100 Sermon Illustrations on God S Will

Many Christians live in sorrow. They pray and read books, but nothing happens. One man has family unsaved, another loses his job. Why?

Bible example of Hannah.

Reasons:

1. To develop holiness.

2. To teach us persistence.

3. To give us God's best.

"I felt it couldn't happen again. My number had been pulled and it couldn't be pulled again." -- flight attendant Michelle Honda, on how she decided to fly home only four hours after a huge section of her Aloha Airlines plane was ripped away, killing one of her co-workers before an emergency landing.

Understanding God's will and plan for our lives, especially in midlife. Many reassess themselves at that time.

1. God is near.

2. The desperate search for God's favor.

3. Holding on to an idealized past.

4. Love for the unlovely.

5. Faithful in the face of failure.

6. Is God a chess master?

Outline of article:

I. Question of God's will generates high interest: 62% want to know,

"Does God have a plan for my life, and if so, am I living it?"

A. Problem for many Christians.

B. Joan of Arc heard voices.

C. Approach is often youth-oriented.

II. Choices vs. evaluations.

A. Young people are interested in choices.

1) Whom do I marry?

2) What career should I choose?

B. Older people are interested in evaluation.

1) Have I made the right choices?

2) Have I done well?

III. Erroneous ideas.

A. Missing God's preferred choice in a situation by choosing some

other, but equally God-honoring and moral, path will lead to

spiritual ruin.

B. The special guidance given to apostles is the norm for us.

C. God's scriptuarl revelation of right, of wrong, and of

principles to live by is not sufficient information for us

to please God.

IV. How it affects our lives.

A. Older believers may give up on God, or turn to their subjective

impulses and claim God's blessing for the turmoil.

1) Give up on marriage, have affair, remarry, see God releasing

them from bondage and bringing them a blessing in the

guise of a new spouse.

2) However unwise our early choices, there is never an excuse

for trying to improve the situation by violating the

clear and inspired commands of Scripture.

V. The intimate God.

A. God has plans for some from conception.

1) Judg 13:5, Ps 139:13-15; Jer 1:5

2) He counts our hairs.

3) God wants good things for us. We are valuable to him.

4) Paul and Philip received direction from Spirit.

a) Acts 8:26-29; 13:1-7; 16:6-7,10

B. Does God map out our lives?

1) Not a necessary implication.

2) Parental love doesn't have to force its hopes on young.

a) Parents give guidelines for safety.

b) Parents try to impart good habits.

3) God gave Adam & Eve a few limitations and many possibilities.

a) In OT, a few moral and spiritual laws given.

b) In NT, free life in the Spirit.

1> God wants us to choose wisely.

VI. The search for God's favor.

A. Many want God to tell them exactly what to do.

1) They are unable to live with uncertainty.

2) They don't know how to handle freedom.

3) They may be desperate God will abandon them if they aren't

obedient at every juncture.

B. The crisis of midlife.

1) We hold to an idealized view of the past.

VII. God's character helps us make decisions.

A. God is characterized by covenant faithfulness.

1) He knows our weaknesses.

2) Yet he expects us to live according to conditions.

3) God is tolerant.

B. Christians should remain faithful to their covenants.

1) Hosea.

C. God brings victory out of failure. Gen 50:20, Rom 8:28

1) Christians must be creative when facing hard choices.

2) Follow Spirit, not flesh. Eph 5:1-2

Word "there" has a special emphasis in 1 Kings 17, which deals with Elijah's instructions from God. "There" is not so much a place, as being in God's will.

Decisions don't have to be as hard as we sometimes make them.

I have always had difficulty making decisions. Pondering what to order from a menu immobilizes me. Deciding where to go on a vacation preoccupies me for weeks. Weighing which academic project to give a summer's vacation to makes me reflective and anxious. It gets even more complicated and I get more confused when I consider what God wants me to do. What, I keep asking myself, is the will of God for my life? Does God want me to take a new job or to stay where I am? Does God want me to speak at a family camp next summer or to spend the week at home with my kids? Does God want me to write another book or to do more administrative work at the college? Does God want me to marry or to remain single?

I may be asking the wrong question. When we ask, "What is the will of God for my life?" we usually have in mind some decision we made in the past and now regret, or some decision we must make in the future about which we are uncertain. But the will of God has less to do with the past or future and more to do with the present. We have no power to reverse decisions we have made in the past, and we may not know in precise terms what God wants us to do in the future. But we do know what God wants us to do in the present. We already know the will of God! Thus, no matter what we have done in the past or will do in the future, we can always, always give ourselves to the will of God we know now.

THE BIBLE AND GOD'S WILL

The biblical authors do not seem to agonize much over the will of God, at least as it is popularly understood today. When they explore the subject, they do not, as we often do, struggle, waffle, and question for days on end. If anything, the question itself is often a rhetorical one that leads to a simple and unequivocal answer. For example, when a crowd of people asked Jesus about the will of God, Jesus replied, "What God wants you to do is to believe in the one He sent" (see John 6:29).

Paul was equally clear. He concluded his great theological treatise of Romans 1-11 by spelling out the most important and immediate implication. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom 12:1-2). To believers in Thessalonica Paul exhorted, "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thess 5:16-17).

