I will, if God Will – Acts 18:19-21

I would like to pick up a couple of Biblical themes from Acts 18 before we move on.

I thought seriously about a message on “the way of God” – verse 26,

but I preached on that theme a year ago, when we first came to it in Acts 9, so we’ll skip it this time.

Of course, it will be impossible to ignore the subject of John’s ministry and baptism.

Tonight we’ll look at the subject of church letters,

But this morning I’d like you to think about Paul’s incidental comment about the WILL OF GOD in verse 21.

“I will return again unto you, if God will.”

This is something which the Christian should consider very seriously – and very often.

It’s also something which the lost man needs to consider,

but generally speaking this subject requires a regenerated heart.

It boils down to self-reliance versus a recognition of the sovereign dominion of the Lord.

The unsaved man – the lost man – lives his life in dependence upon himself or other people around him.

Every once in a while he may utter words that refer to God,

But generally speaking, he thinks that everything, from the food on his table to his eternal destiny, depends entirely upon what HE does.

For true Christian, however, the one who has relinquished all personal efforts to give himself eternal life;

This man usually knows, at least intellectually, that Jehovah is in sovereign control of all things.

He knows that he ought to say, “If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”

Unfortunately, even Christians are prone to fall back upon their self-dependent ways, and as a result they get themselves into trouble.

We all need be schooled in – “I will, if God will.”

When Judy and I were in Calgary a couple of weeks ago, and walking back to the hotel,

I pointed to an old movie theater and said, “That is the place; that is the theater.”

Please don’t think too harshly of either me or my parents, because things were different 45 years ago.

In those days, kids movies were as dangerous as oatmeal.

My parents would sometimes drop my sister and I off at the door of a theater on 9^th avenue, to watch the Children’s Saturday matinee.

They would give us enough money for our admission and a small snack.

Then they would take care of their business and pick us up when the movie was finished.

I have no recollection how many times this was done, but it must have been quite a few.

And then one summery Saturday, my Dad wasn’t there to get us when the movie was finished.

I was 8 or 10 years old and my sister was a year younger.

After waiting a few minutes (hours) I made the executive decision that we should start walking home.

Home wasn’t much more than 10 or 15 miles away, so off we went.

I knew exactly where we were and where we were going; I was in complete control.

When we crossed the bridge over the Bow River, that was about the time when Shirley started crying.

It got tough; walk a few steps and drag my sister; walk a few steps and drag my sister.

We were about half way home to Parkdale when my Dad caught up to us.

It probably would have been better if the police, who had also been looking for us, had found us first.

Need I tell you that I was in serious trouble?

I made a decision to walk home, contrary to the decree of my father.

I sincerely believed that it was a wise decision and the only option.

But my will clashed with my Dad’s will,

and before the day was finished I was well schooled in the principle, “I will, ONLY if Dad wills.”

This is a principle which every child of God needs to learn and practice.

Let’s think, first of all, about GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY.

Jehovah is in complete control over physical matter – ALL physical matter.

In the beginning there was nothing but the triune God.

There was no living thing, no earth for living things to live upon; not even light with which to see.

There was nothing but God.

“And God said, Let there BE light; and there was light.”

That was before He created the things which we generally consider as the sources of light; the sun, fire, a candle, a light bulb.

From out of nothing God created, and created, and created.

“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed BY THE WORD OF GOD, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

From out of nothing God created the first of everything.

And in that act of creation, the Lord established His sovereignty over all inanimate objects of the universe.

But subsequently, He has proven again and again, that He is still the Lord over His physical universe.

In the days when the earth had yet to learn the meaning of rain, God said that it was going to rain.

“And it rained forty days and forty nights.”

“I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods.

Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.

He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.”

God sent fire & brimstone down upon Sodom & Gomorrah, because He is the God of fire & brimstone.

In Exodus God ignited a scrubby little bush, but He ordained that the fire not consume it.

And He blackened the air and sky over all Egypt, except for where the Hebrews dwelt.

In Numbers 16, Korah, the son of Izhar, lead a rebellion against the authority of God,

so the Lord ordered the earth to open up under the rebel’s feet;

it swallowed them up, and then closed up on them again.

