I want us to talk about knowing God's will and being in the will of God. Many times we face circumstances when we say to ourselves or to one another, I don't know whether I should leave this job I presently have and go take that other job that's been offered to me in Alabama. But I want to do God's will in this matter. Or perhaps we've said at a younger time, I have met this woman or this man that I believe would make a good mate, and I want to marry him or her if that's God's will. Or, I would like to go to this particular university to study, if it's God's will. And we are concerned, and rightly concerned, with the will of God. But I believe many times in our thinking about the will of God and our doing the will of God, we often confuse what is clearly separated in Scripture. We need to understand that there are two wills of God. They're not in conflict in any sense. But there is a will of God which we call the secret will of God. It's according to God's own good counsel and good purpose. It is that will of God that will be worked out. it will come to be, because all of God's secret counsel and his purpose and will cannot be thwarted by man. Nothing we do can change it. There is also a revealed will of God, and that revealed will of God is that which God has made known to man, revealed to man, which tells to man what pleases God, what he would have men to do. One of the clearest passages to distinguish these two wills of God is to be found in Deuteronomy in the 29th chapter and I would like for us to begin our thinking there tonight and then we will look at other passages as well. I'm going to read a few verses beginning with the 22nd verse of Deuteronomy 29. And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you and the foreigner that shall come from a far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses wherewith the Lord hath made it sick, and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath, even all the nations shall say, Wherefore has the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods that they knew not, and that he had not given unto them. Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book. And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation and cast them into another land as at this day. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Now here we see in the 29th verse, the conclusion of this passage that we've read tonight, the expression of the two kinds of the will of God, the secret thing That's the secret will of God, what He has purposed and what He will work out. His sovereign will. That belongs to the Lord. That means you and I are not responsible or accountable for that will. We cannot affect that will in any way. God does not choose to reveal it to us. We learn of it as God works out his will and his purpose in history. We learn it day by day. But he mentions also here the things that are revealed, the revealed will of God. It is that for which we are held accountable. And when we're seeking to do the will of God, it must be in this area in particular that we concentrate. It is this for which we will be held accountable. What God in his word has revealed unto us as that which would please him, that which he would have us to do. You see it right here in the passage. God had made a covenant with the people of Israel, a covenant when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. And the covenant was that he would give to them the land of Canaan and he would prosper them in that land so long as they kept the covenant and obeyed him and worshiped and served him only and kept his law. And so long then as they received this revealed will and guarded it and kept it and sought to serve God by doing it, they would prosper in the land. But if they refused, if they turned to other gods, if they ignored their covenant with God, then he would drive them forth out of the land. And Moses, looking ahead, anticipating indeed that they will someday fail to keep that covenant, describes the land as like Sodom and Gomorrah after the wrath of God. It will be just this way. You are accountable for the keeping of that revealed Word. Well, let's look just a little bit more at just what the secret will of God is. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This indicates to us that God's will is set and determined in heaven. And it is our responsibility to desire the working out of that will on earth as it is in heaven. According to God's eternal counsel and good purpose, we recognize that there is a will of God that will be unfolded by history. And we pray, we are taught to pray in accord with that. And we see then various personalities in Scripture in awareness of this. For instance, our Lord in Luke, the 22nd chapter, in the passage that tells of his prayer, as he is contemplating the cross. Jesus alone, Luke 22, 42, prays thusly, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." Now, all of Jesus' life, he had sought to do the will of his Father. He was very conscious of all the revealed will of the Father. And even at the age of 12, he could respond to his parents, I must be about my father's business. I must be engaged in that which is the will of my father. And he's speaking there of that revealed will of God that had been made known in God's written word. It was his doing that will of the father that had brought him to this moment. when those to whom he came rejected him and were plotting his death. At this point, Jesus was prepared to die. He was prepared to lay down his life in obedience to that will of God which had been revealed to him. There was no longing on his part to go through the agonies of