“If the LORD Will: An Attitude Commended”

Introduction: Review of an Attitude Condemned

0:03 this evening to the passage which we began to consider this morning, digressing from our normal series in the morning on Ephesians and in the evening on the doctrine of sanctification, in order to consider a passage which has particular relevance on this, the first Lord's Day of the new calendar year, 1971. The passage to which I refer is James, James chapter 4, verses 13 through 17, and I shall read that paragraph, spend a few minutes reviewing what we covered this morning for the benefit of those who were not with us,

0:44 and then focus our attention particularly upon verses 15 through 17. Come now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into this city and spend a year there, and trade and get things, and we will go into this city and spend a year there, and trade and get things, and we will go into this city and spend a year there, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will,

1:23 we shall both live and do this or that. But now ye glory in your vauntings. All such glorying is evil. To him therefore, that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

1:45 Now it's quite obvious that the general subject matter in this text is what we would call making plans for the future. In fact, we actually have the word year mentioned, and pictured in the mind of James are people who are looking into the future, and with regard to the future, they make certain plans for the future. And they make certain plans for the future. And they make certain plans and they make them in such a way as they bring upon themselves the condemnation of God through James, his inspired penman. Now as we thought to, sought to think our way through the passage this morning,

2:27 we considered just two things. First of all, what I called a call to fixed attention with which the passage opens. These words in the King James go to, who now are in the American standard, come now, are words aimed at securing the fixed attention of all the readers and all the listeners. And James uses them because in a particular way, people guilty of the sin he's about to deal with are rendered so spiritually dull that they need a loud, shocking word to shake them to their senses and get them listening to the thing they need to hear.

3:11 And so we sought to, consider that principle of the necessity of fixed attention and sober reflection upon this whole matter of how you and how I regard the future, how we regard 1971 in relationship to our own lives and plans. And then the second thing we considered was an attitude condemned. Listen here, James says, and then he quotes people who talk this way. Today, tomorrow.

3:42 We'll go into this city and spend a year there and buy and sell and get gain. And I indicated that this was an attitude which James condemns because the words in themselves are not wicked. It's the attitude which they reflect. It's what James calls, down in verse 16, a glorying or a boasting in vain glory which is wicked in its very essence.

4:08 All such boasting is evil or is wickedness. And we considered the three aspects of this attitude which James condemns. And I can only give you the headings and then move on to our study tonight. It was a matter of an arrogant disregard of God as they thought of the future.

4:28 They thought of what they'd like to do and what they proposed to do. And there's nothing wrong with that, as we shall see in our further study tonight. But they did so with an arrogant disregard of God. They said, we're going to live so long and we're going to do so many things as though, they had some control over how long they were going to live and as if they had control over the events of their lives.

4:51 Whereas scripture clearly teaches that it's God who controls the duration of your life and my life and every life. And it's God who controls the events of our lives. So here was arrogance of the worst sort. The creature saying in the words of Psalm 2, let us cast away his cords from us.

5:10 Let us break his bands. We're just the master of our own. We're just the master of our own fate and the captain of our own soul. No greater lie was ever told to the heart of a man than that.

5:21 But this is the attitude which they reflected. First of all, then, it was an attitude showing an arrogant disregard of God as they planned their future. Secondly, it was an attitude which showed a willful disregard of the facts of life. James says, look, here's a fact that's very obvious to all of you.

5:39 You don't know what's on the moral. Why are you planning like you do? Why are you talking like? You're so certain.

5:45 You don't know. That's a fact of human experience. There's not a one of us here who can say for certain what the moral will hold. And we all admit it.

5:54 But James says, though these people will admit it, they don't live in the light of it. So it's willful ignorance. There's an excusable ignorance. I don't hold my children accountable for not knowing calculus.

6:05 I hold them accountable if they burn their hands by putting it on a hot stove when mommy's been cooking. That's willful ignorance. It's their responsibility to know whether the stove is on or not. It's their responsibility to know whether the stove is on or not.

6:18 It's their responsibility to know whether the stove is on or not. If the stove is hot, they're of age to be sufficiently aware of what hot stoves can do. There's a difference, you see, between an excusable ignorance and a willful ignorance. And James says, when you people talk this way, you're being willfully ignorant.

6:31 For you admit you don't know what's on the moral, and yet you plan as though you do. And then he said you're willfully ignorant not only of the matter of the duration of life or the events of life. You know not what shall be on the moral. But you're willfully ignorant of this whole matter of the fragility.

6:48 The fragility of life itself. He says your life is a vapor. It's like a little pot of smoke. A little vapor that appears and then vanishes away.

6:56 And all of us are forced to acknowledge the truth of that. So this was a terrible attitude. It reflected arrogant disregard of God as they looked into the future. Willful disregard of the facts of life.

7:08 And thirdly, it reflected a profane disregard of anything but material values. We're going to buy. We're going to sell. We're going to get.

7:17 In other words, their whole perspective was material. Materialistic. Geared to what could be touched and felt and handled with the senses. And anyone who thinks of his future, no matter how much he says he believes in God, the sovereignty of God, the presence of God, the will of God, if when you're actually planning at the gut level of your thinking, if you do so without reference to the direct sovereignty of God, these facts of life, the uncertainty of the moral, the fragility, the fragility of life.

