We invite you to listen now to a broadcast of a message preached during the regular Lord's Day services at Faith Free Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina. Today's message is being preached by the minister of the church, Dr. Alan Cairns. Hebrews chapter 10. We read together the opening verses. Verses 1 through 10, the first 10 verses of the chapter. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of those things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshiper once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law, Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Amen. The Lord will add his own blessing to the reading of his word for his name's sake. This morning we return to the latter part of verse 10 in Matthew chapter 6 as we continue to think upon the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. The petition we're dealing with at the moment is, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Now last week I pointed out that this is one of those things that sounds very pious and very good, but it's not altogether easy to kneel down exactly what you mean when you say it. And when you stop to ponder what exactly do we mean when we say, Thy will be done, what exactly do we mean? We have to understand that The will of God basically has two great meanings in Scripture. One is His decree, or His purpose, or His providence. And the other is His commandment. When you think of God's will as His decree and purpose, then you pray these words, Thy will be done. as an expression of submission. We dealt with that last Lord's Day. But when you think of the will of God as His commandment, then the meaning is not merely submission, but it is obedience. And this is what we want to deal with this morning. As we pray, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven, We are praying for obedience to the revealed will of our Father. Obedience to His actual commandments. The great Puritan, Thomas Mamton, summing up the position of this statement or this petition in the Lord's Prayer, coming after the first two petitions, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, then thy will be done." Mamton said, we may judge our respect to His name and kingdom by our obedience to His will, without which we neither sanctify His name nor submit to His kingdom. That will become, I trust this morning, very plain as we consider what the child of God prays for or should pray for when he utters these words. I think the lesson here is very simple, but it's very far-reaching. And that is that every child of God should pray for four kinds of obedience to the revealed will of our Father. First and foremost, we should pray for personal obedience. Thy will be done on earth. is a very far-reaching, a very encompassing sort of petition. Thy will be done on earth. But you know, you can't pray these great generalities of Scripture unless you first bring them down to a personal particularity. In other words, you can't pray, Lord, let Your will be done in the whole world. unless you start with you as a microcosm, unless you start with you and say, Thy will be done in me. It is utterly, thoroughly hypocritical to pray, Thy will be done in the world, if you are not willing that the will of God be done in you. So this is personal obedience. that we're praying for. We're praying, Lord, let Your will be done in me as it is done in heaven. You will see immediately that obedience is the very essence of all true religion. Christianity, let me remind you, is not a philosophy. Philosophy is always and only of human origin. Philosophy is always and only the product of the searching mind of uninspired man. Christianity is not a philosophy. Philosophy may, or of course it may not, and as I read a little of its history, I'm bound to the conclusion that for the most part the world would have been better without it. It sheds more darkness than light. But that's by the way, we better not get off into that one. Christianity, unlike philosophy, does not merely inform the mind. Philosophy may inform the mind or it may not. But having informed the mind, it's done its job. Christianity is not even a system of belief merely. All the doctrines of Scripture are important. And it has been my labor over many years to emphasize that theology is the basis of practice. But let me turn that around and remind you this morning that the gospel and the great revelation of God is not merely a matter, believe this in your head and then live as if it never existed. The truth of the Gospel demands action. The entire essence of this revelation as it's personally experienced is seen in our obedience. The man who says, I believe, but does not obey God as the general rule of his life, that man is living in unbelief. as well as in disobedience. It is impossible that true faith should produce anything but true obedience. It is impossible to have faith in God and His Christ as the governing principle of your life and not have obedience as the most outstanding mark of your whole manner of living. Obedience to God. is the essence of all true religion. That's why James said, you say, I have faith. He says, I will show you. Notice the difference between profession and proof. I will show you my faith by my works. He was not depending on his works to get him to heaven. He knew better than that. But he knew that the faith that he said was faith was true faith because it created within him a heart to obey God. You remember that back in Old Testament times, when the Israelites professed to Moses that they were willing to do the whole will of God, They welcomed the law of God. The Lord's response was not, oh, isn't it wonderful to hear that testimony. That's what our response would have been. We'd have had a special public altar call and people would