Good morning. It's been a long time it seems
like. I've entitled this message, How
Great Thou Art. I'm going to read about three
verses from Titus 2 if you'd like to turn there. Titus 2. and verses 11 through 14. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying
ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly in this present world. looking for that blessed hope
and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us
from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people
zealous of good works. I want to look at this great
God mentioned in verse 13. And what this word means, it
means big, exceedingly, great, high, large, loud, mighty, strong. This word describes the God in
this book. And this word, it means great.
That's what the word great means here in this passage. When I
was growing up, I thought there were many things were great,
mainly myself. But I learned that there was
something else greater, and I did not learn this of myself. I learned
this from another. I learned that there is a greatness
that never wears out or ever leaves or that ever changes.
I have been brought to know I've been brought to know that I myself
am not great at all. I learned this by being taught
who is in fact great by the very nature of who it is that is great. And I've come to find out that
I am very insignificant and of no importance. So I just want to remind us of
some things in this book. Most of these things are very
familiar with everyone. but one who is far greater than
anyone that you've ever known or anything that you've ever
known. I learned that the God, the God of scripture is great.
Jesus Christ the Lord is God and he is in reality a great
God. This great God that I still fear
in this sense. God has the power to destroy
both body and soul in hell. With everything that's been going
on here lately with this virus, I want to talk about this great
God and I want to do it in light of prayer. Because you hear everyone
around us saying we need to pray. They say this not because they
bow down to the great God. They're not saying as Job said,
though he slay me, yet will I trust him. But rather most do this
because they need something from him to make their life easier
and more pleasant. In short, they need their bellies
filled again. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. God feeds all men and women.
And I'm talking about physically making food available to them,
physically making them well or keeping them from getting sick.
He does all this according to His wise purpose. If someone
is fed, it is because of Him. If someone is made well or kept
from getting sick, it is all of Him. But to bow down to Him
for who He says He is, is not a part of who they are, unless
He does something. They cannot bow down to Him because
they have not been bowed down by this great God. Simply put,
They only need him when they are in trouble or they simply
want something. I do believe that God has purpose
to allow them to have what they ask for. But they have their
reward, you might say. That is what they will get and
that's all they will ever get. This is, I believe, God sending
them strong delusions that they should believe the lie. Who is
this great God that we should be bowing down to? That is what
I want to talk about this morning. I want to talk about what is
God's will and what is man's will. God's will is what I want
to spend most of the time on because His will is, what His
will is will let us know of His greatness. His will is tied to
His purpose. His will is inextricably tied
to His purpose. As I said, I want to do this
in light of prayer, so if you would, now turn with me to Matthew
6, verses 9 through 10. Matthew 6, 9 through 10. So these couple of verses here, Matthew 6, 9 through 10. After
this manner, therefore pray ye, our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven. Verse 10 is where I want to direct
our attention to. When we pray, Jesus Christ the
Lord is telling us we ought to pray that the God the Father's
will be done. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
who is equal with God, tells us to pray this way. He tells
us to pray in this manner, not as some recital of a prayer,
repeating the same words. Not as some recital of prayer
repeating the same words, but with these thoughts in our mind
and this mindset about who he is. So if we are to pray that
God's will is to be done on earth, we need to know what is God's
will. Let's look through some scripture to see what God's will
is. And I say is because God is eternal. But some of these
things may be in the past for us. In Isaiah 14, 24, it says this. The Lord of hosts hath sworn,
saying, surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass. And
as I have purposed, so shall it stand. I want to point out
God's will in Noah's time, God's will in Sodom and Gomorrah, and
God's will with Pharaoh in Egypt. What was and is God's will for
the people in Noah's time? In Genesis 6, 13, we read, and
God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh is come before me,
for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold,
I will destroy them with the earth. And then we read in Genesis
7, 4, it says, for yet seven days and I will cause it to rain
upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights. And every living substance
that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
How many people did our God destroy in that time? All but eight people. all but eight human beings. I
don't know exactly how many people lived at that time, but I'm sure
there were a lot of people. In Genesis 6, 17, we read this. And behold, I, even I, do bring
a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein
is the breath of life. From under heaven and everything
that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish
my covenant, and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons
and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee. This sovereign almighty
God who created everything was willing. It was in fact what
was intended by our great God to destroy a lot of people. And
yet he saved the world because he saved eight people. Next we have Sodom and Gomorrah.