7:51 And if you do so with values that are dominated by the material, then you face the new year under the condemnation of God. And God says, Hey, you better listen to what I have to say to you. Go to now. Listen now.

8:03 Come now. You who reflect an attitude that passes under my condemnation. All right. So much for our review.

An Attitude Commended: Recognition of God's Relationship to My Future

8:09 Now we come to consider in the third place an attitude commended. For James begins with the negative. He condemns a certain attitude, but then he gives a certain attitude. He gives a commendation of an opposite attitude.

8:24 Verse 15. For that ye ought to say, or as the marginal reading has it, instead of your saying, if the Lord will, we shall both live and do this or do that. Now just as James is condemning the attitude which produces those words, we will go, we will buy, we will sell. So in this, in this passage, James is admonishing these people and us to attain an attitude which will naturally produce such words as he gives us here.

9:02 If the Lord will, we shall both live and do this and that. He is not giving us a little legalistic rule of thumb phrase that we're to tack on to a life that is not lived in the proper perspective. If that were the only problem, changing what the words are that actually come out of the mouth, this would be pretty easy business. We'd all just spend the next 15 minutes saying, all right, everyone say together, if the Lord will.

9:31 All right, all together, if the Lord will, and then we just sort of brainwash you into thinking everything you say, if the Lord will, and we would go out and say, all right, whatever James is talking about, I'm doing it. Now I'm all right. No, it's not that simple. Just as he was not condemning the mere words in the previous verse, but the attitude which produces, then so here he is not commending the mere parroting of a phrase, but he is commanding an attitude, a disposition of the heart, which alone can produce this as the natural result.

10:06 Well, then, as we considered the components in that attitude, which came under condemnation. So let us consider the components, the constituent elements of that attitude, which comes under condemnation. It comes under the commendation of the Apostle of James. All right?

10:26 Three aspects of it. First of all, when he says he ought to say, if the Lord will, he is commanding an attitude which has in it, one, a recognition of God's relationship to my future.

10:48 These words,

10:53 and do this,

10:56 involve, first of all, a recognition of God's relationship to my future. What is it about that recognition? It must be intelligent, pervasive, and delightful. First of all, it is to be an intelligent recognition.

11:17 When you say, acknowledging is this, you are acknowledging that God has absolute control over all men and all plans in my life and the events that touch me, if the Lord will. Ah, but wait a minute, you are not living that life in an isolated part out here in the middle of the galaxy M57, M57, somewhere. You are living it right here in this world with all of the complexity of the interaction of all of its faculties.

12:01 Now, let me explain what I mean.

12:04 When you say, if the Lord wills, I shall live, what is involved in your living? Well, if you live in the metropolitan New York area, it involves God's absolute control over all the crazy drivers up here. Well, you are not going to live very long if you have to drive very much. It does mean that.

12:22 If I say, the Lord willing, I shall be going, going to Wales this summer, and I say that intelligently, I am acknowledging God controls every one of the millions of people who drive cars in the metropolitan areas so that none of them will be an instrument to snuff out my life between now and the time I go to Wales.

12:46 Once in a while I have to get a prescription. Not often, I am grateful for that. That means I believe God controls all those pharmacists so that they put the right thing in the right bottle because sometimes they haven't done it and what should be medicine has been poisoned and killed people.

13:03 Do I need to go on more? Can you just sit here and draw it out? Now, you think of all the wheels within wheels that make up your life and all the possible ways the duration of your life could come to an end. And when you say, I shall do such and such during the coming year, if the Lord wills, you are saying, if you are saying it from the heart,

13:26 that you acknowledge God's control over all men and all things and all circumstances. Therefore, I say this recognition of God's relationship to my future is an intelligent recognition. You need to be able to derive true biblical comfort from a verse like Romans 8.28.

13:47 We know that all things work together for good. It's not like rubbing a lucky charm over your heart and over your spirit when something bad comes on you. I feel a lot of people use Romans 8.28 sort of like a lucky charm.

13:59 You know, something, a little talisman that if you rub it, it gives you good luck. And so because they stick it up on the walls, well, now that's to give them good luck. And the reason I say that is when you try to get them to intelligently embrace what that verse teaches, they get mad. The only way I as a Christian can have confidence that all things are working together for my good is if God of all things,

14:34 because my Bible says He's out like a roaring lion to get me and to get you. If we are to have an intelligent biblical grasp upon the comfort of a verse like Romans 8.28, it must be, in the recognition of God's relationship to my future being one in which He is in absolute control of everything in heaven and in earth. And He controls it, excuse me, with particular reference to His people.

15:03 Ephesians chapter 1 says He has given Christ to be head over all things to the church. In other words, His headship is exercised with reference to His people. John 17, you remember how He prays. He lifts up His eyes to heaven and He speaks of the Father having given Him authority over all flesh.