have been trooping up and we'd have all been going home saying, isn't it wonderful all those people said they wanted to welcome and obey the law of God. But that wasn't the Lord's response. The Lord's response was, Oh, that there were such a heart in them to do these things. Oh, that they would obey Me. This is the essence of all true religion. As 1 Samuel 15.22 puts it, in the words of Samuel to Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Not only is this the essence of true religion, but it's the truest expression of our relationship with our Father. The Gospel tells us, now are we the sons of God. What a wonderful statement. Now are we who once were enemies of God, and children of wrath even as others, now are we the sons of God. By the saving grace of our God, on the merits of His own dear Son, we are the sons of God. But, while John emphasizes that, He goes on to tell you how the sons of God should live. And the great thing that he emphasizes is that they actually prove their sonship by their obedience. What is it that marks profession as false or true? What is it? Well, this is one of the great themes of the epistles of John. If we say, if we say, if we say. That's a recurrent phrase through the epistles of John. John is marking off true from false profession of sonship. And he's saying what marks off the true from the false is that the false does not have real obedience to God. This is what expresses the relationship of sons to their father. And that's why Peter says, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he that hath called you as holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the true Son of God, is our great example here. He lived, as we read in Hebrews 10 this morning, He lived to obey His Father. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God." His whole purpose in coming was to do the will of God. When you look at the life of Christ, what theologians call His active obedience, what was He doing? Obeying the will of God. When you look at the death of Christ, His so-called passive obedience. Never really liked that term, to be quite honest. I think it's one of those things in which theologians have got far too clever for their own good. For Christ was far from passive on the cross as we understand the Word. But in that so-called passive obedience, what was He doing? He was obeying the will of God. The great passion of his life was to do the will of God. He said, my meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. What does that mean? My meat, my food, the only thing that satisfies, that which sustains in the midst of all the things that were going on around about him. He says, that which satisfies, that which sustains is to do the will of my Father." The latter part of John 5 in verse 30, he said, I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. That's our example. And that's what the Lord is looking for in every child of His. He's looking for genuine obedience to the will of God. And when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we are praying this ourselves. Lord, give me a personal obedience, for this is what You want. You remember what the Lord said of David? In Acts 13, verse 22, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. I think that's a wonderful testimony. When God can say that. You remember He looked at Abraham and He said, I know him. I know what he'll do. And He went on to say how He would teach His children, etc. , and lead them in the way of truth. I know him. He's saying much the same about David. I know him. And I know that this is a man who will do My will, who will obey Me. What a testimony! It's the constant command of God's Word, summed up, for example, in Romans 12, that we should get to know and do the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, and whatever that may cost. in giving up our bodies as living sacrifices to be holy and acceptable unto God, and being separated from the world, and not being conformed to it in mind or action, whatever the cost. God is looking for an obedient people. So when we pray this prayer, we're praying, Lord, first, give us personal obedience. Let me emphasize something. Secondly, that I've already hinted at, and that is, when we pray this prayer, we're praying for practical obedience. Thy will be done on earth. The word done emphasizes that it's to be executed. It is to be finished. It is something that actually comes to pass. That's the idea. In other words, this is not a mere dream. This is not a matter of pious words. I don't want to sound berating, but I do think, as I examine my own heart before God many a time, I have to lament this before the Lord. I do think that All too often, Christians get into the way of talking big talk about the things of God. And we think when we have talked a little about it, we have actually done something. When in actual truth, we have done absolutely nothing but talk. This is not just a matter of talk. This is a matter of action. This is something practical. When we pray this prayer, we're not wanting simply to impress God with the sound of our words, for we'll certainly feel in that if that's our aim. There's something actual, something practical here. There's a recognition that the will of God is not a matter for discussion, it is a matter for action. I think I quoted to you a few years ago the words of one of my great heroes, the late Field Marshal Lord Montgomery. Partly because he's an Ulster man, partly because he's one of the few in the high echelons of British aristocracy and military life who unashamedly believed God, believed the Bible and knelt in his tent to pray over the word of God every morning on the battlefield and didn't care who knew it. When Lord Montgomery went to Egypt, the British troops were in total