death and hell for you and me. No longing to have to go through that agony. Nevertheless, there was that desire to please the Father. If there had been any other way. If there was any other possibility. And so Jesus, as he contemplated the agony of that night, the agony of betrayal, the agony of denial of his own, as he contemplated all of these things that he must face, he looked to the Father. If it be possible, nevertheless, not my will, but thine, he desired that the purpose of God be accomplished. And he was submissive to that will. Again, we see a circumstance where Paul's friends contemplate the dangers that face Paul as he goes into Jerusalem. We read of this in Acts 21. They have been warned that if Paul enters into Jerusalem, he will suffer greatly. They are afraid for his life. They have pled with Paul not to go. They urge him not to go. Paul seems determined. He says, I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And in verse 14, his friends, seeing that they can say no more, say, the will of the Lord be done. They did not know what was going to happen to him. They could not know where it would all end. It might end in Jerusalem with him being stoned as Stephen was. It might end in Rome with him being put to death there as soon as he arrived. It might end in a plot of the Jews to secretly get him exposed and murder him. There were many possibilities. They did not know what God's will was, but they were submissive to it. It's James who counsels us in James, the fourth chapter. In these words, beginning in verse 13, of James 4, Come now ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow, what is your life? For ye are a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that." Now what James is counseling here is what we've seen illustrated. We can't know the secret will of God. We can't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And we are not accountable for what's going to happen tomorrow. We can't know whether we will go to this place or that place, or whether we will do this thing or that thing tomorrow. We can't know what purpose what will is in the secret counsel of God for us tomorrow. But we must always be in the attitude of submissiveness to that will. Thy will be done. We find, for instance, Jonah. who knew that God's will for him was to go to Nineveh. That was revealed to him specifically by God. Yet he did not want to do that. He did not want to be in harmony with that will of God. And he purposed to go in the opposite direction. But in spite of what he wanted, soon Jonah was walking the streets of Nineveh. God overruled his every attempt to rebel against the will of God. The wretched Jonah was never voluntarily in the will of God in the sense that he rejoiced in it or was submissive to it. And even when he was found doing what God purposed to be done, namely proclaiming God's word of warning to the people of Nineveh, he was miserable because he was constantly in rebellion against it, not submissive to it. On the other hand, we take Paul. on his second missionary journey. Apparently his will, his intention, his plan was to evangelize Asia Minor, that part of the world today we call Turkey. This was where he had worked already, he had had great success there. His vision was apparently to cover that whole area with the gospel. He attempted to go one direction And he was stopped. We're not told how, but he was stopped. The doors were closed. He turned around and went in the opposite direction. And again, the doors were slammed shut. He couldn't go. Finally, he found himself in one little corner, one little seaport with nowhere to go. Where would God have him to go? But he was submissive, and the door across the water over into Europe was opened. And he went. He didn't rebel against God. He did not resist that will of God when it was opened, when it was made known to him. In God's own good time, he went in accord with the will of God. So we see then that there is a sovereign will of God. a secret counsel of God that is not made known to us, usually until it occurs. We are not accountable for that will so long as it's the secret counsel of God. But we are to be submissive to it. We are constantly to have that attitude Thy will be done, not my will, but your will. And even when we pray, and even when we plan, this must always, this plan must always be under and submissive to, with that attitude of submission to whatever pleases God. But now there is an accountable will of God that is one for which we are accountable. And as we've already shown, we see that here in Deuteronomy, how the Lord would hold Israel accountable for the keeping of his law. If they were to continue in the land and prosper in the land, they must do this. And if they refused, they would have to pay the consequences. Paul gives us some very good counsel regarding this revealed will of God in Ephesians 5.17. He says, "...Wherefore, be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Now, in Scripture, by definition, the foolish one is one who hears the will of God. He hears it in his word. He knows what God's word has taught him that he ought to do, but he does not do it. We have an illustration of this at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus likens the wise man to one who builds his house upon the rock, he says he is like the man who hears and does the will of God. That's what biblical wisdom means. Biblical wisdom is both hearing and doing, that is, applying God's will to your life. So our responsibility in regard to the will of God is not only to know it, but to obey it, in accord as God has revealed his will in his word. And Paul's exhortation