The will of God, as it turns out, is not something we need to discover, for it is as plain as the nose on our face. Rather, it is something we need to do. God wills that we repent of our sins, believe the gospel (Mark 1:15), and obey God's commands, especially that we love God and love one another (Matt 22:37-40, John 15:12).

If in the minds of biblical authors there is agony involved, it is not in the process of discovering the will of God, but in the difficulty of doing it. Jesus knew what His mission was. He knew that it would culminate in His crucifixion. He asked His Father in heaven to "remove the cup" before His execution, yet submitted to God's will, obediently embracing His destiny of suffering and death. Likewise, the Apostle Paul did not seem to wrestle much with the problem of discerning the will of God for his life. It was doing the will of God that created such zeal and even fear in him. He spoke with great foreboding about disobeying God's will for his life: "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Cor 9:16).

In the rare moments when I am ruthlessly honest with myself, I realize that my anxious efforts to discover the will of God distract me from facing the real issue. I simply do not do the will of God that is already clear to me. I would rather assign the will of God to the far-off future, where I can safely or anxiously contemplate it as a range of options from which I must choose one. That option seems far safer than treating it as it really is, a set of commands (e.g., the general principles of the Ten Commandments) that show me in no uncertain terms how I should live my life every day in the light of God's grace. My problem is not that I do not know the will of God; it is that I do not do the will of God I already know. It is not ignorance that plagues me; it is lack of faith and stubbornness of heart. I am like a child who worries about what she is going to do on the weekend as a convenient excuse for not doing the chores assigned for the day.

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

We may have difficulty discovering the will of God for our lives because we misunderstand the biblical concept of time. God dwells in eternity (Psalm 90); He is therefore not bound by time. There is no past or future to God. All times are the present to Him. But we are bound by time. There is a past to our experience, just as there is a future. We carry the past with us in the form of consequences of decisions that we have no power to change; we anticipate the future as a range of possibilities that may or may not be realized. But we can only live in the present. "I tell you," Paul wrote, "now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor 6:2). We have only the present in which to love, trust, and obey God.

How we view time, then, will affect how we understand the will of God. If the will of God is associated in our minds with a bad decision we made in the past, we will become preoccupied with the past and live with regrets. "If only I had not taken that job," we will say to ourselves. "If only I had not married so quickly and impulsively." "If only I had not drunk so much that night." Soon we will begin to believe that we missed the will of God for our lives because of bad decisions we made in the past, and we will be left only with longing and regret. The past will be like the dust stirred up by a speeding car on a dirt road, which then lingers in the air and suffocates us.

If, on the other hand, we associate the will of God with a decision we must make in the future, we will become preoccupied with the future and live in anxiety. What if there is no clear direction? What if all our options are good ones, every one of which could be the will of God? What if we simply cannot decide? What if we made the wrong choice, though we have no way of knowing whether or not it is wrong? This uncertainty will cause us to keep looking ahead, always to the future, and obsess about decisions that have to be made. The future will be like a mirage that appears in the distance, shimmering, inviting us to rush toward it. But it keeps receding from us, always remaining just out of reach, refusing to yield to us.

But if we associate the will of God with decisions we can make in the present, we will be empowered to do the will of God we already know. We will direct all of our energies into the now. What is more, we will receive grace for the past. Though there is nothing we can do to reverse the past, there is much we can do to change how we respond to the past. Only God through Christ can forgive us for past sins and redeem the past by using it as a tool in the present to transform us. Thus we never have to live outside the will of God in the present if we repent of our sins and cast ourselves on the mercy of God. A person could be in prison for crimes committed in the past but still do the will of God in the present. If we do the will of God we already know, we will no longer have to live with regrets over past misdeeds but instead be able to embrace the grace of God given in the present moment. Paul describes this kind of grace as the grace of no regrets. Godly repentance will lead us into that kind of radical grace (2 Cor 7:5-12).

We will also experience the peace of God concerning the future. Of course, there is nothing we can do to control the future. It will continue to loom before us, forever eluding our grasp, surprising us with strange twists and turns. Worrying about the future will not change it. If anything, worry will keep us from doing what holds the greatest promise to INFLUENCE the future: Prepare for it in the present.

I have met people who worry so much about whether they will be able to find a stable job in the future that they never prepare themselves for need to the job they want. I have talked with people who fret so much over whether they will find a suitable marriage partner that they never become the kind of person a suitable marriage partner would want to marry.

Worry erodes the spirit, distracts the mind, dulls our creativity. It keeps us from embracing this present moment, which is the only one we have. If we use the present wisely and trust that, no matter what happened in the past or may happen in the future, God will work all things together for good for those who have been called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28), we can believe that God will redeem the past and prepare us for the future. As Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matt 6:34).

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

Still, we cannot avoid decisions about the future. That decisions have to be made is obvious. That the will of God may be unclear is equally obvious. So what do we do?

When I reflect on Scripture, a pattern emerges. We can make decisions about the future in freedom and with security, trusting that our decisions are within the will of God, provided we fulfill four criteria: that we seek God above all else, that we pursue our unique sense of calling, that we live within the moral boundaries prescribed in Scripture, and that we remain open to God's divine interruptions.

SEEK GOD.