15:26 To what end? That He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. And so then to say from the heart as we project our plans and as we lay out our purposes for the coming year, if the Lord wills, I submit is a recognition of God's relationship to my future that is first of all intelligent. It's because I believe in the biblical doctrine of general providence that I can say with regard to my future if the Lord wills, I shall live and do this or that.

16:02 But secondly, it must not only be an intelligent recognition of God's relationship to my future, it must be a pervasive recognition. That is, a recognition that pervades and seeps into all the cracks of my mind, of my mind and of my spirit until my whole inner life is permeated with the consciousness that God is related to everything that touches my life. Now it's interesting, isn't it, that in this passage you have the words of these people, the sinful words, and then the words that are commended related to what we would call mundane things.

16:46 Business isn't considered a spiritual thing, is it? We shall go, we shall go into such and such a city and buy and sell and trade and get gain. He doesn't condemn these things per se. He condemns the attitude that undergirds them.

16:58 He says rather you ought to say if the Lord wills, we'll go into the city, we will sell, we will get gain. You see, the condemnation is not upon buying and selling and getting gain. The condemnation is upon the godless material.

17:20 Now, what happened? Well, here were a people that if you question them in a question and answer session or gave them a formal examination, do you believe in God? Do you believe God is sovereign? Do you believe God controls all things?

17:34 Yes. But you see, that conviction hadn't pervaded their inner life so that when they thought of their business, something mundane, they reflexively thought in terms of God's relationship to my future even in the mundane and the carnal and the so-called, quote, secular.

17:54 And so I submit that if we as God's people are to fulfill God's will, fulfill the directive that James gives to us, this recognition of God's relationship to our future must not only be intelligent based upon the acknowledgement of the doctrine of general providence, but it must be a pervasive recognition, one that has, to repeat the phrase, has seeped into all the cracks of the mind and into all the crannies of my inner life. And then thirdly, it must be a delightful, delightful recognition. You see, there's a doctrine of fatalism that is the devil's imitation of the doctrine of divine providence. If you were a Mohammedan,

18:38 if you followed the religion of Islam, you wouldn't find it hard to say, Allah willed it, or if Allah wills. But you see, Allah is not the loving, benevolent God of the Bible. No, no. There's all the world of difference between the doctrine of blind, cold, wooden, fatalism, and the doctrine of the providence of a God whose heart we read in the cross of Jesus Christ.

19:12 You read God's heart in the cross of His dear Son. And it's that God who is planning all the events and circumstances, yea, even the duration of the lives of His children. Therefore, this is not a grudging acknowledgement. When we say, if the Lord will, it's not saying, oh well, you know, God is on His throne, nothing I can do about it to get Him.

19:34 I'm off it, so I guess I'll have to say it is what I'd like to do. But if God wills, I'll do it. No, no, no, no. No, no, you've missed the spirit of it.

19:42 What is this? This, this, this, this is what I purpose to do. If the Lord wills. I'd like to make that acknowledgement.

19:52 Why? Because He knows better than I what is most for my good and for His glory. I think that the plan that I've laid out is the best projection of the biblical principles. That in which I can bring the most glory to God and the most good to others and to myself and to my family and to the people of God and to the world.

20:14 But, who am I to know? I see one little parenthesis of time. God bands of eternity with a glance of His eye. So I delight to acknowledge that my little pea brain bound by time can't conceive what is ultimately best for me.

20:36 How I may best glorify God. So this is a delightful recognition. If, if the Lord wills and if He changes my plans and if His will falls out to be something else, I know this about it. It is good.

20:51 It is acceptable. I wouldn't change it. But the touch perfection is to render it imperfect. So then this is an intelligent recognition of God's relationship to my future.

21:06 It is a pervasive recognition. It is a delightful.

21:17 If you're going to be able to say these words then as James intends you should say them, some of you will first of all have to be convinced of the doctrine of general providence. Some of you aren't convinced yet that God literally, actually controls everything in His world, even the devil.

21:34 I remember one of our own members here, graduate of a Bible school, sat under good, sound preaching of varying degrees for a number of years saying to me just about a year or so ago, you know I made the most wonderful discovery a short time ago that the devil's God's devil was at the end of his rope. So always in my mind I had an area out there that was no man's land. That's not where the devil operated.

21:58 And she was mentioning the great comfort that's come from seeing that God is the God who controls even all the activities of the devil. Now let me make very clear he's not responsible for his wickedness any more than he is for yours. But neither does all the subtle machinations of the devil get out of the realm of God's control. You remember when he wants to touch Job?

22:17 Where does he have to go first? He's got to go get permission from the boss.

22:25 And he can only touch him so far as the Lord says, all right. You touch him. This far, no further. And he says, all right, a little bit further, no further.

22:32 If that teaches anything, it teaches that all of the activity of the devil with relationship to the children of God is only to be viewed or is to be viewed only within the perspective of the doctrine of divine providence. So some of you can't do what James says you ought to do. Look into your future and say from the heart, if the Lord will, until you're convinced of the doctrine of general and particular providence. And if you're not convinced of it, may I commend to you a careful reading of Flavel's book, The Mystery of Divine Providence.