is here, don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And by understanding he means not only to be familiar with what it says, but know how to apply it to your own life and then apply it. Now we've already indicated this, but it's well to ask ourselves again, where do we find the revealed will of God? Where is it to be found? It is to be found in God's written word. The will of God is written in what we call the Holy Scriptures. There are many passages that we could refer to. I mentioned, for instance, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished, and do every good work." That's where we find the will of God. It's in the Word of God written. That is the only infallible guide, therefore, to all that we are to do and all we are responsible to do before God. Peter, likewise, speaks of this revealed Word of God in 2 Peter, the first chapter. He speaks in these words, we have the prophecy made more sure. 2 Peter 1, chapter 19. We have the word of prophecy, made more sure whereunto ye do well, that ye take heed as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, till the day dawn and the day star arise in your heart, knowing this verse, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man. but men's faith from God being moved by the Holy Spirit. Thus, it came by the will of God. It is the will of God. It is what he has revealed and made known to us. Now, when we look outside of God's Word for some help in finding the will of God, It is tantamount to rejecting the word of God as revealed in scripture. It is tantamount to saying, Lord, I'm not satisfied that you have given me enough in this your word to guide me, to enable me to make the decisions that I ought to make. Now there have been times when men have sought that which was beyond the word of God to guide them. We think of Gideon, for instance. Gideon was told very specifically by God what he was to do. We see this in Judges in the 6th chapter and the 36th verse. Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt say this real by my hand," now listen to what he says, "...as thou hast spoken." God had already revealed this to him. Behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor, if there be dew on the fleece only, and if it be dry upon all the ground, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by my hand as thou hast spoken." Twice in this short passage, Gideon admits that God has already verbally made known to him what he would have him to do and what God would do through him. But he wants a sign. He wants something beyond the word of God. He wants a sign. So he lays out the fleece. Now God in his long-suffering and in his patience and in his mercy tolerated this weakness of the faith of Gideon. It was not a sign of strength. He had the word of God. He wanted some visible sign. Now tragically, many Christians have thought this same way. They read of this and they say, well, I'm going to lay out a fleece. They don't actually lay out a fleece, but they set up some kind of a condition. I don't know what I should do, but I'm going to get God to give me a sign. And if this set of circumstances happens, Then I'm going to know that God wants me to go there or do this thing. And if it doesn't happen, that means God doesn't want me to. Beloved, this is not an act in faith. It's just the opposite. It's really a denial of faith. It's saying, I'm not willing to walk by faith. I will only walk by sight. And so, Jesus himself In the New Testament, in Matthew 12, 38, 39, and many other places, it says, it is a wicked and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign. Signs are not the way in which we are to learn the will of God. It's interesting if you go back to that 2 Peter passage. Peter, before this portion in which he commends the Word of God, tells about a very unique experience that he and two others shared with Jesus. We know it as the time of the transformation of Jesus up on the mountain. And there they saw glorious things with their eyes. And Peter reminds them that he saw these wonderful things with his eyes. But then he goes on to say, but we have the word of prophecy more sure, more certain than anything we can say we saw with our eyes. Well, where is the will of God spelled out for us? In 1 Thessalonians, you find one passage, chapter 4, verse 3. This is the will of God, even your sanctification. is the will of God, even your sanctification. Now that's just a very brief statement, but it embraces really all of God's revealed will for you as a child of God. From the moment you're born again into the kingdom of God by the grace of God and by His initiative, from the moment you become His child and are able to cry out, because you have been reborn by His grace. From that moment on, the will of God for you is your sanctification. You're growing day by day more and more in the will of God. You're learning to bring your life more and more wholly into the hands of God, to live increasingly exclusively for Him. That's what it means to be a saint. to be one set aside for God and for him alone. And sanctification, then, is the process in which we saints grow in our knowledge and application of the will of God to our lives toward that perfection which Paul calls the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. to be all that God would have us to be. Now Paul says, I have not yet attained, I'm not there yet, but I press on toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That's what he saved me to become. This is your will. Now the whole word of God amplifies that will and expands it and helps us to lay hold of every aspect of that will of God. But here it