In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of actively seeking and accepting God's plan for our lives. He uses the story of Gideon and the 300 men to illustrate how God can use ordinary vessels to reveal His glory. The preacher also shares personal experiences of how God's glory can be manifested even in times of physical weakness. He encourages believers to trust in God's plan and provision, reminding them that God's ways are often mysterious and beyond human understanding.

Jimmy, bring me a little water. Please. It's so good to be here tonight. Probably means a great deal more to me than it does you. And I trust that you'll pray for me as we travel through this week. This is first me preaching several times. I've been, for about the last five weeks, I've been preaching on Sunday. And last week preached a couple times during the week. But this will be the first time I've done this. And you just pray that I'll walk with Him. You know, some people know Him as a fire escape. That's all they know about God is they met Jesus and He's a fire escape for them. And some of them know Him a little deeper than that. They do things for Him. They just do things. They'll take on projects that He puts on their hearts, you know. They'll do this and they'll do that and they'll sing and they'll preach for Him. And they'll do this little job and that little job for Him. And some, though, know Him and walk with Him. And to those He makes those living epistles. The only explanation for their life is God. He leads them through strange ways. He leads them down unusual paths. And I don't know how I can really picture this to you tonight, except in John 3 there's a passage that I think draws a picture. And you know, a picture is so much more important than words. But in John 3, there's a picture of the Lord dealing with our hearts. And I want to read it to you. And I'm going to read out of the Amplified Bible, if you don't mind. The wind blows. The 8th verse. The wind blows where it will. And though you hear its sound, and yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it goes, so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. I mean, you know, the wind shows up and the wind's gone. And here it goes again. Back in Psalm 77, 19, the psalmist said, The way of God is in the sea. And that's an interesting statement to me, because you see out on the sea there are no signposts. And there are no footprints. And so if you're going to make it through the sea, you've got to stay with him. You've got to stay with him. And he's like a wind. And I want to talk to you tonight about walking in the wind. Walking in the wind. I know that God wants to make every one of us living epistles. The only explanation for our life is God. When we see each other, we'll say, you know, boy, there is a testimony of the grace of God. Of the grace of God. When I got saved by the grace of God, I thought, boy, this is the final. This is the greatest. This is the end. I don't need any more. But you know something? I found out that I wasn't finishing. I was starting on a journey. Amen. And God just kept moving in my life. And the wind would blow this way for a while. And then the wind would blow another way for a while. And then the wind would blow another way. And man, I thought I was a successful preacher. I thought I had it all put together when I was 22 years old, pastored a church that had 800 members. And I mean, I was the talk of the town. And I was the big boy on the block. With all those other preachers, with all their education and all of that, I was still bigger than all of them. And I mean, I thought I had it made. But the wind began to change. And began to blow in a different way. And then I went into evangelism. And boy, how rich my life was. I didn't put out a brochure, because God gave me Psalms 75, 6 and 7, and the last verse in that chapter, where it says, Promotion cometh from the Lord. He raises one up and He puts another one down. And I never had to put out a brochure and help more meetings than most of those fellows who did put out brochures. And I said, you know, I am really putting this thing together. I mean, I have got it together. And for 30, until I was 39 years old, boy, I thought everything was going right. And then when I was 39 years old, right here in this area, God allowed the wind to change again. And this time it baffled me. Because it called on me to do something that I had never done before. And that was to suffer pain and confusion. And I was in a dilemma. But I am going to tell you something, folk. That wind just kept blowing. I cried out to God. I begged God for a lot of things. I said all kinds of things, but He didn't seem to pay any attention. It seemed to Him, me, that He knew what was best. And regardless of what I said, or what I thought, or what I wanted, He went ahead and did for me what was best. And He just kept on working in my life. And brought me through an experience physically that doctors said I would never, never go through. And then raised me up. And for almost 18 years, let me travel across this country, in foreign lands, and just do everything I felt like I wanted to do. And then one day, the wind changed again. And my doctor told me, she said, you're going to have a problem. I said, well, I don't think you know what you're talking about, but I'm hearing you. And it was Christmas time. And I sent my family on to my mother's, except my youngest son and my wife. And I stayed at home. And when the