S. The Good, Acceptable & Perfect Will of God

THE GOOD, ACCEPTABLE AND PERFECT WILL OF GOD TEXT: That good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. - Romans 12:2. The bible represents God to us as a being whose existence ante-dates all other existence; as one not only eternal in His being, omniscient in His wisdom, omnipotent in His power, omnipresent in His pervading being, and as infinite in holiness, but as being love in His essence, and in His nature. Such a being must have in Himself all of the causes of actions. His actions cannot be determined by anything outside of Himself. The will of such a being must be Himself. The will of God is God willing, and such a will, being according to the eternity and immutability of His nature, and according to His infinite goodness and love, and according to His power, must be such a will as besides which there can be no other. From the nature of God it must be good. From the nature of God it must be perfect. From the nature of God it ought to be acceptable to all the creatures whom He has made, no matter what it is. So that when we reflect upon the nature of God and the manifestation which He has made of Himself, there ought to be but one supreme object before any finite being, and that is this: To do and submit to the will of God. Not, “How can I understand it?” Not, “Does it accord with my pleasure?” Not, “Does it glorify me, or diminish my name,” but, what is that will? And, wherever it is, it is good, it is perfect, it must be acceptable to me. If in the accomplishment of His purposes in the universe, and with relation to all the complicated affairs of the system of worlds which He has made, it is best that I should suffer; that is good, that is perfect, that shall be acceptable to me. In other words, there is nothing better. Whenever we begin to question the actions of God as judged from the standpoint of our individual necessities, or our individual wishes, or our individual pleasures, we stand upon the border of atheism-we stand on irreverent ground. No matter what light may be thrown on the subject, considering the limitations of our being, our short-sightedness, the imperfection of our comprehension, and the small scope of the affairs of the universe that comes within the range of our observation, it is utterly impossible for us to sit in judgment upon the will of God. When the Lord Jesus Christ taught men to pray, He taught them after this fashion: “Thy will be done. Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.” In all the heavenly courts there is not an intelligence that questions for one moment the wisdom, the goodness, or the perfection of any purpose of God. That He said it, is enough. It stands as approved in the intelligence of every heavenly being that God purposes it, no matter what it is. And they know that that is the best thing for all parties concerned. It is the best for God’s glory; it is the best for the universe; it is the best for all people, if God wills it. Now, our prayer is that His will should be done here upon earth as it is done in heaven. Our context asks the question, “Who hath known the mind of the Lord?” How are you and I going to understand His mind? With which one of us did He consult? And if He had consulted with us, how could we have aided ominiscience in devising any of His plans, and how could our feebleness have imparted strength to His omnipotence, and how could our ignorance have assisted His wisdom? The shortest way to the solution of every earthly trouble, the one that has no windings in it, the one that admits of no appeals to future tribunals, is just this: That in everything we should seek to know and be conformed to the will of God. There must be something fixed. There must be some standard which does not waver. There must be some tribunal whose decisions are beyond controversy, and that standard and that tribunal is God’s will; and from the nature of the case we are to account it good and perfect and acceptable. And every creature should seek in the lights that are given concerning that will, in Providence, in prophecy, in the gospel, to know just what it is. It is useless to talk about anything being beyond the range of that will. Startling as it may sound, it is true nevertheless, that every evil thing that happens comes in some way within His will. I do not say that God is the author of sin. Sin is the transgression of His law, but He does come within it in one sense. I will take a case to illustrate. Take Herod, take Pilate, take the Sanhedrin, that pronounced judgment upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and carried out their wishes and their malice and their scorn, and yet above all that they boasted or did was the determinate counsel of God. And in the broad sweep of God’s will, as an outer circle, revolve all of the inner circles, all human law and Satanic law, the law of devils, and God’s law is over it all. And, therefore, if there should come to be a wrong done by any man, God permits that wrong to be done. If there should come to be a calamity of any kind, God permits that calamity, and He permits it for purposes that He will ultimately bring out when He vindicates Himself before the eyes of the assembled universe at the Judgment of the last day. I abide that final decision. I leave my vindication to Him. I leave His vindication to Himself, and it is for me to accept what comes from the Lord. You remember when David, on