The most important principle is the first: We must seek God above all else (Mt. 6:33). We should pray for God's will to be revealed. Praying itself is the will of God (1 Thess. 5:17-18). We should get advice from godly counselors about the will of God. Learning from wise people is the will of God (Prov. 19:20, 20:18). We should wait for God (Ps. 27:14), grow in wisdom (Prov. 3:6-7), ponder the Word of God (Psalm 1), and worship God (Eph. 5:18- 19). These disciplines are the will of God. In other words, seeking God for the purpose of discovering the will of God is really a secondary concern. Seeking God is itself our fundamental purpose in life. Seeking God to know His will for the future is part of a larger whole.

PURSUE YOUR CALLING.

We should also pursue a unique sense of calling. Each person's calling (or "vocation," as it is sometimes referred to) involves more than a specific job or career, which is often what we associate with the idea of a calling.

When we ask young Sarah, "What do you want to do when you grow up?" we expect her to say something like, "I want to be a doctor." Yet when Sarah reaches adulthood she will learn, as all of us learn, that a calling is really a set of multiple responsibilities based on circumstances, talents, vision, and intuition.

I am, for example, a widower and father. Circumstances require me to manage my home alone and to function as the only living parent of three children. I am also an active member of a church, a volunteer in the community, and a college professor. And I feel a deep burden to help prepare a younger generation of Christians for leadership in the world.

Doing the will of God requires that I make choices that are congruent with these various responsibilities, all of which reflect the will of God for me. I cannot in good conscience do something that would, for example, sacrifice the well-being of my children or compromise my desire to train leaders.

OBEY GOD'S MORAL COMMANDS.

Scripture establishes moral boundaries within which we come to know the will of God. Some actions are clearly out of line. I do not have to pray for God's will if I am considering marriage to an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14). Some motives are unacceptable, too. It is not God's will for me to become, say, a lawyer if I am motivated by avarice and pride, although being a lawyer is itself a worthy occupation. In this case God cares more about who I am than about what I do. Some positions of responsibility are off-limits, too, if in pursuing them we neglect to do the will of God we already know. I have chosen, for example, not to serve as a senior pastor in the near future because I believe it would deprive me of the time I need to raise my children.

BE OPEN TO GOD'S INTERRUPTIONS.

Finally, we should always remain open to and even pray for God's interruptions. It appears that God does at times speak clearly and directly to us about the future, showing us in no uncertain terms what we should do. On some occasions that sense of unequivocal guidance comes to us through circumstances: Many doors close, one door opens. On other occasions such guidance comes to us intuitively: We simply know what we are supposed to do. On still other occasions, God speaks to us through the prophetic voice of a fellow believer, or through a dream or vision. When God speaks so directly, we must be open to what He says and ready to do what He commands.

But God does not always interrupt. If anything, God may at times seem very quiet and distant. Does that mean He is unconcerned or disconnected? Does that imply we could actually make a bad decision, a decision contrary to the will of God, yet not even know we were making it? In such situations I think it is wise to assume that God is always clear when He needs to be, even when He is silent. Perhaps His apparent silence is the result of misguided expectations on our part.

Let's say, for example, that we want to know if option A or option B is the will of God for our lives. We pray, fast, seek counsel, study Scripture, wait on God. But still no answer comes. Could it be that both options are within the will of God, that God will bless us no matter which one we choose?

I have gone on many backpacking trips over the years. During some of those trips I have come to an intersection where the trail I was following forked, and I could find no marker indicating which path I was supposed to take. I have learned that the National Forest Service posts signs only when it is necessary. If there are no signs, as is often the case, it is because no signs are needed. Both paths will eventually lead to the same destination. I am free to choose either one with confidence that I will arrive at my chosen destination.

Some decisions we make, in other words, are not as important as we think. Or perhaps it is better to say that some decisions, however important they seem to us, are neutral if we make other, more fundamental decisions first. Option A and option B may both be acceptable, both within the will of God for the future, if we have already decided to do the will of God we know in the present.

PAUL'S DECISION MAKING

The life of the Apostle Paul illustrates this point. After Paul became a Christian he gave himself to seeking God, even to the point of withdrawing into the wilderness for a time. His greatest passion in life was to know Jesus (Phil. 1:21). Moreover, Paul was faithful to his calling as an apostle to the Gentiles. Obviously Paul honored God's moral law, even to the point of suffering (1 Cor. 4:8-13). Finally, Paul was open to God's interruptions. He set off on his first missionary journey at the prompting of the Holy Spirit (Acts 13). He traveled to Macedonia when God called him through a dream to begin evangelistic work there (Acts 16:6-10). Still, Paul seemed to make many decisions without such direct guidance. He used common sense, made decisions when necessity required them, and never doubted that they were the right ones, regardless of the outcome. He exercised freedom in the choices he made, and he lived in the security that God was with him. Paul could have chosen to travel to Alexandria first to begin his missionary work rather than to Crete. Such a decision would have set him on a different course. But the outcome would have been the same, the evangelization of the Mediterranean world.

FREE TO DO GOD'S WILL

God's will is revealed to us in Scripture; it is what God calls us to do day by day. But by His providence it is also being worked out mysteriously so that even human beings at their worst and human history at its lowest will still lead inexorably to a grand conclusion, thus fulfilling the eternal plan of God. We will comprehend the whole of God's plan only at the end, when we see all things clearly from heaven's perspective. But even in this life we may catch glimpses of it as we look back on the course of our lives and see how God's hand has been at work.