is spelled out for us in one concise statement. Another concise statement we might refer to is in 1 Peter. Second chapter and fifteenth verse. So is the will of God that by well doing he should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Here are the foolish men. Those who are not willing to obey God's revealed will. who do not take it seriously. And our task as God's children is so to live in obedience to the will of God that we put them to silence. That we are living examples before the world of what God can and will do through his own, in transforming them into all that he has purposed them to be. This is the will of God, then, your sanctification. This is the will of God, that by so doing, by well doing, by doing what pleases God, what he has revealed to you in his word, you put to silence the foolish. Thus it must be said that doing the will of God and being in the will of God has to do with your obedience to what God has revealed in his word pleases him in your life, in your conduct, in your purpose, in your goals, in your motivations. That is the will of God for which you and I are accountable wherever we are, whenever we are. It is that will that is our responsibility. Where we're going to be tomorrow is not. What we're going to be doing tomorrow in terms of circumstances as they develop. That is not our responsibility today. But why we are going there, the motivations of our heart, why we want to do this thing, the goals and purposes of our life, that may take us to that place or another place. That is our responsibility. We will be held accountable for that. Daniel found himself in Babylon as a young man. He did not will to go there. He didn't purpose to go there. He didn't plan to go there. He didn't go there in any conscious obedience to God. He was submissive to the will of God, and that submission to the will of God and God's good purpose brought him as a prisoner to Babylon and forced him into a circumstance in which he was to serve a pagan king, took from him the name that he had been given by his godly parents and gave to him a name that honored the pagan god of Babylon. Forced him to study their literature, their learning, all of these things. He was not responsible for having decided to do those things at all. These were the circumstances that brought him there. Now that was part of God's secret will. He could never have known that ahead of time, but he was there. But what he was responsible for, where he was, was to obey God in accord with that revealed will of God. And so in that little sphere of responsibility that was his, he responded as a child of God. And God blessed him, and God used him, and God worked through him. But always, God moved him from position to position as pleased God, and he could never know from day to day where that would be. But wherever he found himself, his great concern was to glorify his God and honor his God before King or anyone else. You see, he was responding to that will of God that he knew from the scriptures. Even the Lord Jesus Christ. We're told in the fourth chapter of John, Jesus must go through Samaria as he was passing from Judah into Galilee. Why must he go? Jesus could have followed the route that was so popular to the Jews of that day. They would cross the Jordan, go up the east side and cross back into Galilee to avoid the Samaritans because of the prejudice that was against them. But Jesus had no such prejudice. And he went right straight through the land. And he was tired. And he said it well. There is no indication in that scripture that Jesus knew what was going to happen next. We can't really know whether he did or didn't. That's not the real question. He was there in obedience to the will of God. that was revealed. He was there because there was no prejudice in his heart. And being found there, he was ready to serve his Father. And when the opportunity came, he ministered to the woman who came and gave to her the water of life. So we, in our contemplations of changes that we might make in our job, or whether to sell this house and buy another, whether to go to this school or another, whether to marry this person or not to marry, these matters that face us every day What is it that we are responsible for? We are responsible for God's revealed will that determines that we are to strive to do that which pleases God in everything. Not what God has purposed that is going to be done in our life, but what He has revealed in terms of His good will. word that pleases Him in the conduct of His children. Is then this thing that I contemplate doing motivated out of that desire, out of that desire to grow spiritually, to apply more and more God's Word to my life, out of that desire to be sanctified, does it come out of that desire to do well in God's sight, to serve and please Him? Or is there some other motivation? I want more comfort. I want to enjoy more of the good things of this life. I want the prestige. I want to satisfy my fleshly desires." You see, it's there that we're responsible. It doesn't really matter whether we go to Podunkhala or New York City. The question is, am I going in accord with what God has revealed? What is my motivation? What is my desire? I have a very personal illustration of that in my own mind. It was my desire and obedience to the Word of God to be a missionary. From the time I was called into the gospel ministry and all the way through college and seminary, that was my plan, to go to Brazil, even study the language. In the last month of my last year of seminary, suddenly I was confronted with a new need I had not known before. A need in Korea because it was a war-torn