one occasion, was followed by a very wicked man, who took advantage of the misfortunes that had come upon him; when his heart was broken with domestic sorrow; when his heart was careworn with the disastrous affairs of his kingdom; when there was none to do him reverence; when for the time being he was a fugitive then this wicked and vindictive man followed him and cursed him and threw stones at him, and David said: “Let him curse on. Who knows but God has permitted him to vent his spite on me in this sad condition for my good? Let him curse on.” He submitted himself to circumstances over which he had no control, knowing that above all human malice and all spite, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and that His will is supreme, and that ultimately He will bring out everything into glorious daylight, and vindicate all truth, and will punish all falsehood. David knew it and felt it. This is certainly true with reference to all troubles which come upon us in this life. I mean sickness in the family; the death of some member of the family; any reverse is business. It does not make any difference what it is; before the eye of the creature should ever be this supreme object: The will of the Lord be done. If I am well, His will be done. If I am sick, let His will be done. If my day must be eclipsed in the meridian, His will be done. What am I, and who is the Lord, that I should bring my wishes and my pleasures and demand that they should triumph rather than that the purposes of God should be executed? Now, it is this view of the subject that I wanted to present to the congregation today, because the Apostle here bases all of his exhortations to practical Godliness upon that subject: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God.” Now, what he refers to are the mercies that have been stated in the context. What are they? There was a time when His mercies seemed to be given to the Jews, and other nations looked at Him and said: “Is God partial? Has He exalted one people and conferred upon that people privileges that He confers upon no other people?” There came a time when this people, that had enjoyed those mercies, were outcast. The Kingdom of God was taken from them and given to another people; and now here was mercy to the Gentile, and that mercy continues to this day. Standing over against the first mercy to the Jews was the second mercy to the Gentiles to be followed by final mercy to both, and all according to the counsel of God, who makes no apologies for Himself, not even feeling called upon to explain Himself to men, but from the height of eternity and from the immutability of His counsel, and omniscience and wisdom of His intelligence, directing all things to one glorious consummation. On this, Paul exhorts, “Therefore, by the mercies of God, I beseech you, brethren, to present your bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord.” It is an easy thing to present a dead sacrifice. It is an easy thing for anyone, when the burdens on him get to a certain point, to say, “Now, I am willing to quit. I accept it. I am willing to quit.” That is, I am willing to die. That is not a living sacrifice; that is a dying one. The will of the Lord be done, even if He calls upon you to live, to endure, to hold out faithfully, to leave to Him the day of your death as well as the day of your birth, and not to say that the scissors of fate are in your hands that shall clip the cord of life and hasten your exit from this world. It is to be a sacrifice that absolutely submits to God the full length of its continuance, whether it be years or whether it be hours. It is with the Lord. Lord, you know how frail I am. You are acquainted with my being. Your knowledge is infinite, and your nature is perfect in goodness, and your love is infinite. I just leave the matter with you. Portion it out to me, give it to me according to your judgment, and not according to my judgment. I want to ask you a question in this connection. If, in your past lives you have not found your chief trouble to be this: The difficulty in you of adjustment to what God has purposed? Whence come our murmurs? Whence come our complaints? Whence come our rebellious feelings? What is the source of them? They all grow out of the fact that we stand there and stubbornly say: “Let my will be done and not God’s will be done.” That restiveness under Godly restraint, that impatience to hurry on the way we wish to go, that shaking of the hour-glass to make its sands run out faster, or that endeavor to lock the wheels of time and clog them, that they may not go so fast it all grows out of the desire in the human heart to subordinate God to man. Take the illustrations that are given in this chapter. One of them is a case of vengeance. A man has wrought an indignity upon us. He has greatly excited our anger, and with the rapidity which characterizes the human mind when selfishness touches the wavering balance, we call for instant judgment. We march up and take our seat in the judge’s chair, and while we sit in the judge’s chair we stand up also in the prosecutor’s place. And occupying this double position we summon ourselves also as a witness, and upon our own ex parte testimony, as prosecuted by ourselves before the court of our own heart, we pronounce a judgment and then assess a penalty. And all vengeance that is ever exercised by human hands is just of that kind. The one who exercises it