disarray. The battles had been lost one after another and if Egypt had fallen, there is no doubt that Britain's cause in World War II was finished. It was an important command and in assuming that command, Bernard Montgomery said, orders no longer form the basis for discussion, but for action. Previously, orders had generally been queried by subordinates right down the line. I was determined to stop that state of affairs at once. That was the turning point. I thought, as I've read, I have a multi-volume set of the biography of Montgomery. I've often said I've learned more pastoral theology reading that biography than reading any book on the subject of pastoral theology. But as I've read that book, I've realized, take that into the spiritual realm. And isn't it true that the commands of God have become a matter for discussion? You know, there's not a command in Scripture, no matter how clear, no matter how plain, that some idiotic so-called theologian or scholar has not dragged about the field of his so-called expertise to make it mean anything but what the Bible plainly means it to mean. The Bible gives God's people clear command. One of the great principles of the Protestant Reformation is the perspicuity or the clearness of Scripture. It's not to say every verse in the Bible is alike, easy to understand. That would be foolish. But it is to say that the Bible is generally a very simple, clear, understandable book. God says what He means, God means what He says, and He expects us to take note of it. But we have taken the commands of God and we have made them a matter for querying, for discussing, for twisting and turning. When all the time God is saying, this is not a matter for discussion, this is a matter for action. Instead of talking about My commandments, go and do My commandments. That's what God is saying. It's true of the individual. It's true of the church. Not a church on earth that doesn't believe in the missionary mandate of the church. Surely not at least a fundamental or Reformed or Bible-believing church that doesn't believe in the missionary mandate. But there's an awful lot of churches that discuss it, theorize about it, philosophize about it, and do nothing about it. There are a lot of Christians who believe many things about the Christian life. But when it actually gets down to doing something, it's a different matter. Don't just talk about obeying God. Do it. We're in a position a bit like that of an old sailor who said, On ship, there are only two possibilities, duty or mutiny. Those are the only two possibilities. That's where we are. This text is intensely practical. When we pray, Thy will be done, when we start with ourselves, Thy will be done in me. Let it be done practically in me. It gets us down into the trenches of real service for God. It starts off with finding out what the will of the Lord is. What does the will of God or the Word of God say in the given situations of my life? Paul told the Ephesians in chapter 5, verse 17, "...wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is." That's where every Christian's got to start. What says the Scripture? Not what's easy, not what's popular, not what can I get away with, not what can I impose upon Scripture, but what does the Bible actually say here? We're willing to subject all our prejudices and all our personal desires to what the Bible says. In the 25th Psalm, verse 4 and 5, the psalmist prays, Show me Thy ways, O Lord. Teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth and teach me. For Thou art the God of my salvation. On Thee do I wait. all the day. Psalm 119, verse 12, the same idea. Blessed art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. So, we've got to start off by getting to the Word to see what is the will of God. And once we find that out, when we pray this prayer, it means that we consciously conform our lives to those commands of Scripture. Now, that's the desire, I think, of every Christian's heart. Every regenerate heart must desire that. If you don't desire that, I doubt that your heart has ever been circumcised. I doubt that it has ever been cleansed. The psalmist prayed again in Psalm 119, verse 5, Oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes. That's the yearning of a regenerate heart. Verse 7, he says, I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy judgments, thy righteous judgments. In verse 35, he takes up the same theme. Make me to go on the way or the path of thy commandments, for therein do I delight. These are verses which open up the true state of a regenerate heart. And I tell you, my friend, when you learn what the Bible demands of you, then there must be a conscious, deliberate, honest, thoroughgoing, faithful, conforming of your life to that commandment. Furthermore, it means doing this even in a hostile environment. Thy will be done where? On earth. In this world, which is full of enmity against God, in this world where there is every sort of opposition and every sort of temptation, when you are in an environment that is certainly not conducive to godliness, And Samus prayed in the 27th Psalm in verse 11, Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Surrounded by all the foes of godliness, bombarded by all the big guns of the world and its wickedness, we have got to lift our hearts to our God and to cry, Lord, teach me your way. Keep me true to the Word of God. Let me obey you practically, no matter what the cost may be, no matter what the hostile forces around me may be." This means, therefore, separation from the world. Now, there was a time when in free Presbyterian churches, Separation was preached practically every Sabbath day. It may sound boring, but don't you believe it. That is bringing the Gospel right bang up to date every week that we live, as far as