In the meantime, there is work to be accomplished, life to be lived, the will of God to be done. We are freed from bondage to the past and freed from worry about the future. We are free to do the will of God in the present, the only moment we truly have to know God, trust God, and obey God.

________

GERALD L. SITTSER is an associate professor of religion at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. Gerald's most recent book is A Cautious Patriotism (University of North Carolina Press).

1997 Discipleship Journal Online, The Navigators, All rights reserved.

The man who has long proclaimed that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” is now facing a major test of his faith with every intention of proving God worthy.

John Piper, author of “Desiring God” and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in late December and will undergo surgery to remove the organ in February, according to a letter he wrote to his congregation and posted on his website, desiringgod.org.

“This news has, of course, been good for me,” he wrote. “The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness. The news of cancer has a wonderfully blasting effect on both. I thank God for that. The times with Christ in these days have been unusually sweet.

“For example, is there anything greater to hear and believe in the bottom of your heart than this: ‘God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him’ (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10)?” he added. “God has designed this trial for my good and for your good.”

Doctors told Piper the cancer does not appear to be aggressive and it is unlikely that it has spread beyond the prostate, thus it is possible to be cancer-free with successful treatment. Piper, in his letter, asked that people pray that God would “grant that this light and momentary trial would work to spread a passion for [God’s] supremacy for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.”

[see also HolwickID #30878]

*

[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Andrew Murray:

"We have as little power to increase or strengthen our spiritual life, as we had to originate it. We ‘were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God.’ Even so, our willing and running, our desire and effort, avail nought; all is ‘of God that showeth mercy.’”

Story of Bill Borden, a young man from a wealthy family who left everything to go into missions to the Moslems in China, only to die in Egypt of cerebral meningitis. He was 25 and by today's values worth $40 million. But in 1912 he gave his fortune away. Five months later in Cairo he died. "What a waste," people said.

Borden's parents raised him in a mansion on Chicago's "Gold Coast" within walking distance of Moody Church. His father, an attorney, was active in real estate after the Chicago fire. It was from this, not milk, that the family fortune grew. Borden went to Yale, was president of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society his senior year, was voted third out of 800 for being the hardest worker, fourth for the most energetic, ninth as the most to be admired, and seventh as the one who had done the most for Yale.

Bill's mother was devout and taught him the Bible. Before entering college, at age 17, his parents sent him on a 10-month global tour. He left San Francisco in September 1904, and when they reached London they went to hear Bill's preacher from Chicago preaching at a series of meetings. He wrote back to his mother, "His sermon was meant to straighten things out. I know that my own ideas were somewhat hazy, and I wasn't at all sure about it. But I am now. In another meeting Torrey gave an invitation to those who had never publicly indicated that they had surrendered all to Christ. Bill stood up with several others and later wrote home, "We sang the chorus: 'I surrender all, I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all." Torrey gave five points for daily living, with the last being "Go to work." Borden resolved to do so.

During his freshman year at Yale, at the Student Volunteer Movement convention, he heard Samuel Zwemer describe the sweep of Moslem influence throughout the Near and Far East. He said those 70 million people were not lost because they had proved too fanatical or because they refused to listen, but because "none of us has ever had the courage to go to those lands and win them to Jesus Christ."

Back in New Haven, Conn., he founded and privately financed a mission for down-and-out men. One man later said he talked to everyone. At Bible conferences he volunteered to wait on tables. He had a devoted but simple prayer life, and was tempted to buy a car but decided it was an unjustifiable luxury.

Upon graduation he applied to the China Inland Mission for service to Moslems in China. But they decided he needed more Bible training and recommended he go to Princeton Seminary. Unknown to anyone - even his mother - he cut his business ties to give his life totally to Christ. One-fourth of his inheritance was given for use in Chicago, another fourth for other parts of America, one third for work in China, and the remainder for other countries. The New York Bible Society and Moody each got $100,000, equivalent to $4 mil today. $100,000 of the quarter million he gave to China Inland Mission he asked to be invested for retired missionaries.

Bill had no doubts. But his mother, she admitted later, wondered on the eve of his departure for Egypt if he had done the right thing in giving up everything he owned: "In the quiet of my room that night, worn and weary and sad, I fell asleep asking myself again and again, "Is it, after all, worthwhile?' And in the morning, as I awoke to consciousness, a still small voice was speaking in my heart, answering the question with these words: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son....'"

Before he departed they prayed for God's will to be done. It turned out not to be mission to the Moslems. Borden contracted cerebral meningitis in Cairo and died. The news shocked the world. Accounts of his life and death were written in many languages. A version for Chinese Moslems reached the very people he himself had longed to see.

An editorial in a Richmond, Va., paper said, "His investment has borne rich returns already and will continue to yield its peculiar fruit. There are thousands of talented and favored young men who will, in the light of Borden's conception of investment values, come to a new view of Christian service."

Another editor wrote, "It was not the million dollars that came to this young American which made his life a victory and his death a world-wide call to young men and women to learn the secret of that victory. It was in things that every man can share that William Borden found the way to the life which is Christ and the death which is gain. And China and the Moslem world shall yet share that gain, as his burning torch is used to kindle in other lives the first of a like passion for Jesus Christ."

Among Bill's papers was a poem his mother had given him on his 17th birthday. It summed up what he did and what he was:

Just as I am, young, strong and free,

To be the best that I can be

For truth and righteousness and Thee -

Lord of my life, I come.