23:06 It's a paperback. We can get it for you on our book table for peanuts. And if you don't have peanuts, I'll be glad to buy it for you if you really promise that you'll read it. The Mystery of Divine Providence in which Flavel opens up from the scriptures this beautiful and comforting doctrine of God's general and particular providence.

An Attitude Commended: Genuine Submission to God's Revealed Will

23:25 Some of you, you believe the doctrine of general and particular providence. Your problem is that doctrine hasn't seeped down into the cracks of your inner life. It's still too much over here in a category where when you're consciously thinking, you can bring yourself to think that way, but in your unconscious moments, you still talk like one who is secular in his thinking. So you say, how am I going to get it to seep down in the cracks?

23:50 Well, I wish there was some little pill I could give you that would do it. But the only way you get any truth to sink down in the cracks, meditation, prayer, crying to God that the Holy Spirit is with you, the Holy Spirit would burn the truth into the heart, that He would drive it with pressure into every fiber of your being. And if you're too lazy or too busy for meditation and prayer, then you're too lazy and too busy to be able to adopt what James says is the will of God for His children. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will.

24:25 Others of you, you don't have too much problem with believing the doctrine of divine providence, both general and particular, and there's a real sense in which this thing has become a part of every fiber of your being, but you can't joyfully say, if the Lord will. You've got hard thoughts about God. You think anything that you plan that might make you happy, God's going to scheme and find some way to ruin it for you.

24:53 Yes, there's some of you sitting right here now that have got a wrong, you've got a wrong idea of God. You've so reacted against the wrong concept of God that is so wrong that you're not so rife in our day of the benevolent grandfather who's nothing but gushy-mushy unprincipled sentiment called love that you've come way over here until now you view God in all the harsh lines of His justice and His judgment and you don't see Him in those smoother lines such as we find in Psalm 103, like as a father pitieth his children. So the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He knoweth our frame.

25:34 He remembers that we are dust.

25:38 I find great comfort of telling God, Lord, you know, here I am, just a pile of dust. That's what I came from. That's what I'm going to. Lord, what more can you expect from a pile of dust?

25:48 Lord, don't be angry. The stupid thing that I am done the same stupid thing time after time. But Lord, you said you were not always trying. Neither would you keep your anger forever.

26:01 This is why some of you can't say delightfully if the Lord will and say it as a glad confession that His way is best. May I tell you, dear one, don't read God's heart at Mount Sinai. Go read it at Mount Calvary.

26:18 Drink in what God says.

26:23 All right? Then the second ingredient of this confession, of this ability to be able to say as reflective of an attitude if the Lord will, it involves not only, as we've considered in some length and the other two facets will be more brief, a recognition of God's relationship to my future, intelligent, pervasive, and delightful, that recognition must be, but secondly, it involves a genuine submission to God's revealed will in the present. How can you and I profess to love and be submissive to the secret will of God unless we demonstrate that we love and are submissive

27:06 to the revealed will of God? See, what you're saying when you say, if the Lord will, I shall do this, this, and this, you're saying what God has purposed with regard to my future is secret, but I am so confident in the rightness of what He has revealed, in the goodness and perfection of what He's revealed, and in what He's purposed, I'm sorry, and in the certainty of what He has purposed that I am willing to say, though I don't know for certain, though I can't predict with absolute confidence, this is what seems to be right for me, but if the Lord will, I shall do this, what you're saying is,

27:50 I heartily embrace unseen the secret will of God. Isn't that what you're saying? Whatever that secret will is, when it unfolds, I'll embrace it. Well, my friend, what grounds do you have to believe that that confession is genuine, that you will embrace the secret will of God when it unfolds, if you aren't embracing the revealed will of God that's already unfolded?

28:15 You see, it's impossible. It's like John saying, you say you love God but you can't see, oh yeah, I love Him. Every time I hear His name, my heart feels all warm. John says, is that right?

28:27 What about your brother over there? Can't stand him. He says, wait a minute. How can you love the God whom you've never seen?

28:35 You can't love your brother who reflects something of His image whom you can see. Well, the same principle applies here. You're fooling yourself. If you say, oh yes, I embrace whatever God has for me out there in this coming year, I'll embrace it if the Lord wills.

28:51 Oh no. Not unless that's coupled with and demonstrated by a deep love to and submission to the revealed will of God right here and now. Oh, how clever we are at deceiving ourselves. And in thinking, we'll embrace this out here while we're indifferent to what is revealed here.

29:12 Well, you say, where do I find the revealed will of God? Two places. In the precepts of Scripture and in the dispositions of divine providence.

29:24 Now, what do the precepts of God say to you right now? Well, they say to you young people, children,

29:33 honor your father and your mother. Obey your parents and the Lord. This is right. This is the first commandment with promise.

29:40 Flee youthful lust. Follow after righteousness. With them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart, flee fornication. That's what God says to you.

29:50 Are you embracing those precepts from the heart? Seeking by God's grace to be one who reflects genuine submission to the authority of God. To the authority of mom and dad. Genuine pursuit of a life of purity.