In Genesis 18 we read of the account of Sodom and Gomorrah
where Abraham goes down from, he starts talking with God, he
goes down from 50 down to 10 asking God to spare the city
if there are 10 righteous people there. In verse 32 we read, and
he said, Oh, let not the Lord be angry. This is Abraham speaking
to God. And I will speak yet but this
once. Peradventure, 10 shall be found
there. And he said, this is God. I will not destroy it for 10's
sake. But there was not, as we know
from the account. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
You can read the account in Genesis 19, one through 26. And you can
get a sense of the kind of people they were. This is us by nature. God willed to destroy Sodom and
Gomorrah. Abraham spoke with God and went
from 50 down to 10, asking God if he would spare the city if
there were 10 righteous. There was not even 10 righteous
souls there. But God said he would spare the
city for 10, but there was not. We can see what Sodom and Gomorrah
was like when the men sent by God arrived at the door of Lot's
house. The men of the city, both young and old, wanted to know
them. They were ungodly men, just as we are by nature. And
God willed to destroy it, and we see that he did. I imagine
there were quite a few people there in that city too. And the only ones that made it
out of that place was Lot and his two daughters, three people.
If you think you will mock God and refuse God, this will be
your end as well. If God does not change your mind,
you will be finally and ultimately destroyed. Now the last one,
God's will and what we read in scripture concerning it is the
record and this is the account of Pharaoh in Egypt when the
people of Israel were going to leave. And we read in Exodus
12, 12. There were a lot more things
going on here, but this is the last plague I believe is what
it's called in Egypt. For I will pass through the land
of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. The ultimate or
final one of these plagues was death of the firstborn in every
family. Either it was death of one in the place of another,
or the firstborn died there. There had to be a lot of families
in Egypt at that time. God willed to kill the firstborn
in every family, and he did. For some, there was a substitute
that took their place, a little lamb. When you look at God's
will and what He does, there are always some that His will
is judgment and destruction to them. But then there are others
who benefit from God's will and Him destroying things and people.
God makes a difference between His people and all other people.
He does this. There are more places we can
go to look at God's will concerning judgment and mercy being shown
at the same time. We see that there are some, when
God does as He pleases, His will is for some and against others.
The examples we have looked at deal with God's will as it concerns
a lot of people at one time. Don't get me wrong, God deals
with us individually, even if He deals with us as a collective
whole or a group. But we have other examples where
God dealt with individuals. Now in this dealing with individuals,
it may also involve others as well or affect others as well.
But when you look at the account of Job, here is one who God himself said
he was a just man. Then God, talking with Satan,
asked Satan, have you considered my servant Job? God asked Satan,
have you considered my servant Job? Satan did not ask this.
Satan responded to him, to God basically, and said, you have
a hedge about him and I can't touch him. But God told him,
the hedge is now gone. Do what you will, just do not
touch his life. God permitted or allowed Satan
to take everything that Job had, including his possessions, as
well as his family. His children died and even his
wife turned on him. So God deals with everyone as
individuals, although it may be His will and His purpose that
this is done in multitudes or that it affects many and not
just one individual. Now I want to leave God's will
for just a minute, and I'll come back to it later, but let's talk
a little bit about man's will as he is born in Adam to see
what scripture says about man's will as it relates to the holy,
just, righteous God. To know what man's will is, we
have to start with looking at what man's heart is. We have
seen in the accounts I have given here where man's will takes him.
But what does God say specifically? This is familiar. I used it the
last time I was here. The heart is desperately wicked.
Who can know it? First of all, the answer is God
knows it. No one else knows how deceitful
and wicked even their own heart is, let alone someone else's
heart. If the heart is deceitful and
wicked, and it is, how can I know it? Jeremiah 17, 9 reads, the
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? First of all,
deceitful. It's fraudulent, crooked, deceitful,
polluted. Then you have desperately wicked,
frail, feeble, desperate, incurable, sick, woeful. So we see from
this, the heart is crooked, polluted, deceitful, and so much so, it
is incurably sick. This is what God says. This is
what God has said about our heart. Our heart is so deceitful that
it will tell us we have life before God when we are dead.
Our heart is so deceitful that it will tell us we are doing
something good for God when it is in fact abomination to God. Our heart is so deceitful that
it will tell us we know God when we really know nothing. Our heart
is so deceitful it will tell us we believe God when we really
believe a God that is a figment of our own imagination. Our heart
is so deceitful that it will tell us our will can be exercised
to accept Jesus Christ or to reject him, depending on our
will or depending on our own choice. This is how deceitful
our hearts are by nature. But we read a verse like this.