Waste? Was it?

===================

Another version from PreachingNow newsletter, 9/29/09:

Omar C. Garcia, Minister of Missions and Evangelism, Kingsland Baptist Church, Katy, Texas, shares the following: “In 1904, William Borden , the heir of the famous Borden dairy estate, graduated from high school in Chicago. As a graduation gift, his parents sent him on a cruise around the world. While on this cruise, God began to open William’s eyes and heart to the masses of unsaved people around the world. William wrote to his mother about his desire to be a missionary. In one of his early letters he wrote, ‘I think God is calling me to be a missionary.’ In his final letter he wrote, ‘I know God is calling me to be a missionary.’ One friend expressed amazement that William was throwing his life away by choosing to become a missionary.

“When he returned home, William enrolled in Yale University, where he was instrumental in starting campus prayer and Bible study groups and evangelism initiatives. He also worked with the least of these on the streets of New Haven and founded Yale Hope Mission. Henry Wright, a professor at Yale, said, ‘It is my firm conviction that the Yale Hope Mission has done more to convince all classes of men at Yale of the power and practicability of Christianity to regenerate individuals and communities than any other force in the University.’ While in school, William renounced his fortune in favor of missions and wrote two words in the flyleaf of his Bible -- ‘No Reserves.’ William wanted to live by faith and trust God for everything in his life.

“William attended a Student Volunteer Movement conference in Nashville, where he learned about the great number of Muslims in China. He felt God wanted him to go to China, where he hoped to work with Muslims. When he graduated from Yale, he had many lucrative job offers, including the opportunity to take over the multi-million dollar family business. However, he was determined to fulfill God’s call to serve as a missionary. Once again, he opened his Bible to the flyleaf and wrote two more words -- ‘No Retreats.’

“William set sail for China on Dec. 17, 1912. He stopped in Egypt to study Arabic so he would be better equipped to work with Muslims. While in Egypt, William contracted spinal meningitis and died on April 9, 1913, at the age of 25. Years of training, a promising future, and William never made it to China. Charlie Campbell, one of William’s college friends, received his Bible after his death. When he opened it, he found what William had written in the flyleaf. In addition to the words ‘No Reserves’ and ‘No Retreats’ that William had jotted down during his college days, he found two more words that William had written before he died -- ‘No Regrets.’

“Although William Borden never made it to the mission field in China, he touched hundreds of students at Yale University and Princeton Divinity School who became missionaries. Because the news of his death was published all over the world, many people wrote letters to his family expressing how their lives had been influenced by William’s story of faith and commitment to the cause of Christ. His story continues to inspire selfless service for the cause of Christ.” As believers may we truthfully confess with William Borden of Yale, ‘No Reserves, No Retreats, and No Regrets.’”

________

from Franklin Kirksey, “Grandfather’s Gavel”; Omar C. Garcia, “William Borden, Go Beyond: Live Adventurously for God,” Copyright © 2001–2008 BibleTeachingNotes.com

Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address in March 1865 stands as the most remarkably Christian public statement by any American president.

“Neither [side] anticipated that the cause of the conflict [i.e., slavery] might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!’ If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray – that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

Resolutions by Jonathan Edwards:

"Resolved: that all men should live for the glory of God.

Resolved second: that whether others do or not, I will."

John List’s neighbors in suburban Westfield, New Jersey, liked him well enough, even though he was standoffish and a little odd. It was his habit, for instance, to wear a business suit when he mowed the lawn surrounding the huge, shabby mansion where he lived with his wife, Helen, their three children, and his aging mother. In November 1971 he told the neighbors that he was going to tend to a sick relative in North Carolina. He never returned.

A month later police entered the darkened house. Nothing had prepared them for what they found. Funereal organ music was coming from a central sound system, and in the mansion’s ballroom the decomposing bodies of 45-year-old Helen List, Patricia, 16, John junior, 15, and Frederick, 13, were laid out neatly on the floor. Alma List, John’s 85-year-old mother, was discovered upstairs. All five victims had been shot in the head.

A letter addressed to List’s Lutheran minister was taped to a filing cabinet in the house. “I know what has been done is wrong from all that I have been taught and that any reasons I give will not make it right,” the letter began. “I wasn’t earning anywhere near enough to support us. Everything I tried seemed to fall to pieces.”

The letter cataloged a series of family disasters, from heavy debt to his wife’s lingering illness. He had lost one job after another. His daughter Patricia had turned into a rebellious teenager, fascinated by the occult and intent on a career in theater. Her interests, List wrote, would interfere with her “continuing to be a Christian.” He professed to see a positive spiritual benefit in the murders, noting that “at least I’m certain that all have gone to heaven now.”

Eighteen years went by without a sign of List. Then in 1989 the television program “America’s Most Wanted” profiled the case and presented a plaster bust of what he would look like now. Immediately a co-worker in Virginia called the police. He was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to five consecutive life terms.

Was there any merit in John List’s intent to solve his troubles in this way? Ironically, List had been unaware of owning a treasure that could have solved his financial problems. In the ceiling of the ballroom where he’d shot his wife and children was a stained-glass skylight made by the renowned turn-of-the-century glass artisan Louis Comfort Tiffany. At the time of the murders the skylight was worth at least $100,000 - twice what List had paid for the house.