30:04 Selecting friends who are pressing on in that same pathway of godliness. Is that true of you? Well, you see, if you're not embracing from the heart those precepts that are the clearly revealed will of God, then you have no grounds to believe that your confession that you will embrace the secret will of God when it unfolds is genuine. This applies to us as adults as well.

30:29 Think of all the precepts that apply to us. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. If you're indifferent about gathering with God's people, you're indifferent to His revealed will. Husbands, love your wives.

30:43 Wives, be subject to your husband.

30:46 Just go on all the precepts. If you're not searching the word of God diligently, consistently, systematically, not for some little promise to come and tickle your heart and make you feel good. This involves this genuine submission to God's revealed will in the presence moment. Now, that's why only the Christian can say this.

31:11 Only the person whose basic rebellion against God's revealed will has been subdued by grace can truly say, if the Lord will, I shall live and do this and that. For by nature, none of us is built that way. Romans 8, 7 says, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.

31:34 So what James is saying to some of these people who are unconverted is, he's saying, here's the attitude you reflect that's wrong and it'll never be different until you're converted. So when he says, you ought to say, if the Lord will, he's also saying you ought to be and become everything you must be and become until you can say it. So you've got the command to repent and believe the gospel. Implicit in this text, no doubt explicit.

31:58 If you're here tonight in a state of nature, if all you brought into this building tonight is what mom and dad gave you and what you've been able to buy at the clothing store, you can never say this from the heart. If that's all you've brought with you, if you haven't brought with you that which God in grace has put into your heart, taken out the heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh and brought you to love His will and say with the psalmist, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. My friend, you don't have the equipment to say, if the Lord will, we shall live and do this and that. Then in the third place, to say these words as expressing an attitude that God is commending through James,

An Attitude Commended: Hearty Resignation to Divine Providence

32:43 it will involve a hearty resignation to all the dispositions of divine providence.

32:51 Notice the words of the text. If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that. But suppose I don't live. Suppose I don't buy.

33:02 Suppose I can't sell. Suppose I don't get gain. What then? Well, I've already told the Lord that's His business.

33:09 If the Lord will, I shall live. And I shall buy and sell and get gain, do this or that. But if it's not His will, I'll embrace it. What are you saying?

33:18 You're saying, O God, by Your grace, I heartily resign myself to all the dispositions of divine providence. I won't fight You. It's quite a confession to make, isn't it?

33:33 The proof will be when the Lord does bring such dispositions as thwart our plans, we're able to say, by God's grace, with Job, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Bless it. Be the name of the Lord.

33:50 What dispositions of divine providence are you chafing against right now?

33:56 Now, just sit and think for a minute. Don't speak out loud, but just think. I didn't ask you to think about your brother, your sister, or some other...

34:03 You think about you. Now, what dispositions of divine providence don't you like? Oh, if only the Lord had made me a little more intelligent. If only the Lord had made me this.

34:12 If only the Lord... Maybe you've got some quarrel with the dispositions of providence that go way back to what happened when you were knit together in your mother's womb.

34:24 You better stop fighting God. According to Psalm 139, He made you what you are. David, as he thinks of the doctrine of providence, he traces it all the way back to his mother's womb. And he said, when I was knit together in my mother's womb, the hand of my God was upon me.

34:43 Maybe some of you are fighting the dispositions of providence related to some crisis issue in your life that seemed to change the whole direction. You were purposing to go off to college with a view to getting such and such an education and such and such a job. And there was something that caused a drastic turn and you've never attained to the wage-earnings station that you had hoped and to the position that you had aspired to and there's a secret resentment to that.

35:11 You can't say from the heart if the Lord will. You're fighting it.

35:15 Now what you're saying when you say concerning all your plans if the Lord will, you're saying, oh God, I heartily resign to all the dispositions of your providence. That's no little thing to say. Oh, it's easier. Say it.

35:32 Wiggle the tongue and make it say those words and cause the larynx to give out the right amount. But I mean to say it from the heart. But if you're to reflect the attitude James commends, if I am to reflect it, then there must be this third aspect, this hearty resignation to all the dispositions of divine providence. So I would suggest that these are the three ingredients of the attitude which James commends.

35:59 First of all, this recognition of God's providence. God's relationship to my future. It's to be an intelligent recognition. It's to be a pervasive recognition.

36:10 It's to be a delightful recognition. Secondly, there is to be this submission to the revealed will of God as found in Scripture. There is to be this resignation to the dispositions of divine providence. Now having laid out what I feel to be the essence of the attitude, let me grapple with some practical matters which arise out of what we've considered so far.

Clarification 1: Not Stoicism

36:33 And I'd be very surprised if these questions have not already arisen in your mind. So let me give you several things which I hope will clarify some of the questions which have arisen. First of all, this text does not mean that we should become stoics in our embracing of the will of God. You know what a stoic was?

36:54 It's a man that could stand on poles and never flinch. He could be told his wife has died and just say, oh well, it happens to all people. And some people have a superficial concept of what it means to be able to say with James, I am utterly resigned to all that he has in his secret will and whatever unfolds in his providence I embrace from the heart that that means you will be able to stoically accept anything that comes along without having your hair ruffled at all. Let me suggest that that's an entirely erroneous application of this principle.