How was it that God spoke of specific famines and droughts and they came to pass, not only generally, but even to exact places and the exact number of months?

I shouldn’t need to give you any more examples of God’s sovereignty over His physical creation.

So I’ll move on to the Lord’s sovereign control over the animal kingdom.

How did Noah get all those animals into the ark? God ordered them aboard, in precise numbers.

How was it that they didn’t tear that ship apart trying to kill each other? God had ordered them to live peaceably for a while.

Why was there a ram caught in the thicket at the top of Mount Moriah for Abraham to sacrifice?

Because God told that ram with its big rack of horns to stick his head in the bush.

Most of the ten plagues of Egypt involved various creatures, and that they were under the control of the Lord cannot be denied.

When Balaam was riding towards his rendezvous with Balak, his donkey was given power to speak – something which the Lord has never permitted since, as far as I know.

The milk cows the Philistines, used to carry the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel, were lead of the Lord.

The Lord ordered ravens to feed the prophet of God, and they willingly obeyed for weeks, if not months.

God is sovereign over spirits – both angelic and demonic.

When Christ Jesus told Satan’s angels jump, they asked “how high?”

Actually, in at least one case, they asked the Saviour what they could and couldn’t do.

And of course, the Lord is the commanding officer of his own army of angels, but that should be obvious.

Not so obvious is the Lord’s sovereignty over the spirits of dead men.

When the God the Son, ordered the re-emergence of Lazarus, he was powerless to disobey.

How many times was it that God ordered human spirits back into their dead physical bodies?

And then there is God’s authority over self-willed and self-controlled LIVING men.

“The king‘s heart is in hand of the LORD, as rivers of water: HE turneth it whithersoever he will.“

II Kings 19 – “This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria.

Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears,

therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips,

and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.”

II Chronicles 20 – “And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem,

in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said, O LORD God of our fathers,

art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen?

and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?”

“We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose . . .”

Because God has the authority and power to stop any enemy in his tracts.

Because God has the authority and power to control Satan.

Because God has the authority and power over any and every vicious beast or destructive hail-stone.

Yes, and He is even sovereign over the hearts of those people whom He has chosen to save.

“And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

God is in control of every aspect of His creation; God is sovereign; God really is God.

And that brings us to MAN’S LIABILITY.

That is: under the fact of the Lord’s sovereign control of the universe, man has certain responsibilities.

A liability is something for which a person is liable; an obligation, an indebtedness.

And certainly, if the Lord is ultimately the One who puts quail on our table, and rain on our wheat, then we are indebted to Him.

At the very least, we owe God our heart-felt THANKSGIVING for life and the necessities of life.

Every morning when we first open our eyes we should express our gratitude for the Lord’s grace.

And every evening after the Lord has preserved us and fed us for another day, we should be filled with praise and thanksgiving for those blessings.

In addition to an attitude of gratitude, we have other obligations as well.

We notice here in Acts 18 that Paul made plans – both long range and short range plans.

Despite believing in the sovereign control of God, Paul was not a fatalist.

He made plans and preparations for things which he thought were coming up in his life.

He was not an inert log in the middle of the river of God’s providence.

He was the captain of his own little rowboat, and he was plying the oars to make sure that he got the most of the Lord’s river.

For some undisclosed reason Paul really wanted to be in Jerusalem in time for the next Jewish feast.

We know from the rest of the chapter that Paul was providentially enabled to make that appointment,

and then he journeyed up to Antioch and spent some time at his home church.

I’m sure that this too was in Paul’s heart when he left Corinth.

But it was also in Paul’s plans to eventually return to this synagogue in Ephesus.

“I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will.”

There is nothing wrong with making plans for your life.

As a young person, you may lawfully choose the long term direction of your future.

You may know another young person, whom you think that you’d like to marry.

You have an interest in a certain kind of work, which would not only make you feel good and put food on your table, but would be a blessing to your family and neighbors.

So you work hard and you study hard, and you try to prepare yourself for the future that you envision for yourself.

And along the way, you make other more short range plans:

A vacation, a place to live, a temporary job, a car that you’d like to have.