________

Update: It turns out this story is a rumor that started in the 1970s.

A discussion on finding out God's will for your life.

I. Old idea - God has a plan for us, we need to discover it.

A. Gideon's fleece. Judges 6 & 7

1) His guidance was clear but he doubted it.

B. Paul's Macedonian call. Acts 16:6-10

1) Paul was surprised by it, not seeking it.

2) An aberration from normal experience.

II. Rational guidance.

A. Use resources like Bible, inner prompting of Spirit,

external circumsances.

B. Idea that God has an "individual plan" is sometimes disputed.

1) Bible reveals God's moral will.

2) We are free for details.

III. Dissatisfaction with both approaches.

A. They leave basic questions unanswered:

1) God's sovereignty.

2) God's readiness to impinge on human affairs.

B. Rather than focusing on how we can choose, it is better to

ask how an infinite God can guide finite human beings.

IV. Lady Helen Oppenheimer's approach on divine guidance.

A. We ask some people's support for the decision we are already

leaning toward.

1) But asking God for his stamp of approval is blasphemy.

B. We go to some people because we truly want to be told what

to do.

1) Core of guidance issue: Why doesn't God just flat-out

tell us what to do?

2) Maybe such a response would jeopardize human freedom.

a) God does not want to run our lives but have us offer

our lives in obedience to Him.

C. Sometimes we simply want a chance to think aloud. (Rogerian)

1) But "one cannot go on forever being grateful for silence."

V. Guidance and God's Omniscience.

A. Problem: If we go to God in line with #2, he could give us

perfect advice. We would not need faith.

B. C.S. Lewis hints at God's hesitance to intervene directly:

"God seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly

delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly

and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the

twinkling of an eye .... Perhaps we do not fully realize

the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills

to coexist with Omnipotence. It seems to involve at every

moment almost a sort of 'divine abdication.'"

C. Problems with Oppenheimer's three models:

1) God is the other party. He can't be a rubber stamp or

a passive listener.

2) God doesn't want to "tell us what to do."

a) (There are exceptions, like Gideon)

VI. Does God guide?

A. Guidance should be thought of as relationship rather than

technique.

1) Comparison with marriage.

2) The fact of communication is as important as the content.

B. The Bible contains very little specific advice on the

techiques of guidance, but much on the proper way to

maintain a love relationship with God.

1) The Psalms and guidance.

2) They act as spiritual journals, ranging from triumph to

despair and pleading.

VII. Not magic, but faith.

A. "How-to's" are misdirected.

1) Americans want shortcuts.

2) God offers a lifetime of intimacy.

B. God usually guides in subtle ways.

1) He feeds ideas in our minds.

2) He gives us a sensation of dissatisfaction.

3) He wants us to take him seriously.

C. Guidance is overrated.

1) The Bible doesn't devote much to it.

2) Distinction between magic and religion (Malinowski):

"Magic is when we manipulate the deities so that they

perform our wishes; religion is when we subject

ourselves to the will of the deities."

3) True guidance must be religion and not magic.

Charles Brent (1862-1929) on prayer: "Prayer is not so much the means whereby God's will is bent to man's desires, as it is that whereby man's will is bent to God's desires. The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to put human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God."

I was speeding along the Interstate - legally speeding. (Wait a minute, is that possible?) Anyway, this van passed me. And he pulled into the right lane and then he seemed to be maintaining a pretty consistent speed. So, for many miles, I ended up traveling behind him. I noticed there was something unusual about this van - it had a plastic bubble that was mounted just above the roof. I had some ideas of why it might be there, especially in light of the words printed on the side of the van. It gave the name of a large express mail delivery service, followed by these words: “Critical Care Van.” Later, a law enforcement friend of mine confirmed my theory of what that vehicle was actually carrying - parts. Body parts needed for transplants that can save lives. And the bubble on top? My friend said that's a strobe light that actually turns traffic lights green as the van approaches them!

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Turning Lights Green.”

The driver of that Critical Care Van is, of course, on an important mission - and he needs green lights all the way. So do we, if we're carrying out a mission that's been given to us by our Lord. He's got assignments for all of us who belong to Him. He's got assignments for you. Maybe you're living out His assignment right now, or maybe you're holding back on saying “yes” to an assignment He's trying to give you. In either case, there's something decisive you need to know. When you're on a mission for Jesus, He is the One who turns the lights green as you go. He promised.

1 Thessalonians 5:24, our word for today from the Word of God, is one of the places where He made that promise. It simply says, “The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.” That's it! When Jesus prompts you to do something for Him, He isn't about to leave you stranded somewhere in the middle of His mission, in the middle of His will. You can't see how it's going to get done, how it's ever going to come together. He says, “Hey, I got you into this - I'll see that it gets done!”

Where's the money going to come from? His problem. If it's God's will, it's God's bill. Where are the people you need going to come from? He's already getting them ready for you and you ready for them. How are you going to get over the huge obstacles that are in the way? The God who parts Red Seas is going to make the way for you. How can you possibly do this thing when you are so flawed, so inadequate, so ordinary? Since when is this about what you can do? With God's assignment always comes God's enabling!