claims to be judge and prosecutor, and witness, and then assumes the only remaining right to execute the penalty. Every prerogative of government is thus usurped, whether it be legislative, judicial or executive. The man claims it all for himself. And when you talk to him in his excitement over a wrong that he thinks has been done to him, and you see his eye is on fire, and he cannot even look at a thing that does not coincide with his view of the case, his feelings, the outrages that he seems to be conscious of, are all that he thinks of. There is no thought of God, no thought of the other man, but it is, “I, myself.” I have been wronged. My sacred person has been violated. The things which are peculiar to me have been interfered with, and who is God that He should trespass on the boundaries which belong to me? And hence this chapter, in making an application of the text, says: “Brethren, avenge not yourselves.” God’s law is good. There is no evil in it. God’s law is perfect. There is no fault in it any way. “Give place to wrath,” which is an obscure translation of the original. It means, You give way and let God’s wrath sit upon the throne of judgment. Here is a picture of it: A wrong has been done you and a judgment has been set for investigation of the case. The wronged man is in the attitude of one hastening up to take his place on the judgment throne in order to dispense judgment in his own behalf, but this text arrests him and says, “Stop! You get out of the way. Give place. Here comes the wrath of God. Give way! Give place to His wrath! Don’t claim your own. Let Him come up and take His position on that throne and investigate that case. Let God’s will be done in this matter.” There never has been a murder committed but it has been a stroke given in anger that has not proceeded from the same usurpation of the divine prerogative. That man is unwilling for God to be the judge, either of himself or other people, but he claims to be his own judge, not only of his own affairs, but of the affairs of his neighbors. In every one of these several instances in this twelfth chapter, some of which relate to business, some of which relate to family affairs, and some of which relate to the very thought and intent of the heart the whole, comprehended in, one single word, is brought and placed right under this precept, that we should conform our selves to the good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Suppose you are going to pray, and every time you are in any serious trouble you will be disposed pray; now, what are you going to ask for? That comes instantly; what are you going to ask for? What is to be the nature of the petition you send up to God’s throne? Shall I ask that my hand be placed in the neck of my enemy? Shall I ask that I may be rich because it is pleasant to be rich, and I like luxury? Shall I ask for power because I enjoy being above other people? Shall I ask for the gratification of the carnal desires of my nature because they clamor for gratification? Listen! If we ask anything which is in accordance with His will, He heareth us. That is the end of it. Well, now, would you have it otherwise? When you think soberly would you have it that God should allow your will to be the standard of answered prayers? Let us see what would be the result of it. Here is a ship on its way to Europe. At a certain season of the year, in accordance with the providence of God, which providence is related to the good of the whole world, the trade-winds blow that way all through that season of the year. Well, now, you are in a hurry and you are on a sailing vessel, and you say: “I will go and ask God to change this wind. I will kneel down here and I will say, ‘Lord, reverse this trade wind. I want to go to Europe, and what are the affairs of all the rest of the world put together in comparison with mine? Am I not more prominent than all other people? Are not my wishes more sacred?’” Just think of the presumption of it. See the overweening conceit and vanity that are involved in it. Take another case. There are two of you. One of you fastened his heart upon the acquisition of a certain object. Another man has fastened his heart upon the acquisition of the same object. And you both say: “We will pray about it.” And A kneels down and prays that the Lord will let him have it, and B prays that the Lord will let him have it. Now, if man’s will is to he the standard concerning prayer, how is that matter to be adjusted? Here is a direct conflict between the two human wills. Each man wants, as his own peculiar possession, a certain thing. It is absolutely impossible that its ownership be peculiar to both. And as there are so many minds, and chaos, such as Ovid describes, when all the elements commingled, when fire and air and earth were one heterogeneous mass of matter that did not coalesce and yet would not separate-such chaos would result in the affairs of this world. There must be one high, holy, good, perfect, infinite and loving will that is supreme, and to which every other will must be subordinate. And men ought to pray this way: “Lord, if it be thy will, if it is best for me, if it is best for the good of all and for thy glory that I should have a certain object, I would like to have it. But, if its attainment will injure me, if its attainment will injure my neighbor, if its attainment will be contrary to your own purposes for the general good, then, Lord, thwart me