault. He is
not the faulty one, we are the faulty ones. God will either
give us our just dessert and banish us from his presence forever.
One day we think we know what bad is now, we don't know nothing. We don't know nothing yet of
what it's like to be actually moved out of this universe and
be cast into a lake of fire. Mason, we don't understand nothing
yet. Or God might just be merciful to you. He might just be merciful
to you. All men do God's will, but very
few approve of God's will as good, acceptable, and perfect. We all got something to bellyache
about. God's will over. Oh God, forgive
me. Oh God, forgive you. God make us to engage in these
means that he has ordained and this God-honoring mindset, acknowledging
God's will for what it is, no matter what it is. It's good,
it's acceptable, and it's perfect. Period. Ain't there a period
there? That's the will of God? Huh?
Period! I'm gonna read that part too.
Read that. Period! No questions. No murmurings. No complainings. And when we
do, now you hear what I just said? And when we do, oh God,
make us to know what it is on our part. Sin. It is sin. Mack, would you close us in prayer
and give God thanks for the food, please?