our lives are concerned. There was a time when in fundamental Bible-believing churches across America, the message of separation was the message that was constantly being preached. But somehow or other, we have got a little soft. We find that there are Christians who are able to sit every Sabbath day in churches that are apostate or well on the way to being apostate, and they think, well, I'm letting my light shine. They're not. They're living in disobedience to God. God says, come out from among them and be separate. Now, what does that mean? Stay in, give them a big hug and a kiss. Well, not even a Hebrew or Greek could it mean that. Means come out and be separate. This is one of those texts that I mean, or I was referring to when I said that people drag it out, turn it upside down, inside out, cut it and hack it and do everything to make it mean anything but what it plainly means. Come out from among them. Be separate. Touch not the unclean thing. And yet across America today there are millions of Bible-believing Christians sitting in fellowship with apostasy, sitting in fellowship with unbelief, sitting in churches where there's the denial of the person and the work and the blood atonement and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, sitting in places where their very presence is an insult to God. And then they have the audacity in most of those very services to pray the Lord's Prayer. Is it any wonder that God says of the lukewarm church, I'll spew you out of my mouth, you make me sick. Is it any wonder? But separation is not just from apostasy. Separation is also personal. It's very easy to say we're separate. We're not in the ecumenical apostasy. We're not on our way to Rome We're not denying the Bible. We're not this. We're not that. And then you live like the world for the rest of the week. Separation is personal. John says in 1 John 2, starting at verse 15, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." That defines for you what he's talking about now by the world. He's talking about this world as a system of organized wickedness and sin. And he's saying, love it not because It is not of the Father, it is of the world. And the world passeth away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Do you notice how he brings these things together? What is doing the will of God? It is loving not the world. It is separation from the world. It is personal holiness. It is sanctity of life. that is willing to be counted a crank in order to stand outside this old wicked system of organized ungodliness. But oh, today we have Christians who are as like the world as two peas in a pod. You couldn't tell them apart. They walk like the world. They have the same interests as the world. There are Christians who spent more hours watching soap operas than they ever do reading the Bible. There are Christians who are more up-to-date with all the filth and wickedness of this old world than they are with God's book. They have more interest in the things of the world than they have in the things of the Spirit. Well, they say, the Christians, the Judgment Day will declare it. In many cases, I wonder what they know of Christ. Practical obedience is separation unto God. And when I pray, Thy will be done in me, I'm praying for personal, practical obedience. Thirdly, of course, we pray for perfect obedience. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, that seems impossible. On the face of it, that's utterly impossible. But as I said a moment or two ago, this is not a dream we're talking about. And this text is not dealing with impossibilities. As means in like manner. And that will show you some light on the text. Your will be done in me in like manner as it's done in heaven. If I may quote Thomas Mankin again, he put it very succinctly. He said, though we cannot do it, that is God's will, in the same measure, yet we should do it in the same manner. That's what the Lord is talking about as far as our personal obedience is concerned. We want to obey God in the same manner as they do in heaven. Now, the question is, how do they do the will of God in heaven? You think of the angels, they do it fully. Not deciding, I'll obey now and disobey the next time, they do it fully. And they do it joyfully. Psalm 103 and verse 20 would make that clear. Bless the Lord, ye His angels that excel in strength that do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His Word. Revelation 5 gives you a beautiful picture of the angels there in the presence of the Lord and joyfully magnifying their God and His blessed Son. So they do it fully and joyfully. They do it consistently. And they do it with perseverance. Daniel 10 verse 3 gives us these words, The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days. This is the angel speaking to Daniel. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days, but lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there. with the kings of Persia. We sometimes have the notion, you know, that if an angel sets out to do the commandment of God, he just wings his way and like that it's done. No difficulty for an angel. But there's warfare going on that you and I know little or nothing about. We only see the results of it. There is warfare going on. And here the angel makes it clear that when Daniel prayed, God sent him immediately to answer Daniel's prayer. Those three weeks for Daniel were long, testing, crying weeks. All he could see was his present state, his present need, and the apparent lack of an answer from heaven. Does that sound familiar? We've all been there and we'll be there again, but here Daniel gets an insight into something we very rarely can see. The angel said, Daniel, I was sent immediately. But there was trouble on the way. The prince of the kingdom of