nation, because couples couldn't get in there, and because missionaries were tired and needed some relief. And I was young and I was single. And so I went. Now, I did not know that God was going to provide me a wife over there. The girl I met, a missionary nurse. But that developed. That was the secret counsel of God. Had I said, well I want to go to Korea because there's a nice looking girl out there that I want to marry and I'll just let the church pay my way out there, that would have not pleased God. But God's will was worked out, and I rejoice that it was. I did not continue as a missionary in Korea, and if nothing else was accomplished by my being there than that, it was worth far more than anything I can ever express. I believe the Lord used my ministry there, but What I want us to see is that God has his own good secret counsel. Paul puts it this way, we can be assured that all things do work together for good to those that love him. And when we seek to be motivated by his will as revealed in scripture, wherever we find ourselves, it's that will that we're to be about. Where we'll be tomorrow, we can't really know. As James said, we can plan, but we can't know. But wherever we are tomorrow, what God is going to hold us accountable for is whether or not we're concerned for the word he has revealed, whether we're concerned for his will, our sanctification. our spiritual growth, our applying his word to our lives, whether we are concerned that our lives be as light shining in the darkness to glorify him wherever we are, that is what we will be accountable for. You know, two people can be in the same place and God be pleased with one and not the other. Jesus tells us of two who went up to pray in the temple. But it was not the place they were, it was not even that which they were doing that made the difference. It was what was in their hearts, the motivation of their hearts. One went away justified, the other did not. Two people go into the temple and put offerings in the temple. God is pleased with one because it's given out of the right motivation, while the other just gave out of his riches. And though the temple keepers might have been more impressed with the amount of money given by the rich one, God was looking at the heart and he was concerned for that. We find in Romans 12 These words, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Now that's what it means to put your life in the will of God. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may know the will of God, the perfect, the good, the acceptable. Now by that Paul is saying that there is a tremendous pressure in this world exerting itself against us and our plans and our minds and our goals and our purposes, a will of this world, a counsel of this world that is trying to mold us into its image. Be not conformed, don't be shaped in your thinking, in your life, by this world's counsel. And how can we counter that? By having our minds transformed by the will of God, so that we both know and do His revealed will. The psalmist understood this, and in Psalm 1, he begins to describe the blessed life in rather negative terms, saying, blessed is the man that does not follow the counsel of the ungodly, that is, of the world, does not walk in the way of sinners, does not sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of God, and in his law he meditates day and night. Now that's what we're responsible for. That word of God, meditation, means learning to apply every facet of God's will to our lives. And if we're concerned for that, and if that directs our every decision, then wherever we are, We'll be in God's will. Whatever we're doing, we'll be in God's will. And where he'll put us and what he'll have us doing, that's his matter and that's his affair. And he will work that as pleases him. Thus, being in the will of God doesn't have so much to do with this place or that. doing this thing or that, being in the will of God has to do with our knowledge of this and our application of it to our lives. When we seek to step beyond that, to know the secret counsel of God, when we want to know what God has purposed beyond what he revealed in his word. We are in essence saying, Lord, I'm not willing to walk by the plan you've given me. I won't walk by faith. I've got to walk by sight. We'll never grow spiritually if we do that. Okay, let's take our break now. In the light of what we have said tonight, I want us to look at a couple of passages in Scripture and give you just a moment or two to read these. And as you read them, be thinking about this. How has this child of God dealt with the will of God, both the secret will and the revealed will of God? The first one I'll give you is in Daniel 3, 16 and 17. Look that up and read it to yourself and think about it for a minute or two. How has the child of God, or children of God as the case may be, dealt with the will of God? the secret and the revealed will of God." Daniel 3, verses 16 and 17. I'll just give you a couple of minutes here to look it up and think about it. As you know, the friends of Daniel were faced with a command to bow down and worship the image that Nebuchadnezzar had erected. Now, confronted with that situation and his threat to take their lives if they did not, how did they deal with the secret will of God, the secret counsel of God? What was their attitude about that? Yes, they trusted him, but can you be more specific? What did they say with respect to the secret will of God? Did they know whether or not they were going to die in the fiery furnace? No, they did not. What did they know about God? He was able to deliver them. They did not know whether