Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my
cry come unto Thee.
Hide not Thy face from me in the
day when I am in trouble.
Incline Thine ear unto me In the day
when I call, answer me speedily.
That call may be in the form of
a falling tear, or a whisper, or even
a sigh.
God knows the sincerity of that heart, and
He'll hear the slightest whisper from that heart
of yours.
Father God, answer that call.
Answer that one's cry.
Be real to that one.
For Jesus' sake we ask it.
Amen.
For a few minutes, you and I are
going to have a little heart-to-heart
talk about something that's most important to all
of us.
And that is the will of God.
And sometimes I feel that the hardest thing
in the world to discern is God's perfect
will for you and for me.
I mean that.
There have been times in my life when
I have to admit I absolutely did not
know just what was God's perfect will.
I had come to the crossroads.
I knew that two things could not be
His will.
One was His will, and one was not
His will.
And I have stood right in the middle
of those crossroads, afraid to go frontward or
backward or to the right or to the
left, for fear that I would miss His
will.
So for just a few minutes, I want
you to sit there with open hearts and
open minds, and let's discuss this thing.
Very freely about the will of God and
how to ascertain God's perfect will.
One thing that I have learned from experience,
and it was one of the greatest lessons
that I have had to learn, and that
is that in seeking God's perfect will, I
must not have a will of my own.
I have got to get myself to the
place where I have no will in the
matter of my own.
I seek at the very beginning to get
my heart into such a state that it
has no will of its own in regard
to the given matter.
Anyone know something?
Nine-tenths of the trouble with people is
just here.
Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when
our hearts are ready to do the will
of the Lord, whatever it may be.
And when one is truly in this state,
it's usually but just a little while before
you'll know His perfect will.
But do you want to know why sometimes
you and I have such a hard time
ascertaining God's will?
Do you want to know why many a
time we weep and we are so uncertain,
we're so perplexed, we're so doubtful as to
what God's perfect will is?
It's simply because we've never gotten to the
place where we have fully surrendered our will
to the will of God.
We want to do exactly what we want
to do.
And it's just like that.
We're made that way.
Human nature is just like that.
And I don't care how deeply spiritual you
may be this very hour.
I don't care what marvelous experiences you may
have had in the Lord.
One of the hardest places to get to
in the Christian experience is that place where
you are so surrendered to Him that you
have no will of your own.
And it's just like that.
Our trouble, nine-tenths of that trouble, in
knowing God's perfect will is that we fight
against His will, whether we know it or
not.
For a person wants to do exactly what
he wants.
You know, when people come to me for
advice, I know good and well that even
though I may take a full hour and
sit there and try to give them advice,
they may be perfectly honest in coming to
me, perfectly sincere.
I wouldn't doubt their sincerity.
They may have come to me really wanting
to know my opinion and wanting my advice.
And I sit there and I pour out
my heart and I give them all the
wisdom that I know.
When they leave my presence and go their
way, regardless of what I have said, what
I have advised them to do, I know
that as they turn from my presence, they're
going to go out and do exactly what
they want to do.
And it would be a good idea if
you'd learn that too, when folk come to
you.
They'll take your time.
Oh, sure, your neighbors will come to your
house.
They'll take your time.
They'll spend half the morning.
They'll spend all afternoon talking the thing over
with you and asking your advice.
But I'm going to promise you something.
They're going to leave your house doing exactly
what they want to do.
That's right.
And that is our trouble.
When we come into the presence of the
Lord, we look up and we say, Dear
Jesus, I want your perfect will.
I want your will more than anything in
the world.
And when he whispers his will to us,
and mentally we know his will, sometimes it
takes us days, sometimes it takes us weeks
before we'll get to the place where we
will submit our own will to his will.
Even Jesus had a will separate and apart
from the will of the Father.
That's the reason I told you so very
often that really the victory of Calvary was
fought and won in the garden.
Think that over.
There would never have been Calvary if in
the garden Jesus, who was as much man
as though he were not God, and as
much God as though he were not man,
if in the garden his will had not
been submissive to the will of the Father.
The victory of Calvary was fought and won
when he looked up and cried, Nevertheless, Father,
not my will but thine be done.
I promise you something.
That when you are seeking the will of
God, in that moment when you can get
your heart in the state where his will
is your will and your will is his
will, it'll not be long before you'll know
the will of God.
Now, having done just this, there's something else.
I do not leave the result to feeling
or simple impression.
If I do so, I make myself liable
to great delusions.
I can be easily deceived if I leave
myself open to feelings and depend on feelings
to lead me.
Because sometimes feelings can be very deceptive.
That's right.
God never gives feelings to enable us to
trust him.
God never gives feelings to encourage us to
trust him.
God never gives feelings to show that we
have already and utterly trusted him.
We walk by faith, not by appearances.
We walk by faith, not by feelings.
God never intended that his children walk according
to their feelings.
Why no self may want to, and a
great many of us do.
Haven't you met that somebody that one day,
how are you?
Oh, I'm just fine.
Oh, isn't the Lord good?
And they're way up on the mountaintop someplace.
But the next day you see them and,
well, how are you?
Oh, I'm just awful.
I tell you, Miss Truman, I'm just awful.
Things are going to the dogs.
And really, nothing has changed but their feelings.
It's like that.
Maybe they weren't feeling as well physically today
as they felt yesterday.
Or maybe a disappointment came.
Maybe they were counting on something and it
didn't materialize.
And then they feel as though the bottom
has dropped out.
And when you meet them on the street,
they look as though God was dead and
they were one of the pallbearers.
It's just like that.
But God had not changed.
He was just the same when you met
them the second day as when you met
them the first day and they were on
top of the mountain.
God's word had not changed.
One would have thought that God had altered
His promises by the way they acted.
But God never alters His promises.
God never gives His power to anyone else.
It's just the same.
A person like that is governed by their
feelings.
Remember something.
God gives feeling only when He sees that
we trust Him apart from all the feeling.
He only gives us feeling when He knows
that we're resting on His word, on His
faithfulness to His promise.
And it's just like that.
Our feelings may be as uncertain as the
sea or the shifting sands.
We stake everything on God's word.
And God's facts are as certain as the
rock of ages.
And so in seeking God's will, never rest
on your feelings but His word.
For His will will never be contrary to
His word.
Amen.