Persia, I don't want to get off on another subject, but that opens up the whole vast idea of the marshalling and the arranging, not only of heaven's forces, but of satanic forces and their distribution among the nations of the world with a very, very strong purpose to thwart godliness and goodness and gospel in those nations. But I want you to notice the angel stuck at it. That's how he did the will of God. He saw it through. He saw it through. When it was a long, drawn-out, toe-to-toe encounter with the powers of hell, he saw it through. And when we're praying, Lord, Thy will be done in me, we're praying, Lord, let me do it as the angels of heaven do it fully, joyfully, perseveringly. Let me see it through. I'm going to quote a very great preacher. My wife will recognize herself immediately. Craig was going off to the Whitfield College of the Bible. She gave him a bit of strong preaching and pastoral theology. She said, Craig, the greatest ability is stick ability. Never forget it. Never forget it. See it through you. That's what we mean when we pray, Thy will be done on earth as it's done in heaven. What's more, that Daniel 10.3 tells us the angels do the will of God unitedly. Here was this angel on his way to do the will of God, and there's trouble. What happens? Michael the Prince comes. Unitedly now they're at the work of God. When we pray this Lord, give us a personal, practical obedience. that will be perfect, that will be done in like manner as your will is done in heaven among the angels. We're saying, Lord, we will stand together with God's people. Oh, there's an individual aspect to our obedience to God. But let me say this to you, there's always a way in which you never stand alone. As I pointed out right at the very beginning of this prayer, It's in the plural, not the singular. Our Father, give us our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses. There is the idea of God's people working together. The tragedy is, too often among Christians, that when one of them is having a hard time, the other, like the priest and the Levite, tends to pass them by on the other side, or just maybe give them a kick on the way through, whereas we ought to be doing this together. Now those things are obvious, but did it ever strike you? And I have to say, in what I have read on the Lord's Prayer, Maybe just I have been either half asleep or I haven't read widely enough, but I think I've read the great experts on the interpretation of this passage of Scripture. They're all fixated upon the angels. How the angels do the will of God. A few mention a little more than that, but they don't pursue it. But as I pondered this, it dawned on me. They're not only angels in heaven. There's a great host of redeemed saints in heaven. And according to Revelation 7 verse 15, they serve God day and night in His temple. So they are doing the will of God. And when I pray, Lord, Thy will be done in me in like manner as it's done in heaven, I am praying, Lord, let me do it the way the glorified saints are doing it. Now that opens up this entire thing in a wonderful way. And I have only time to suggest it to you rather than deal with it in great depth. Consider what that means. I want you to try and get the picture that's painted in Revelation 5. of the saints gathered around the throne with the Lamb in the midst of the throne. Get that picture there and how they serve the Lord. And then pray this prayer, Lord, let me do Your will in like manner. We consider their service and we're praying, Lord, give me obedience that flows from the full joy of Thy salvation. That's where it comes from. Those glorified saints are serving God in the full joy of salvation. They are singing, Glory to the Lamb! Worthy is the Lamb! Why? Because Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy precious blood. They were glad they were saved while they were on earth. Now they are eternally glad, sinlessly glad. They are bubbling over with the joy of salvation. and serving God is no problem. Even down here on earth, obeying God is never a problem for those who are living in the joy of sins forgiven. It's only when you lose the joy of your salvation that obedience becomes a chore and a difficulty when you are rejoicing in the Lord. My salvation gives you such a desire for obedience. Consider them again as they serve the Lord in glory and pray, give me an obedience that flows from a deep fellowship with God around the throne. There's where you get the strength to obey the saints in glory They serve God day and night in His temple because they are constantly focused upon the throne. They're in fellowship with their God. And furthermore, they have a clear vision of Christ. Give me an obedience that flows from a sight of Christ. This is where I think almost every branch of modern Christendom has gone wrong. You go to an Arminian, you hear him preach, and all he preaches is guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt theology. You do this, you do that, you do the other thing, and if you don't do it, you're all sorts of a wicked, carnal, wretched, ungodly, hopeless, helpless clown. Now, if you want to get it right, walk up the island, let's put it right, and then go back the next week for another dose of guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, with the result that the same people are trooping up and down the same aisles until they become so calloused in their conscience that they're almost incapable of true obedience to God. But then you go to the Reformed churches, and I've been there, and listen, They're no better in this regard. No better. Guilt. You have ones preaching the law to such an extent that it becomes legalism. Others denying the law to such an extent that it becomes antinomianism. But here's the truth. Preaching duty. is