he would or not. Now, they did say, we know one thing, he'll take us out of your hands, it won't be your decision, it'll be God's. That's what they meant. Whether we live or die is not your decision, it's God's. And they knew he was able. You see, this then is submission to the will of God. They were prepared to die. Now, what about the revealed will of God? What was their response to that? How did that direct their behavior? They would not worship the image, because God's word was very specific about that. They knew that their responsibility was to obey the revealed will of God. Thou shalt not bow down to them. God had made that very clear. No question about that. And it was that, you see, that they determined. It was that that they decided. They couldn't decide whether God would or wouldn't. They would not be so audacious as to say, I know we're not going to die. But they did say it's in God's hands, not yours, O King, and we know what God would have us to do, and that's what we're going to do. Okay, let's look at one other passage. This one may be a little more difficult, but I want you to think about it anyway. This is in 2 Corinthians chapter 1. verses 15 to 17, 2 Corinthians 1, 15 to 17. In this instance, Paul had a plan, he had a will that he had desired to carry out. Unless you know the whole context here of these two letters, it might be a little difficult to see this, but I think you can kind of guess at it from what he's saying here. Did he get to carry out that will? Do you think he did? That plan that he had said, I was minded to come first to you. that you might have a second benefit, and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come unto you, and of you to be set forward on my journey unto Judea." Now that was his plan, that was his desire. But the fact that he says, I was minded to come, and now he's writing a second letter because he couldn't come. He wasn't able to come at that time. So he is explaining to the people, and he says, did I show fickleness? Now your version may translate a little differently, but verse 17, was I fickle-minded in this? Did I say to you, well, I'm going to do this and that, and then it didn't work out, and so you're saying, well, you're just fickle-minded? Do I purpose? Do I lay my plans? on the basis of my flesh? Is it with me to make the decision, yes or no, as to whether I'm going to get to do the things that I want to do?" Well, his answer is clearly, no, that's not. Now what he's struggling with here is, his own desires and his own plans are over against the overruling will of God. God wanted him to remain in Ephesus. God gave him so much work to do there, he couldn't get away as he had planned to. He had to change his plans. He had had a plan, had a course of action, but I dare say that he was functioning under the same kind of counsel that James gave, if the Lord will. And what he's saying here in verse 17, the yea and the nay are not with me. I can't decide for certain that I am going tomorrow over to Corinth to see you. That's my desire, that's my plan. is going to ultimately determine that. Now, Paul's desire to go there was to meet a need. It was a good motivation of his heart. They wanted him. They needed him. He desired to go there. But though his desire was to go there and he had made tentative plans to go, they were interrupted. He was delayed. He was not able to go there, as it actually worked out ultimately He had to go to Macedonia first before he ever got there on this trip. So God, in his secret counsel, knew where Paul was going to be. Paul could make his plans, but you can see that his plans were completely submissive to the will of God, the overruling will of God. But in every case, whether he went there, it would be for the right motivation. Whether he stayed in Ephesus and labored there, it was in the right motivation as well. He was there to honor and serve the Lord, and the decision was ultimately not his whether he would or would not be there the next week or month or whatever. If the Lord wills, that was his attitude. OK, these were just a couple of passages to kind of help you look at it and think through the differences in the sovereign, secret counsel of God and the revealed will of God. And it's obvious we can't influence God's secret counsel and will at all, but we are able to respond to his revealed will. Okay, now I want to open up to give you opportunity to ask questions. Any point we made tonight or any point we didn't make that you'd like to, and I'm not sure I can answer them, but I certainly will try to give it thought, and if I can't tonight, maybe I can come with a better answer tomorrow. Any questions? Or any desires for clarification? Yes? Non-elected person, you mean someone who is not a believer in Jesus Christ. Can he please God? There is no way he can do the will of God, if you're speaking of the revealed will of God. It's impossible for him to please God. The scriptures tell us over and over, there is none that seeks God, there is none that does good. No, not one. To please God in regard to his revealed will, you have to be a child of God. There's no other way. His not killing does not please God in the sense that his not killing is not because he loves God and wants to please Him because he's afraid of the consequences or some other reason. But the motivation is wrong. He can never please God. Now, he can't help but do the will of God in terms of God's purpose. Other questions? Only in the sense that when it's made known, If it's something that we hadn't expected, we certainly want to seek through the Word to—in other words, if our minds and hearts are not submissive