I know folks have a lot of problem with this verse, Exodus 35 and
29. The children of Israel brought
a willing offering unto the Lord. every man and woman whose heart
made them willing to bring for all manner of work which the
Lord had commanded to be made by the hand of Moses. Does God love and accept an offering
from a deceitful, incurable heart? Is this the heart that made them
willing? No, the heart we have by nature
is just as God has described to us. It is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked. So something has to change. We
have to be given a heart that will make us willing, one that
is good and righteous, Walter. Exodus 36, 26, as we read last
time, a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you. And I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. The difference is the taking
away of a hard heart of stone, a dead heart, and the giving
of a new heart of flesh. Not a fleshly heart, but a heart
that is living. Joe, I remember when you pointed
this out long ago. One that is living, a clean heart.
That is what this means here when it says a heart of flesh.
What we have is a stony heart, and if God wills, He will give
us a new heart, a living heart. But it is only if He wills to
do so. Now, back to God's will. There
are some other places that talk about God's will. I'm certainly
not gonna cover everywhere that covers God's will. But there
are some other places that talk about God's will, a merciful,
loving will toward His people. He may have dealt with a collective
group of people, or it may have been just one individual, but
God always deals with us individually. For some, He dealt with them
in one man. For some people, He dealt with them in one man.
It was the will of the Father that He would send Jesus Christ
the Lord down to this earth to be made of a woman, made under
the law to take away the sins of His people. But what has God
told us in his word about this one who was to take away the
sins of the people? In Genesis 3.15 we read, it says,
God willed to put enmity between the seed of Satan and the seed
of the woman. Jesus Christ was that seed. Paul tells us this in Galatians
3 and verse 16. In Genesis 6.18 we read, God
tells Noah it is his will to establish his, in Genesis 6.18
it tells us that God tells Noah it is his will to establish his
covenant with him. With him, his wife, his sons,
and their wives. That was eight people God willed
to be saved in the time of Noah. In saving these eight people,
God saved the world. These eight people were brought
into the ark and the door was shut by God. This ark typifies
Jesus Christ the Lord, that one man who is always involved in
the salvation of his people. That God may place me in his
ark of salvation. I want him to bring me into the
ark of Jesus Christ, my Lord. What else is God's will in scripture
concerning his son Jesus Christ the Lord? To Abraham, God proclaimed
the gospel to him when he told him that it was his will, God's
will, that he would bless him in that seed, singular, spoken
of as being at enmity with Satan, and that he would come through
his loins. That all who would be blessed
would be blessed in this one seed. But then he also tells
Abraham that he wills to provide himself a sacrifice for a burnt
offering in Genesis 22 and verse 8. So Jesus Christ the Lord would
come as the one sacrifice for sin. What else does the scripture
tell us about God's will? God tells us his will is to be
gracious to whom he will be gracious, and he will show mercy to whom
he wills to show mercy. And also, whom he wills, he will
harden. Just as he did Pharaoh, he hardened
his heart so that he would not bow down to God. In Romans 9,
18, we read this. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardened. God's will
to show mercy on son, and mercy implies two things. One has been
offended and one has done the offending. We are the offenders and God
is the offended. Otherwise, there is no need for
mercy. So who does God show mercy to?
Matthew 9, 13, we read this. But go ye and learn what meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance." So if you are righteous, and
let me be more clear, if you think you are righteous, God
did not come to call you. He will give life to those He
wills to give life to. In John 5.21, and this is Jesus
Christ who is God. John 5.21 says, for as the father
raises up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the son quickeneth
whom he will. Man's will is totally against
God as he is born in Adam. We have to have our will changed
by God, but that is all up to him whether he does this or not.
Him giving us a new heart that will make us willing in the day
of his power. This God who we pray to that
His will be done. And listen, His will will be
done regardless of whether we pray for it or not. But God's
people pray for this because His people know that what He
does is for their good. No matter what circumstances
may be. No matter whether I can see it
directly or not. Or understand it or not. There
are a lot of people who may turn to God in times like these, but
when their belly gets full, they will leave. When the truth starts
to be told, they will leave. Or they will simply go to where
they can just get their bellies filled with no truth involved
at all. Just somewhere they can go and make themselves feel good
about themselves. For many, this will give them
a false hope. Their deceitful, wicked heart
has told them they are okay. This is a dangerous place to
be. They are told that a decision by them secures their everlasting
soul. If that light in you be darkness,
how great is that darkness, the scripture says. For God's people
who might be called to him in times like these, or maybe who
are being called in other times when everything seems to be okay
in the world. No matter what might be going on in the world,
the child of God who is being called by him comes to know that
they are the center before a great, sovereign, holy, and just God. And they have nothing that will
satisfy this God. They have some sense that if
they die today, they will be consumed unless God Almighty
does something for them. They know they are guilty before
Him. They see themselves as being consumed by this Almighty God.