37:38 How do I know it's so? Well, first of all, in the great example of our blessed Lord. If anyone could say of the totality of life if the Lord will, because that's all he came to do, lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, oh my God. And yet, what did it mean for our Lord?

37:57 We read about it at the communion service tonight. Gethsemane. Gethsemane. Gethsemane.

38:04 When the course marked out for him by the precepts,

38:10 for he was conscious that he was fulfilling all of those prophecies concerning Messiah. That he must suffer. That he must die. That he must be raised from the dead.

38:22 And yet, when he enters Gethsemane and there the Father for the first time gives him a qualitative encounter with what it will mean to be separated from him, to drink that cup full of divine wrath against human sin. Our Lord does not stoically say, that's your will, Father. I know no picture of that at all. None at all.

38:49 As he sees what the will of the Father apparently is going to demand, it says he throws himself upon the ground and the wording in Mark is particularly vivid. It has the imperfect tense, which is the concept of repeated action in the past. That he's a picture of a man who staggers beneath a weight that is too heavy for him, struggles to his feet, only to take a step or two and to be crushed to the ground. Our Lord was expressing physically something of the unbearable weight that pressed in upon his holy soul as he thought of what it would mean to walk the path of the revealed will of God.

39:27 And out of that he says three times, not my will, but thine be done.

39:36 Stoic, he says, and I quote from that passage in Hebrews again, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers to God with strong, strong cryings and tears.

39:52 And so if there were no other example but that of our Lord in the light of the fact that we're called to follow his steps and that he is a high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities, I would not load your conscience with an unscriptural concept that if you embrace these principles, that means you just slide through stoically facing anything saying, oh well, it's the will of the Lord. No, no. There are times when the will of God marked out in his precepts and unfolding in his providence causes such deep inner wrenchings of the heart that all we can do is groan in the presence of Almighty God. One of God's dear children spoke to me tonight about a situation relative to his own intimate family

40:36 where he must stand on the sideline and see the intense agony and suffering of a loved one never once saying, Lord, why? But I tell you to say from the heart, Lord, even in this, your way is perfect. You don't have to say, you don't say that stoically. My friend, you experience some inner wrenching and bleeding and tearing and God have mercy on anybody that tells you that's sinful.

40:59 If it's sin to experience that, then our Lord sinned for he experienced it. And then we have the example of the apostle and this is beautiful in the 21st chapter of Acts and it's amazing how often spiritual principles of such weighty pastoral implication are tucked away in these historical narratives. In the 21st chapter of the book of Acts, the apostle Paul has indicated that he's going on to Jerusalem and a prophet named Agabus has come down from Judea and told him by this symbolic act, by this what we would call object lesson, binds himself and he says, the man who owns this girdle shall be bound hand and foot

41:42 and that was a terrible thing. This prophet predicts the maltreatment that Paul is going to be exposed to at Jerusalem. Now I read from Acts 21, 12 and when we heard these things both we and they of that place besought him not to go up to Jerusalem then Paul answered, what do ye weeping and breaking my heart for I am ready not to be bound only but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus and when he would not be persuaded we ceased saying the will of the Lord be done. Ah, but do you see the context?

42:16 This wasn't a stoical thing. All right, the will of the Lord be done. You're going to go up to Jerusalem and die. All right.

42:20 No, no. They love this. Amen. And for them to say, all right, the will of the Lord for him must never stand in the way of God's will for him.

42:29 Therefore, the will of the Lord be done. That was raced out of a broken heart.

42:41 And that's the mystery of the disposition God puts in the heart of a Christian when he rejoices through the sting of the saltiness of his own tears.

42:52 And there we see a picture of it. So then let me clearly state that to embrace the perspective and to absorb the attitude which James commends does not mean that we shall become stoical, unfeeling, sort of religious automatons who just react in every situation whilst the Lord's will. No, no. We'd be less than true men and women.

Clarification 2: Not Condemnation of Judicious Planning

43:16 Secondly, this text does not condemn judicious planning and sanctified foresight. Some people see a text like this and they say, all right, see what it says? James condemns saying we're going to do this and do that and do that therefore they say make no plans just to see what every day will bring forth. I don't know what tomorrow will hold so I'll just live by faith.

43:40 You're living by foolishness my friend. Not by faith. For notice what the text says. Go now or come now ye that say today and tomorrow we will go into this city and spend a year and trade and get gain whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow for that ye ought to say what?

44:00 Now what does he tell them is a proper reflection of the fact of a godly attitude. We will make no plans and just trust God to work out our lives? No. He says what he ought to say is this.

44:10 If the Lord will we shall both live and do this or that. In other words what he's saying is I am not condemning judicious foresight and sanctified planning. What I am condemning is this secular planning that rules out God that rules out the reality of the brevity of life and the uncertainty of tomorrow and the uncertainty that totally rules out spiritual values. That's what I am condemning.

44:39 Not judicious foresight and sanctified planning. No, no. Not at all. Not at all.