Jesus may be summoning you right now to undertake some work for Him. It may be here; it may be thousands of miles from here. He may be summoning you to touch some lives for Him - maybe a few in your immediate world, maybe more people than you could ever imagine. But many times, all we can see are red lights ahead. So we resist our Master's call and we miss His amazing will. Your Lord has promised to turn those red lights green - not before you move out for Him, but as you're moving out for Him.

Just like that Critical Care Van, you are carrying something that lives depend on - the Good News of Jesus Christ. There are people that He is depending on you to tell, on you to rescue from an eternity without God and without hope. Don't let those red lights keep you sitting in the parking lot. Right now, start driving toward that mission God that has given you, and then leave the green lights to Him!

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

*

[Original illustration at this number has been added to HolwickID #16628]

The will of God will never take you,

Where the grace of God cannot keep you,

Where the arms of God cannot support you,

Where the riches of God cannot supply your needs,

Where the power of God cannot endow you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the Spirit of God cannot work through you,

Where the wisdom of God cannot teach you,

Where the army of God cannot protect you,

Where the hands of God cannot mold you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the love of God cannot enfold you,

Where the mercies of God cannot sustain you,

Where the peace of God cannot calm your fears,

Where the authority of God cannot overrule for you.

The will of God will never take you,

Where the comfort of God cannot dry your tears,

Where the Word of God cannot feed you,

Where the miracles of God cannot be done for you,

Where the omnipresence of God cannot find you.

Everything happens for a purpose.

We may not see the wisdom of it all now.

But trust and believe in the Lord that everything is for the best.

HOW TO FIND GOD'S WILL

1. Ask yourself if the course of action you are considering complies with

biblical principles.

2. If God is behind something, He will open doors so you won't have to knock

them down.

3. If God favors a course of action, it will be logical and make good common

sense. You won't need to rationalize what you are doing.

4. Take time to pray before rushing into something.

5. Discuss the decision with your Christian friends and other important

people in your life.

--Lowell "Bud" Paxson

(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, SwanLake@webcombo.net,

March 13, 2000)

My father's way may twist and turn,

My heart may throb and ache,

But in my soul I'm glad I know,

He maketh no mistake.

My cherished plans may go awry,

My hopes may fade away.

But still I'll trust my Lord to lead

For He doth know the way.

Tho' night be dark and it may seem

That day will never break;

I'll pin my faith, my all in Him,

He maketh no mistake.

There's so much now I can not see,

My eyesight's far too dim;

But come what may, I'll simply trust

And leave it all to Him.

For by and by the mist will lift

And plain it all He'll make,

Through all the way, tho' dark to me,

He made not one mistake.

- By A. H. Overton

- Robert G. Lee, SERMONIC LIBRARY, p. 89.

A farmer near London wrote to the Scripture Gift Mission enclosing

a five-shilling ($1.25) offering. In his letter he requested prayer

that no bombs should drop on his small farm. His harvest had not been

good, and his farm was very dry, with no water, and he had to buy

water. The secretary of the Mission wrote back and said he could not

ask that, but instead would pray that God's will might be done.

Soon afterwards Hitler's biggest bomb came down on this man's farm.

It broke all his windows, but no one was hurt. It was so big that it

went down very deep and unearthed a spring. The spring not only

watered his farm well, but it enabled him to let others have water

too. Last year, therefore, he had a very good harvest, and he sent a

fifty-pound check as a thanksgiving offering. The Lord had done

"exceeding abundantly above all" he asked or thought. How good and how

wise is our God in all His ways!

William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."

David Livingstone tells how he was chased up a small tree and

besieged by lions. He said the tree was so small that he was barely

out of reach of the lions. He said they would stand on their back feet

and roar and shake the little tree, and that he could feel the hot

breath of the lions as they sought him. "But," he states, "I had a

good night and felt happier and safer in that little tree besieged by

lions, in the jungles of Africa, in the will of God, than I would have

been out of the will of God in England."

There is one safe and happy place, and that is in the will of God.

William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."

WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT

Barnabas Shaw reached Cape Town in 1816 with his plans matured to plant there the Gospel of the Son of God. But Dutch rule in Africa was hostile to missionary effort and he was forbidden to preach the Gospel on his chosen field, so in bitter disappointment was compelled to turn his steps elsewhere.

He bought a yoke of oxen and a cart, and, putting his goods into it, he and his wife seated themselves therein and headed the lowing kine toward the interior of the country. On the twenty-seventh day of their journey, when they encamped, they discovered a company of Hottentots halting near them. On entering into communication with them they learned that this band of heathen headed by their chief were journeying to Cape Town in search of a missionary to teach them “the Great Word” as they expressed it.

Meeting them just in the nick of time proved such a juncture of Providence as had rarely occurred in the history of missions. -- Gordon

==============

Another version from David Jeremiah by way of PreachingNow newsletter:

Long ago, missionary Barnabas Shaw arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, hoping to preach the gospel. When authorities forbade him from doing so, he purchased an ox cart and started upcountry, giving God the reins, so to speak. The oxen lumbered into the interior, and a month later Shaw met a tribe of Hottentots coming in the opposite direction. They were traveling to Cape Town in search of a missionary to teach them about God’s Word. Shaw spent many years with this tribe, establishing a thriving work that endures to this day.

David Jeremiah writes: “The apostle Paul longed to preach in Rome. When he was arrested in Jerusalem, it appeared his prayers would go unanswered. Yet God, in His own way, sent Paul to Rome, with the Roman government paying the fare.