at this point and we're rebellious against it, we should certainly, through his Word, seek to understand his revealed Word that will help us to be submissive and help us to see that this is good and that it will work together for good because we love him and he loves us. But we should never seek to know the secret counsel of God. That is not our responsibility. It's not our concern. And that's what signs really are after. They're after wanting to know the secret counsel of God. of the revealed word we need for every attitude of the heart and every moment of our day in terms of our purpose and goal and the way we spend it. We have all of that. We should never speak for the secret counsel of God. I'm sorry, I thank you for reminding me. Yes? I've read a number of commentaries that did not condemn Gideon, or even insistently. I don't find it specifically where in the Old Testament that Gideon was condemned. The question is whether or not we rightfully condemn Gideon for his insistence on the fleece being laid out. Let me say this, there are many times in scripture that a sin of one of God's children is not specifically condemned, because there is that broad, clear revelation of God that is really self-condemnatory of the particular sin of the saint. For instance, you find several cases where a man marries more than one wife, where it is not specifically condemned. But there is no case where a man has more than one wife that there are not many, many consequences of that sin that result. You think of Abraham and the consequences of his taking another. David and the consequences of his marrying many wives that brought great tragedies in his life, which is condemnatory enough. And in this particular context, we are shown here a real and a serious weakness in Gideon, because not long after this, Gideon actually commits idolatry. And what that shows us is that here was a man who was seeking for guidance outside of God's word, and so, confronted with temptations, he succumbed to them. Now, all of that gives us a picture of Gideon that should be its own commentary of his failures. The question is this, if someone asks the Lord to show them his will. Is that the same as asking for a sign? Are you guilty at that point? And I say, no, not if you are seeking his will and his word. The Lord can bring to mind passages of scripture if our heart and desire is to be obedient to that word. He may drive us to the word to study it for a long time. He can help us to examine our own hearts, to know whether our motivations are right or not, to ferret out a wrong motivation through the study of the Word and through prayer and through meditation. In that sense, it's not wrong to ask for his help. We all need it. But if you are looking for something beyond Scripture to make you come to the decision, then you are, I think, going astray. Still have about five minutes. Is human instinct the will of God? Is that what you're saying? human instinct, knowledge of the situation and conditions do have to do with many of the decisions that we make, God may use then our past knowledge, our past experience, many things in our background that make us do what we do in the way we do it. God is in control of us and he has been from the time we were born. And many times experiences that we have had and background all play their part in the ultimate decision that we make. But what we must be very careful of is that we are not listening to human counsel and worldly values and worldly mores and worldly standards in making our decision, and only the Word of God can help us to sane out those things and get them out of the way so that it's just between us and the Word of God revealed when we make that decision. Now, our makeup and background, all of that can play its part, but you see, God has been working in us all these years to bring us to that particular point. Well, the question of whether or not when we find a door closed, that we thought that was the way God wanted us to go, And yet we found that door closed. Should we try harder or should we take that as evidence that God will not have us to do that thing and to go in some other direction? And I suppose that in many respects this is one of the most difficult questions to answer in terms of knowing and doing the will of God. Again, the only thing that I can answer is this. that we should examine our own motivations as to why it is that we still want to do this thing. If many opportunities that we sought have been blocked and failed, is it pride? I'm just not going to give up. I don't want to look like a failure in this thing. Is there in us, as we've studied God's word, a conviction that this is something that must be done, and we just feel that it's right for us to make every attempt we can to do it? Again, it's a matter of the motivation of our heart. Why are we insistent, or why are we quickly discouraged? You see, if you really felt this was the thing that you should do, And yet when it's blocked there, you say, well, okay, I'll try something else. Then maybe God is showing you that your own heart is not in this thing, that you're not committed to it as you ought to be, as you made the show of being desirous of doing it and yet were quickly turned away. It may reveal in you a secret desire not to do it anyway. So it takes much prayer and meditation on the Word of God to be in the will of God. But again, as we close, let me just say that being in the will of God is being active to do what God has revealed as his will clearly in Scripture, clearly in Scripture. And if we're involved in that, we are in the will of God. And what he will do with it is in his will.