This is the implanting of that new heart, that heart that is
molded by God where the Spirit of God comes in to dwell and
does make them willing, willing to bow down to Him and believe
Him. All those for who this is done
will see that the will of God was done by His Son, who we read
done all the will of the Father. They come to see this Jesus Christ
as their only hope by the preaching of the gospel. The only hope
being that is if He took their place, then God was satisfied
with that. Do we pray for things? Do we
pray for God to help us? Yes, and we should. He is our
only place of help and comfort. We do pray for and God does help
our families, friends, and others, and we have scriptural examples
of that happening. In Matthew 9, we have the example
of a certain ruler bringing his petition to Christ on behalf
of his daughter. He thought his daughter was dead.
Christ healed her. In Matthew 15 we have a woman
from Canaan bringing her petition to Christ on behalf of her daughter
being vexed with the devil. Christ healed her. You know the
account. This woman was the dog of the
master. In Matthew 8 we have the centurion bringing his petition
to Christ on behalf of his servant. Christ healed him. Then we have
in John 11 when Mary, the one that wiped Christ's feet with
her hair, she came to Christ with her petition on behalf of
her brother Lazarus. Christ raised him from the dead. They did pray to God. This is
praying to God when you come to him for help. When you bring
your supplications to him. There was one thing in common
amongst all these people, all these people who prayed to God.
They all had faith. A faith given to them by God.
A faith that believes God. A faith that trusts God. Faith's
source is Jesus Christ, and faith's object is Jesus Christ. So if
you're not consumed with this Jesus Christ, and if you do not
love Jesus Christ and His people, then you do not know God. But
now let's look in closing here. I want to look at one more example
where God's people are brought to by God. An example of whose
will will they think of as being important. An example of what
God's people think of themselves at God's appointed time. Someone
who has been given a new heart and one that has been given faith.
Whose will are they concerned with? In Luke 5, in verse 12,
let's just turn to Luke 5. in verse 12. And it came to pass when he,
that is Jesus Christ, was in a certain city, behold a man
full of leprosy. This man was full of uncleanness,
condemned by the law, who seeing Jesus fell on his face He got
down on his knees with his face to the dust and besought him,
Jesus Christ, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, if it is your will
to do so, great God, if thou, Jesus Christ, wilt, thou can
makes me clean. The one who has been given by
God this new heart, making them willing to bow down to Jesus
Christ, knowing that if they are to be made clean, it will
be him that does it, and only if he wills to do so. Then that
sinner has to wait on the Lord to find out his answer. But to
those who are like this, the answer from Jesus Christ will
always be the same. Those who are sick, who are sinners,
Christ hears. We read on in verse 13. Luke
5 and verse 13, and he, Jesus Christ, put forth his hand and
touched him, saying, I will. Be thou clean. And immediately
the leprosy departed from him. My hope and prayer is that Jesus
Christ is willing to show mercy on a poor, wretched sinner, making
him clean by the power of his might and because of his will.
This is my cry for myself even today. It is always a matter
of God's will as to what will happen, no matter what it might
be. God does not always answer our
prayers in the positive, you might say. He does not always
say yes to our prayers. But he does always answer our
prayers and does right. Paul prayed for the thorn in
the flesh to be removed three times. God said no three times. And God told Paul, my grace is
sufficient for thee. I pray for him to open my heart,
for him to open my understanding, for him getting me through a
trial or help in a trial, for him saving my soul. My God is
in the heavens and hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. How
great of a God do you worship. There is no other God, so if
you're not worshiping this God, your worship is in vain. Can
you bow down to this great God? Is this the God you seek? Is
this the God you know? Can you say in agreement with
Scripture, knowing all these things, oh, how great thou art? Amen. Dear Sovereign Holy Father, We
come to you by your will, your power, your ability, bowing down
to your Son, Jesus Christ. Oh, dear Lord, but you have enabled
us to do this as a friend of Jesus Christ, who sticketh closer
than a brother. Be with all of us here, dear
Lord, If it's your will, please keep this virus away from us. If it's not your will, dear Lord,
help us deal with it and get through with it, or ultimately
give us the best healing that you can and take us on. Whatever
your will might be, we know it's right. Help us to see this, dear
Lord, and help us just to be comforted in that, that you do
all things well, and you do everything you do is for the good of your
people. Be with Walter as he comes here
to speak. Open all of our hearts, minds,
and ears, dear Lord, that we can take in the words of Christ.
All these things we ask in Christ's name, amen.