wind changes, folk, you've got to be ready to change with it. And I got up every morning at 5 o'clock. And every morning at 5 o'clock, I began to read the Word of God, meditate on the Word, pray over the Word. And one morning, during that time, the Lord spoke to my heart, out of Psalms 148, 12, where it says, I will maintain, in the King James it said, I will maintain the cause of the afflicted. And I knew God spoke to my heart. But I didn't like that word, afflicted. But I knew He spoke to my heart. And I got peace, peace like a river. And I began to move with Him. And then He began to deal with my heart. And He began to deal with my body. And the amazing thing about it was last June, or May, last May, I found myself in the hospital in the most severe pain I have ever been in in my life. I had sores that big, on the tip of my tongue, all the way down my stomach, down into my stomach. And I couldn't eat. In fact, I lost weight so fast that they thought I had AIDS and tested me for AIDS. And it turned out good, by the way. But it was tough. It was tough. I got out for a few days and went back in the hospital again. And I had something that my family didn't know about. I had a promise from God. I will maintain the cause of the afflicted. And when Brother Jimmy said tonight, I would say, I don't care what they say to you, I'm going to make it. I don't care what they say to you, I'm going to make it. You see, I had a word. God had given me a promise that he would maintain the cause of the afflicted. And, folk, it got low. Six times I was operated on in two months. And my wife was told, I don't know how many times, he'll not make it. He'll not make it. She went in one morning and they were ready to pull the plug. And they said, we're glad you showed up because we're going to pull the plug. Mr. Beasley wants to die. She said, you don't know him. I've lived with him for 35 years. And he's not that type. He wouldn't give up. If hell froze over, he wouldn't give up. And she fought them. Had to call the whole family in. And they had to decide. My preacher was called. My family doctor was called. He called my preacher. I mean, friend, they were stirred up all over that country trying to keep them from pulling that plug. I mean, the devil did everything he could to kill me. Everything. And finally, our oldest son, I got everybody in the room and asked me if I wanted to die. And I was able to shake my head because I had a pipe down my throat, my tongue hanging out one side. I couldn't talk a word. And I shook my head, no. And they backed off. But what I want to say to you is this. During that time, they put me on Demrol and morphine because I was in such pain. And it was hell. But one night, a little nurse walked by me and she said, Mr. Beasley, you know what's happening to you? I said, no. She said they're taking you off of medication, the Demrol and morphine. Folks, I couldn't holler because my mouth was stopped up. I couldn't say a word. But I tried to pull the hair out of my head with my hands. I was in such severe pain. And when my little nurse told me what they were doing, I realized that I could give in to that pain and call for another shot and be a dopehead the rest of my life. Or I could seek the grace of God and find the grace of God adequate for my need. And I'm telling you, folks, it was hell. My body would jerk all over the bed. I would break out in sweat. And I would be freezing to death one minute. And it was absolutely hell. And I said, Lord, no doubt, this is the hour of temptation in my life. This is the greatest temptation I've ever faced. And I honestly believe it was. And I could have said no, backed off, been a dopehead the rest of my life, or I said yes to Jesus. And you know what? My emotions went one way. My understanding went another way. And the only thing I had control over was a choice in my heart. And I said, Lord, I want to stay with You. And when I made that choice, God showed me that when Jesus went through His great time of temptation, He sent angels to comfort Him and minister to Him. And so I said, Lord, I'm not Jesus, but I sure would love to have some of those angels coming down and ministering to me. And I'm telling you, folks, He sent them. He sent them for the next eight days. He sent those angels. And the amazing thing about it, not one of them was mystical. Every one of them was flesh and blood. And it amazed me. Every single solitary one of them was flesh and blood. And they would come. And they would bathe my face with cold water. And they would read the Scriptures to me. And they'd quote the Word of God to me. And they'd preach to me and encourage me. And they would just say, hold on. And they would stand by my side for eight solid days. And my dear friends, when that eight days was over, that was peace like a river. And that hospital became as sweet as heaven itself. And I was not anxious not one moment in that hospital for three months in ICU with that thing in my mouth. Couldn't say a word. But I had glory, brother. One doctor said to me after I was up in rehab, she said this. She said, what is your name? And I said, Manly Beasley. She said, you know, I visited you, but you were not conscious that I was there. And she said, she said, I looked at you and she said, you know, I saw something. She said, I said to the doctor with me, she said, that man will make it. Because he knows the secret of going through. Now, I know what that secret was. That secret was walking in the wind. And I was