“If we have a yearning for God’s work, He will open the doors in His own way. If we long to witness, He’ll give us souls in His own time. It might not happen as we expect, but we should always expect the unexpected from Him.”

________

Turning Point Daily Devotional, 8/28/09

While you cannot understand His wonderful ways and His unsearchable judgments, rest assured that His intentions are always good and His purposes never falter. Learn to say with Paul: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.”

When Magdalene, the 14-year-old daughter of pious Dr. Martin Luther, lay sick unto death, her father prayed: “Lord, I love her very much and should like to keep her, but, dear Lord, since it is Thy will to take her away, I am glad to know that she will be with Thee.

*

"I think I'll be a preacher when I grow up," the small boy confided

to his mother.

"It's a wonderful calling," the mother agreed, "but why do you want

to be a preacher?"

"Well," resolved the youngster, "I figure I'll have to go to church

all my life, anyway, and it's harder to sit than to stand up and

holler."

John Claypool, was a minister at the Crescent Hill Baptist Church here in Louisville, back in the 70's. In his book “The Light within You”, John Claypool relates the very painful story of the loss of their young daughter to leukemia. Upon diagnosis of this dread disease, his daughter had been given a medicine that enabled her to go into remission. For some time she was almost perfectly normal. Naturally, this created many hopes in her family. Had the diagnosis been a mistaken one? Had she experience the miracle of divine healing for which her father and so many others prayed?

It was not to be. All of these hopes came to an abrupt end, ironically, on Easter Sunday morning, when the old pains reappeared and she went into a severe relapse that involved hospitalization for some two weeks. Part of the time both of her eyes were swollen shut, and pain racked every part of her body. John Claypool reports that moving with her through those two weeks was an unspeakable draining experience. He found himself stretched in every way - physically exhausted, emotionally dissipated, his faith itself challenged as never before.

The worst moment of all, however, came one night when his daughter could get no relief, and she asked him, “When will this leukemia go away?”

He said, “I don't know, darling, but we are doing everything in our power to find an answer to cure it.”

There was a long silence, and then she asked in the darkness, “Have you asked God when the leukemia will go away?”

Her father hedged a bit and said, “You know, darling, how we have prayed again and again for God to help us.”

But she persisted: “Have you asked God when it will go away? What did he say?”

Claypool asks, “How do you respond to such childlike directness at a time when the heavens seems utterly silent...?”

TS: I don't understand many of lives tragedies, and we won't understand until we stand on the other side, in heaven, and an all knowing God can explain it to us. Mark Littleton wrote, “Through doubt we can learn more than through naive trust. Truth can be tested. Doubt is the fire through which it passes. But when it has been tried it will come forth as gold.”

573 God's Will

All Things Work Together

A little boy is telling his Grandma how “everything” is going wrong. School, family problems, severe health problems, etc. Meanwhile, Grandma is baking a cake. She asks the child if he would like a snack, which of course he does. “Here. Have some cooking oil.” “Yuck” says the boy. “How about a couple raw eggs?” “Gross, Grandma”. “Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?”

“Grandma, those are all yucky!” To which Grandma replies: “Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake! God works the same way. Many times we wonder why he would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something wonderful!”

TS-Romans 8:28 submitted by Bud Holmes

*

A real-life account of how a skeptical officer tried to console one of his soldiers, even though the officer wasn't sure what he believed himself:

[Lt. James McDonough had sent out a squad on a special mission in which two of the men had drowned. When the rest of them returned their small fortified camp was filled with grief.] Wilson was crying. The loss of Evans, his close friend, had affected him deeply. Ashamed of his tears, he hunkered down behind his machine gun at the strong-point on the south side of the perimeter.

Night had fallen and I had yet to designate a replacement for Spangler, which left me without an RTO [radio operator]. Perhaps I could not yet accept his death. Carrying the radio, I went out to be with Wilson. He avoided my eyes, trying not to show his tears, so the two of us looked off into the moonlit darkness. We talked of several things, mostly me talking and him listening, before we honed in on Evans's death.

Although Wilson did not appear to be an overly religious man, I sensed that the only way to console him was to explain the death as God's will. Personally I could see no point to that proposition. Evans's death had served no purpose; as far as I could tell, it had been a blunder that began with my determination to send a group of my men to the beach. But the guilt I felt was bearing down on me, and perhaps I was trying to make peace with it by bringing Wilson through his grief.

I spoke of Evans's goodness and tried to draw from that a benevolent interpretation of his death. Evans was at peace now, I told Wilson; he was no longer part of a nightmarish war. Although I couldn't follow the logic of n1v own words, they seemed to lighten Wilson's load. He began to talk; together we groped for meaning in a man's death. I did my best to conceal my own skepticism and agreed with everything he said. Somehow we came to the conclusion that Evans's death was a good thing: it must be good if God willed it.

By then I wasn't sure who was consoling whom. Sometimes words aren't important for their content, but only for their being said, and whatever we said that night seemed to be good for both of us.

*

A little boy about eight or nine, who liked to have his own way, was told by his father, "Philip, you ought not to want your own way." He dropped his head as if he had been given a big problem to solve. After thinking a while he said, "Father, if I choose the will of the Lord and go His way because I want to, don't I still have my own way?"