44:45 You read through the epistles and you find Paul saying I plan to come on my way by you at Rome to go on to Spain. He's planning his future. You read through the book of the Acts and you see how he planned his itinerary. He just didn't wake up every morning and say let's see which way is the spirit leading me.

45:04 He didn't live that way and listen he had a lot more of the Holy Ghost than you and I have got. That he needed to sit down and plan his itinerary in terms of the overall purpose of God revealed to him which was what? You should be a witness unto me unto the Gentiles. But God didn't send out of heaven a list saying alright that means Corinth 18 month of Ephesians.

45:26 No, no. Not at all. He didn't do this. Did not do this.

45:32 There are times when he made his plans and started to move and he says the spirit suffered him not. Alright. He made his plans with this clause. If the Lord wills.

45:42 He said to the people at Rome I purposed many times to come to you. He contacted the local travel agent found out what boat was on its way to Rome maybe even took out his tickets had his visa all ready his Roman citizenship papers so he could go from place to place and what happened? Well maybe they got word the boat got hung up on the rocks somewhere halfway around the Mediterranean so he says alright it's not the Lord's will now. But he said I purposed many times to come to you but was hindered.

46:08 Now I'm just underscoring the principle. That what James is condemning by the spirit is not judicious planning and sanctified foresight but he's condemning godless planning and materialistic planning and unsanctified foresight that has no reference to God. Let no one drift through life in an irresponsible manner and use a passage like this to justify his actions. Let me quote from one of the great commentators of the Puritan era.

46:44 Manson in commenting on this verse says and I now quote it is simply but you will say is it simply unlawful to provide for the morrow or for the time to come? I answer no. Solomon bids us to learn from the ant consider her ways and be wise. She provided her meat in summer and gathered her food in harvest.

47:07 It is but a wise foresight to secure ourselves against visible inconveniences Joseph is commended for laying up food in the cities against the seven years of famine Genesis 41-35 and it was the practice of the apostles to lay up in store for the brethren at Jerusalem against the famine foretold by the prophet Agabus. When the prophet said there is going to be a famine Paul said let's start taking collections in view of the famine. There was sanctified foresight planning making provision for years to come. Only remember that this must be done with caution.

47:45 Such provision must not arise from distrust of God or a thought prejudicial to the care of divine providence. Matthew 6-30 God provides for the birds close the field close the grass of the field you are of much more value than they and it must not hinder us from the great care of our lives provision for heaven. Matthew 6-35 It must be this foresight with submission to God God may soon disappoint all and after we've caught a beast in hunting we may never get the opportunity of roasting it.

48:22 And so this is not a condemnation of judicious planning and sanctified foresight and I say that particularly for you young men and women because balance is a rare virtue even in an old hoary headed saint but I tell you it's as rare as a six winged eagle amongst anyone under thirty and in these younger formative years we're victims we're victims of extremes and so we get hold of a verse like this why look what it says God controls everything I'm not to make plans so I'm just going to live each day as it comes no don't you ever get that out of this verse and you won't find it in other parts of the Bible God expects you within the framework

49:07 of revealed will His revealed will in scripture to project and make the plans to lay out your life's goals and as providence in the word of God narrows down the sphere in which the world would have you serve Him to have legitimate ambition and to have legitimate foresight but it must always be in the context of this disposition of the recognition of God's absolute control over my future of a hearty embrace of all

Clarification 3: Not Legalistic Verbalization

49:37 that providence in a legalistic way that we should use this phrase the Lord willing every time we mention the future and I'm sure some of you have been sitting there well does that mean every time I say to the fellow that picks me up that we're going to work when I say goodnight to him at night see you tomorrow Henry and he's halfway down the street and you whistle at him and flap your hands and he screeches to a halt and you run up to him and he rolls the window down and you say and then you go back home feeling everything is alright well I wouldn't say that unless I'd lived long enough

50:22 with my own conscience and with sincere Christians and if you want to please God and you read a passage like this you're willing to do that if you've got to go down the street flapping your hands you'd rather have somebody think you're crazy and go into the house with a good conscience than not do it right now is God saying that any time we mention the future we must say the Lord willing well I don't believe he is doing that and let me give you my reasons first of all I take the apostolic example as very pivotal there are examples where you find the apostle Paul speaking of his future and he gives the little phrase or uses the little phrase the Lord willing let me give you a couple of examples you have in 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 7 one of those

51:07 examples but I do not wish to see you now by the way for I hope to tarry a while with you if the Lord permit now I hope to come but he says that's all under the recognition that I acknowledge God's place with reference to my future I purpose and I plan but he disposes and orders my life from the heart I want nothing more nor less than to do his will and I will be utterly submissive and glad and gladly embrace whatever dispositions divine providence unfolds and he lets the Corinthians know he does a similar thing in Romans 1 in verse 10

51:51 where he tells them he's purposed many times to come and to see them and he acknowledges that the basic reason why he has not yet been able to it hasn't been the will of God so he says in Romans 1 10 making request if by any means now at length I may be prospered by the will of God to come unto you so you have these examples there are others Philippians 2 19 several others but then you have a passage like Romans 15 in verse 24 where he gives a rather lengthy projection of his future and he makes no distinct reference to the little phrase if the Lord will notice verse 22 wherefore also I was hindered these many times