right in the middle of walking with God in the darkest hour of my life. Now, here's why I've said all of that. Most of you knew a great deal more about my testimony than I've shared tonight. So I didn't want to share a lot of it. But here's what I want to tell you. When you walk in the wind, when you walk in the wind, folk, God has prearranged your life. Your life is prearranged. Amen. What evil did you do, preacher, to get you have to go through such and such right now? I don't know that I did any evil. It might have been what good I did to cause me. What are you saying? I am saying, folk, that what I've gone through was as much in the divine plan and purpose of God Almighty as anything you will ever run upon. Listen to it. Let me read you a few verses. I'll read this out of Amplified if you don't mind. Listen to this. Psalms 139, 16. Listen to it because this gets heavy. Your eye saw my unformed substance, and in your book all the days of my life were written, before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them. Did you hear that? You know what the psalmist said in the next verse? He said, that's heavy. You know what he's saying? He's saying, before you ever became substance, God wrote down in a book everything about you. Wrote down in a book long before you became substance. And then in Ephesians 2.10, you know what he says? Oh my, listen to what he has to say in Ephesians 2.10. My, I love this. He says it very plain and very simple and very profoundly, and I want to read it to you because it just stands out to me tonight. It's so important. Ephesians 2.10. We are God's own handiwork, His workmanship recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew, that we may do those good works which God predestined, planned beforehand for us, taking paths which He prepared ahead of time, that we should walk in them, living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live. Listen, my friend. God is not a God that works on the laws of contingency. You say, what do you mean? Something just flopping together. My dear friends, this thing has been planned out from eternity to eternity. And God has written down in a book and laid out everything about your life. I mean it's all laid out. Your life is prearranged. My mother used to tell me, she said, son, God has a plan for every person's life. And if you will just simply find that plan, if it's being a ditch digger and obey God, God will make you successful. My friend, tonight, every person in this building, every individual in this building, you may be conscious of it or not conscious of it, God has a plan for your life tonight. God has a plan for your life. I mean, you owe something to Him. He's got it all laid out for you. And it's all written down in a book just for you. And my friend, I have found in my own life that this whole thing has been absolutely, totally, completely prearranged before I ever got there. Amen. Yes sir. And I'm going to tell you something. When you're walking in the wind and you hit storms like that and you know it's prearranged, you don't get upset. You don't get disturbed. You don't start fretting. And you don't start pouting. And you don't start running off somewhere and try to get some better orders. My dear friends, you've got the best. You are walking in on God prearranged life for you. And you say, well, but it's hell. Oh, what glory in the midst of that hell. Amen. How in the world can the grace of God be ministered to where there is no need? Hebrews talks about falling from grace. He's not talking about getting lost after you're saved. He's talking about we as individuals, as people of God failing to make use of the grace of God. You see, you may not believe in miracles tonight, but I got a Hindu doctor up there in Dallas, Texas that's lost and headed to hell. She believes in them. Amen. The doctor that told my wife time after time after time, he'll not make it. He's agnostic. But brother and sister, he has all explanation for my life except God. After I began to come out of that dilemma, every day he had to come by. I'd wave at him. I'd say, Hello, Dr. Faulkner. He'd shake his head. The grace of God, folk, is able to work and minister in our lives in that prearranged life that God has for us. Why in the world should we fear? Why shouldn't we pray, Lord, whatever it takes to make me a recipient of Thy glory, a manifestation of Thy power, and grace? Why shouldn't we pray, Lord, whatever it takes, here am I? Amen. Yes, sir. I mean, folk, this life is prearranged. God's got a plan for every one of you. God has a plan for every single boy and girl, man and woman. By the way, folk, if I understand the Word of God right, you can be an adult with all your Bible knowledge and be missing that plan. Amen. You can be out there using God as a fire escape and doing your little job for God, and my dear friends, completely miss walking with Him. Excuse me. You can completely miss it. And, oh, I'm not telling you tonight that God's going to lead you through the things He's led me through. He might give you something better. But I'll guarantee you one thing. It will be unique. It will be so real and so blessed that the only person that will have any experience like it will be you. God doesn't duplicate. Amen. Yes, sir. We walk in the wind, folk. You see, we walk it with Him. He gets us on up there beyond the fire escape, beyond these little jobs for Him where He leads us down the path into all that He has planned for us where we're living