very important, and I think I've made it clear by doing so this morning. Preaching duty is very important, but preaching duty will never enable anybody to do his duty. Telling a man what to do never enables him to do it. Telling him to decide to do it will only compound his inability to do it. There's only one thing that gives a Christian the great ability to do what He knows He ought to do, and that is a clear vision of Christ. You read your New Testament, And you'll find this is how the apostles preached. They not only told people what to do normally before they got to telling them what to do. Read the epistles. This is how they're constructed. They set up the entire theological position and they showed them Christ. And then in the light of this, they said, do these things. That's how they operate in heaven. They're in fellowship around the throne. and to have a clear vision of Christ. When we pray, Thy will be done, we are praying for an obedience that flows from that fellowship and that vision. But also, of course, we are praying, Lord, give me an obedience that flows from a conviction that God is sovereign, and that he's working out his grand design in the world even through the struggles of his people on earth. The book of the Revelation is a book that shows you the victory, the ultimate, absolute victory of gospel grace over satanic wickedness. But you know, there are times when you would think looking at the details of the book of Revelation from an earthly perspective. And remember, this is a book, if you want to study it, it alternates between heaven and earth, heaven and earth, heaven and earth. And if you don't note that, you'll never understand anything in the book of Revelation. And if you were to look at some of these things merely from the earthly perspective, you'd have to say, my, these are terrible days. Satan has come down among you having great power. That sounds a terrible thing. Plagues and earthquakes and death and doom and destruction. You think God had abdicated. But you have been thinking wrong. Because you go back and you look at it from the heavenly perspective. And understand this, the Lamb is opening the book and He is scrolling through the great scroll of God's purpose. It is the Lamb who is directing every detail. The saints in heaven see this. And they serve God in the happy assurance that our God is on the throne and He will do His perfect will and accomplish His perfect purpose. When we pray this prayer, we are praying, Lord, give me such a conviction of the absolute sovereign victory of the purpose of God that I will do the command of God As Dr. Bob Senior used to say, though the heavens fall, I'll do the command of God, no matter what it costs, because the victory belongs to the Lord. There's one final idea that I will mention before we close. We pray for personal obedience, practical obedience, that perfect obedience that is patterned on the kind of obedience in heaven. But we pray, and this is really a different study entirely, and so I will just refer to it, for a progressive, or we may call it a plenary, or a perpetual obedience. This is a prayer about the future, not just the present. Oh, we're praying, Lord, do this now in us. But ultimately, this is a prayer for the success of the Gospel, This is a prayer that takes seriously the words of 1 Timothy 2.4, that God wills all men to be saved. He wants the gospel to go to the ends of the earth and bring in the full complement of Christ redeemed out of every nation. This is a prayer that recognizes that and therefore prays for it. It's a prayer that ultimately looks to the coming and to the reign of Christ, to the new heavens, to the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. This is a prayer that is saying, I don't want to be so caught up in the here and now that I lose the great vision of the coming and the reign and the glory of the Redeemer. It gives you great confidence to know that this world is not always going to be ruled by Yeltsins and Clintons and Tony Blairs if any of you have had the misfortune to hear of the wimpish Prime Minister we now have in Britain. Thank God the day is coming when this world will not be ruled by nuclear armaments or wars or threats of wars when it will be ruled by God's Christ. When the kingdom has fully come, God's will will be done on earth as it's done in heaven. Not just ultimately in the new heavens and new earth, not merely in manner, but then also even in measure. It's a great future we have. And it's all included in this petition of the Lord's Prayer. We have prayed for two things when we pray, Thy will be done. Submission to God's purpose. Obedience to God's commandment. Let me ask you this morning, do you know what it is to pray these words with honesty, with integrity? Do you know what it is to be submitted to the purpose of your God? Do you know what it is to be obedient to the commandment of your God? Or is yours still a profession that lets you say it with your lips, but not live it with your life? This is a call to get beyond mere rhetoric, to get down to reality. I trust today that you will come before the throne of God with a heart touched by Him, that you'll make this your prayer. Thy will be done in earth, starting with me, as it's done in heaven. You've been listening to a message from Faith Free Presbyterian Church of Greenville, South Carolina. The message was preached by the minister of the church, Dr. Alan Cairns. If you would like further information, please write Faith Free Presbyterian Church, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615. That's Faith Free Presbyterian Church, 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, SC 29615. We invite you to listen each week at this same time for a message from Faith Free Presbyterian Church.