52:36 from coming to you but now having no more any place in these regions that is all the main population centers I've gone to I've evangelized the church the church is planted and having these many years a longing to come to see you whensoever I go unto Spain or I hope to see you in my journey and be brought on my way thither would by you if first in some measure I shall have been satisfied with your company but now I say I go unto Jerusalem ministering unto the saints well he's talking about Spain Rome Jerusalem and never once did he say if the Lord wills now if there were no other pattern to follow I believe this would be sufficient to show that one may have this perspective not only

53:20 intelligently understood but pervasively absorbed into the heart but not necessarily continually upon the lips you got it it's certainly God's will to have an intelligent grasp upon what it means to have an inward disposition that feels the weight of this principle but it does not necessarily mean that it must constantly be upon when shall I and when shall I not say it well I can't give you any rules and be foreign to the whole spirit of the New Testament to say three times a day thou shalt six times Sundays thou that's all you see we're all good Catholics at heart we want to have our whole religion all banged out for us what movies we can see what movies we can

54:04 when we're to genuflex when we're to do all the harmony hail that's we're all at heart we want our whole religion all laid out for us I can't tell you when you should and when you shouldn't but I will say this if the principle of scripture is true and it is that out of the abundance of the heart if saying that much out of the abundance of the heart

54:38 provides a wonderful opportunity of witness I am particularly careful to have them more than once when they say well see you such a time I'll say the Lord willing they say what that's you what are you talking about the Lord willing you say well I

55:23 he governs my life you want to be wise you might have to force yourself a few times it might be good for you to do

56:06 and it may help you to get your head straightened out there's something about the interaction and relationship between the lips and the mind and the heart I don't understand it but it applies in prayer I will cry unto thee with my mouth the day that in the morning thou shalt hear my voice if thou shalt confess with thy mouth to even thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved there's some connection between the utterance of the mouth and the state of the heart I don't understand the psychology of it but it's there and there's something about saying if the Lord will you should have believed it more firmly in your own heart so I just throw out

56:51 a couple of those suggestions which may be helpful to you to keep one hand from being bound to say too timid to say and God won't bring us out all in the same diversity of the work and ministry of the spirit some people when they get happy they cry one of the most upsetting things for many a young husband the first time his wife cries because she's happy

57:26 and it's hard for you to understand because when you get happy you don't want to cry you want to jump this is true in spiritual things when some people get blessed they want to cry other people want to jump want to shout well who's right the jumper or the crier well neither you see and we must never never never never get into this mold of sort of cookie cutter Christians where we've got a stamp that can be predicted this was time my wife saw a little thing in the one of the ladies magazines about

58:10 hand cookies a cookie you make by making the dough and then each of the children just hand down traces around and then the that becomes the cookie and they put some sprills on it and they're baked I'd smell a fish if I looked into that box of cookies that were made and all the hands were the same because I know enough about my children to know that Joel's mitt's a lot bigger than my hands and that Beth's and that Beth's is a lot fatter than Heidi's and Heidi's fingers are longer than Beth's and when I saw them in there I had no trouble saying that's Beth that's Joel that's Heidi there was an accurate reflection of the diversity that exists in them as they are and as I know them may I say reverently God in his infinite wisdom chosen out of the mass of humanity

58:55 a great diversity not only in terms of background privilege but in terms of temperament and all the rest with a view that as he totally possesses each one in his individuality there might be reflected through that person something of the manifold grace of God and I smell something's wrong when in any given church people all express their joy the same way people all express their sorrow the same way people all express their desire and prayer the same way something's fishy somebody's been tampering with the dough somebody's been manipulating sometimes it's done by well-meaning preachers who mishandle the word of God sometimes it's done by an overpowering personality in an assembly

59:40 who sort of just sucks everybody into his own likeness and image may God keep us from those egos that we might know that blessed diversity in the outworking of these great principles well the concluding consideration I said I was done so I'll have to be ethical is that he closes with the phrase to him therefore that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin everyone sitting here tonight who's listened and grasped something of what's been said will say and respond in your heart and say look that's the only right view of life as you face the future how else can you face it but acknowledging God's absolute control over life's duration God's absolute control over life's events and if this God is gracious

Conclusion: The Sin of Knowing and Not Doing

60:25 and kind and loving and perfect in his wisdom why should I not joyfully say if the Lord will and embrace his will you know that that's a good attitude to imbibe don't you alright now he says to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin if you are content to face 1971 with anything less than the attitude reflected in the words if the Lord will we shall live and do this or that you're living in sin because you know it is good to have that attitude and to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin that's the context of James 4.17 the context of refusing to develop by the grace of God a thoroughly

61:09 biblical perspective concerning the future may God help us that we'll not carry the secularism of the world into our perspective for the coming year but face it with this thoroughly biblical perspective so that whatever this year holds as we work out what we feel to be God's plan and purpose for us it's in the climate of if the Lord may the Lord help us for his praise and for our God let's