officials. That's not all. When He leads you into that plan, life He's got for you, everything you need on that journey is already provided. Amen. You don't see how you can afford it. I've got news for you. I don't see how you can not afford it. You don't see how you can pay for it. And we may not be talking about money. You don't see how you can get by. You don't see how to overcome the past. Hebrews 4, 3 says, and the King James, although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. See, God completed that whole thing. If God is the God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow now, if He's that God, He had to complete everything in one whack. Amen. He didn't have to come along and do something else. He hath given unto us all things that pertaineth unto life and godliness in the Lord Jesus. It's already given to us. I mean what I have found through these years of journey with God that every need I have had in that journey, walking in the wind, He has provided. While I was living here, in this place, the Lord spoke to my heart one day and said, take out a hospitalization insurance. All of my life up to then, He said, no insurance. And then one day He said, a insurance. He said, Brother Manly, God doesn't change His mind. I beg your pardon? He never did change His mind. His mind never was changed. He just changed my mind. Amen. He knew what He was going to do all the time. I couldn't get an insurance policy local. Went to North Carolina, having lunch with some preachers, and a man walked up to me and said, why don't I have an insurance policy for you? Came home to my wife, I said, you're going to get sick. She said, no buddy, it's your turn. And I began to get ill. And a year later I went, spent a year out of the ministry, virtually a year out of the ministry, and every need was met. And that hospitalization was an unbelievable policy. Unbelievable. And we used that for a number of years, and I got so guilty of it because many of my friends were on it, and they were having to pay such high premiums, and I knew I was spending all their money. You know what I did? I dropped that policy with all of my problems, seven diseases, and started my own company. That's right. And we had over a hundred families in that company. It became a big company in Texas. I didn't get the money from it. I turned it over to an insurance man. But I started it. And then one day, we realized that we were going to have to sue a preacher because of his lying and some lot of other things. And he had a daughter that was ill, and she was under mental care, and the psychiatrist only put on her record the only problem she's got. She hates her daddy. And we were having to spend $20,000 a week on her just to take care of her. And we were going to have to sue this preacher to get out of that thing. And so I just said to the man who was running the company, I said, I know it's in the minutes. Let's dissolve the company. He said, all right. The day we dissolved the company, one of the biggest insurance groups in America opened up to me with all of my problems. I had a hypertension problem. Now watch this. I'm getting in detail just to show you how my God makes provision for you when you're walking in the plan. I got into that company. I took hypertension in. Therefore, I could not be paid for anything that related to hypertension for two years. So I was hoping two years would pass before I had any problems, but it didn't. And I went to the doctor. My kidneys went down. And I just knew it was because I had hypertension. I said to my doctor, I said, why did I lose my kidneys? She said, well, when you had that disease back there in 1971, it damaged your kidneys. I said that hypertension had nothing to do with it. She said, not at all. So, my dear friends, the insurance was completely good. And not only that, but when you go down with kidney trouble in America, I don't know if you know it or not, you go on Medicare. And so I had two of the best companies in the world taking care of my needs. You say, what do you say in all of that? Well, I just got out of the hospital and my bill was less than $500,000. My sister that's seated over here called that hospital a week before last now. And she said, the lady there said the bills were paid. I was out eight months. And every need was met. I didn't have to beg anybody for a dollar. Now, a lot of you gave, but I didn't beg you for it. God put it in your heart. Now, what I'm just trying to say tonight out of this testimonial type of message is something that's really applicable to every man, woman, boy and girl. Listen, if you walk with God, God, you walk in the wind, my friend, God has a plan for your life. I mean, it's a good life. It's a good plan. I mean, it's what God wants. It will honor God and bless you and bless the world while you're going through it. The world will stand up and say, Blessed be the name of the Lord. They'll praise God, not you. And in that plan, I don't care who you are, God has made absolutely every single solitary provision you need. Amen? I don't know how He does it. Who in the world can know how He does it? You'd have to be God to know how He does it. That's our problem now. We're trying to figure out how He's going to do it. And that's none of our business how He's going to do something. How He's going to do something is absolutely His business. Our business is to walk with Him. I mean, He'll do it, friend. He will do it. Think of God calling you into a walk with Him, walking