in this. Do not let me have it, and I will bear the disappointment. I will be conformed to thy will. I will adjust myself to the divine requirements, and I will do it without an argument and without a murmur, and without a rebellious thought, and I will do it with the absolute knowledge that God’s withholding that desired thing from me is good and perfect and acceptable and bound to be so in the nature of the case.” See how James brings up the thought in questions of trade. He says a merchant deliberates and he says then to himself “Tomorrow I will start to a certain city and there I will purchase goods and trade for a year. And then I will go to another city and trade for another year, and then I will come back with my increased gains.” And James adds: “Why not say, ‘If the Lord wills’,” for if the Lord does not will it cannot be done. His counsel stands and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and in the affairs of this earth. And that man who lays his plans without any regard to the sovereign and absolute and divine will of God is a man who is all the time going to meet with disappointment. Things are going to come about that he never counted on, and he is going to be a chronic grumbler. He is going to become soured on the world. He is going to carry a face that will bear, its own story of unsoothed and unprofitable sorrow and disappointment and sadness, and care will come and furrow the brow with wrinkles and whiten his hair, and take the sweetness out of his disposition, and curdle the milk of human kindness in him, and at last he will be an embodiment of complaint, a bundle of murmurings and grudges, feeling that his hand is against every man, and every man’s hand is against him, and what is the good of it, after all? What purpose does it serve? Does it amount to anything that a man should pitch the puny straws of his opposition against the thick bosses of Jehovah’s buckler? Will it accrue to his advantage in anything for him to impudently confront Omniscience and say, “My strength is stronger than God. My ignorance is wiser than His wisdom?” See the folly of it! “Saul, Saul, it is hard for thee to kick against the goad.” The supreme folly of it ought to strike any mind at a glance. It cannot possibly accomplish any good. I want to illustrate, finally, what I mean by an observation passed upon some of the attendants at the Young People’s Convention, which has just adjourned in this city. The question curiously came up in my mind as I looked at my own part of the guests: What guests for a Young People’s Convention! One of them, seventy years old, and who knew me when I was a little boy, and who used to call me “her boy,” and the other two were venerable, aged parents, whose son was president of the Convention, and yet I said: Are not these people young? Is not the dew of their youth on them? Is not the light of youth yet on them? And why? Because they have not wasted their energies in fighting God. They have not allowed unhallowed desires to consume them internally. They have not allowed their resistance to the dispensations of God, which are irrevocable, to so bow them down and crush out their spirits that they are prematurely aged. Hence they are young yet. They are in the springtime, though the hair is white on the brow, and I imagine that when they die they will die in the springtime-die not in cold winter (I speak figuratively), not while trees are bare, not while the whole earth is locked in the iron of ice; but they will die while birds are singing and flowers are blooming, and will cross over with a smile into the eternal spring of the other shore. Why? Because of their habit of adjusting themselves to the good and perfect and acceptable will of God. Because of the trend of their minds in acknowledging God as wiser than they are and better than they are, causing their minds to melt into the greater mind of God, like the little stream melts into the broad river into which it flows, and loses its own current in the broader current of the mightier stream. Now, go butt your head against a wall if you will. Go wring your hands in hopeless repining, if you choose. Go wrinkle your face with corroding anxieties if you prefer it. It will do you no good. ‘Rather conform yourself to that good and perfect and acceptable will of God. That is the option you have. Now, which will you elect? It is an exceedingly practical question. It touches every affair of this life. You know certain people, you could call their names today if you felt disposed, and there was any propriety in your mentioning names-you know people right here in this city that are trying to live as if there were no God; trying to live as if there were not an infinitely higher mind; trying to live as if there were not a sovereign and absolute will which is above theirs; trying to live as if there were not a standard to which they must conform. You may be like them, or the aged young people mentioned. I leave you with the option. Here comes the triumphant chariot of Jehovah. His steeds Are swifter than the lightnings. His chariot passes our way. It represents the will, of God. Will you get in the chariot and sit down by the divinity and let Him drive these fiery steeds, and carry you safely and gladly and happily with Him, or will you remain outside, chained to that chariot and dragged along and become finally a mangled corpse and a mangled spirit? I don’t know of any other alternative.