on the way with Him. Think of God leading you to do something. And that's the perfect will for your life. And then Him not making provisions for you to do it. What kind of God do you serve? I don't serve a God like that. Now, I may have thought through the years I did, but I've come a long way, and I'm talking in retrospect. I guarantee you, I can look back, folk, and He was there all the time. He was there. He made the provision all the time. Yes, sir. And in that God has a plan for your life, and in that God has a plan for my life, God has made provision for you to carry out that plan, then, my dear friends, it's just not going to come to you without effort. It is not just going to bounce on you and pounce on you. You're going to have to discover it. And you're not only going to have to discover it, you're going to have to make a decision to accept it. And when you do, make that decision to accept what God has planned for your life. Then, my dear friends, He will be able to operate it in your life and bring it out to where the world can see. You see, I saw that morning when He said, I will maintain the cause of the afflicted. That same morning, He took me to 2 Corinthians 4 where this heavenly treasure that we have in Christ Jesus, that heavenly treasure, is deposited in this earthen vessel. And the word study that I was using took me back to Gideon. And there was Gideon back there, and he had so many men and he had to get rid of all of them, but 300. And the mighty army of the enemy had come to defeat Gideon. Gideon got his 300 men. And you know what he got? He got them an old earthen vessel. And down inside that earthen vessel, he put a light. And no one could see that light down in that earthen vessel. He said, the hundred of you take your vessels and go up on this side. Another hundred on this side of the enemy and another hundred on this side. And said, when they blow the trumpet, break the vessel. Break the vessel. And when the trumpet blew, they broke the vessel and the light broke out. And God said, son, I have put the glory in this old earthen vessel. And if you want that glory to get out, you are going to have to let me break the vessel. And when that vessel is broken, the glory will be revealed. Yes, sir. I found out, folk, that you could be in bed and can't say a word with your mouth, only words with your eyes, and a few gestures with your fingers. And the glory will be so real that the nurses and the doctors and the friends will come in to be a blessing and they'll go out blessed because of the glory of God being revealed and manifested from a broken, broken, broken vessel. Yes, sir. No wonder Paul said, I will bless God when I am weak. You know, when I am weak. Paul knew that vessel had to be broken in order for the glory to be revealed. Yes, he knew it had to be broken. My dear friends, tonight, when we walk in the wind, we get in on God's prearranged life for our lives. We get in on all the provisions of glory. Who in the world would have ever told me I could have paid a half a million dollar insurance bill? I didn't have that kind of faith. Amen, I'm glad God didn't call on me to believe for a half a million dollars to pay a bill. I'd still been suffering. But I'll tell you one thing, folks, He had it provided. He had it provided. Amen. God let us discover this tonight. That God has a plan for every one of us. God has made the provision for us to go through this thing absolutely victorious. Shouting all the way. Not without difficulty. Knocked down, but not knocked out. Amen. Knocked down, but not knocked out. How people get surprised. I'm surprised to see you. Why? A man picked me up in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday morning. He said, they told me I was supposed to pick up Manly Boosley. He said, I told them they didn't know what they were talking about. Because he'd heard I'd been knocked down. But he hadn't heard I hadn't been knocked down. Yes, folks. Glory to God. We haven't been knocked down. Yes, sir. You and I want the glory of God in our lives, but we're absolutely too wicked, too scared to pay the price for God to do the work that the glory might be revealed. What you want, what the world wants is a passage to shout through this life with nothing in it but, my dear friends, the happy things. That's why I saw one of the denominations about us today is making such progress. The folk one of these days, they're going to wake up and realize that glory is not on them. If you want the glory, folk, you will have to pay the price of letting God get you in on His plan, open up His provisions for you, and break you to where that glory can shine. Did you know when they broke those vessels of clay, you know what happened to them? Those people, the enemy, fled until it took Gideon and them days to catch them. I mean, it put the devil to flight. I get sick of this crowd sitting around waiting till God sends us a great revival. Well, that might be justifiable on a collective sense, but it's not justifiable on an individual sense. If you're not living in the glory tonight, my dear friends, it's because you're ignorant of it or you are rebellious against it. Amen? That's God. If it got any better, I couldn't stand it. Amen? I'm having a good time. I don't know about you, but I walk with the King. Hallelujah. I walk with the King. Praise His name. And, folk, we're on the road. I invite you to come join me. May the Lord bless you. I've said enough. I've said enough. May God help us. Amen.