There is nothing wrong with making plans like these.

In fact, the more planning and preparations you make for your lives, the better off you will be and the more wise you prove yourself to be.

It’s like having a budget to help manage your finances.

There is nothing wrong with planning on a certain income,

and planning on spending and saving those monies in a regular, and consistent way.

But it is also one of our responsibilities under the sovereignty of the Lord to submit that budget to Him.

Yes, you would like to save enough money to make a good down payment on a house or a car.

But you need to remember that it is by the permission and will of God that you have an income to budget in the first place.

It is the Lord Who provided you with that employer, and it is the Lord who has given you the health and the brains to carry out your responsibilities at that job.

We have the responsibility of making and following a budget;

we have the responsibility to thank the Lord for monies to budget,

And we have the responsibility to submit our budget to the Lord for His approval.

Is that the automobile that the Lord wants you to have?

Are you spending too much money on soft-drinks, candy or clothes?

Where in your budget is your tithe and how much are you setting aside as offerings?

Paul made his plans to go to Jerusalem, Antioch and to eventually return to Ephesus, BUT ONLY if the Lord approved those plans.

That will always be the case; the Lord will always be the Lord; He will always make the ultimate decisions.

He can veto your budget in a moment with a fire at your house, a car accident, or in a thousand ways.

And therefore you are obligated to submit every budget, every plan, and actually every moment of every day to the Lord.

“I will, if God will.”

The Book of James has been one of the more controversial books in the New Testament.

There have been lots of preachers who said that it didn’t even belong in the Bible;

Men like Reformer Martin Luther for example, who called it an “epistle of straw.”

One of the reasons for their dislike of James is due to its very practical point of view.

It even looks at faith and salvation practically,

making some people think that it contradicts what Paul teaches about faith and salvation.

Those critics are totally wrong and there is no contradiction,

But it still remains a very practical book.

In James 4, this brother of the Lord Jesus wrote:

“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

For that ye OUGHT to say, IF THE LORD WILL, we shall live, and do this, or that.”

It appears to me that only the heart regenerated by the grace of God will have this kind of attitude.

But I know for a fact, in looking at myself, that even Christian hearts have to be schooled and disciplined to think and behave this way.

It takes concentration and practice to remember that in the Lord we live and move and have our being.

As Paul preached to the Athenians:

“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”

Perhaps the point that Paul was trying to make was a little different from mine this morning,

but he declared God’s sovereign control of all things as the creator of all things,

and that the Lord has determined the events of history and the boundaries of men.

We all should therefore seek the Lord, because in him we live, and move and have our being.

Of course we have the obligation to make plans and to have short-term earthly hopes,

But all those plans and hopes must be considered under the sovereignty of the Lord.

Another responsibility that we have is to learn to read the signs of God’s providence.

There were a few occasions when the Lord miraculously visited Paul and told him what direction to take.

But for every one of those visions and visitations,

there were a thousand more common indications of God’s will and direction.

It was Paul’s intention to go to Jerusalem and to return at a later date to Ephesus.

But if the ship sank on some reefs just north of Cyprus, Paul might not make it to that feast.

And if he contracted typhus while in Antioch, it might delay or cancel his trip back to Asia.

Not only must we submit our plans and budgets to the Lord, but we must be watching for His day-to-day leadership.

Sometime that leadership smacks us across the face, but sometimes it’s a little more subtle.

We may have plans to row across the river of God’s will to some city on the opposite shore,

but the Lord may want us to float down-stream a short way

and to visit another destination on this side of the river.

Paul talked about this sort of thing in Philippians 1:

He had earnest expectations and hopes, but he submitted them to his Saviour.

He wanted Christ to be magnified in his body, and he didn’t care whether it was by life or by death.

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.

For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”

“I will return again unto you, if God will; I will, if God will.”

We need to learn about God’s sovereignty and man’s liability

And eventually we’ll be able to look backs and see ETERNITY’S HISTORY.

I think that perhaps the story of Balaam best illustrates this subject.

Balaam called himself a prophet of God; we might call him a professing Christian.

He was offered a great deal of money by the King of Moab to curse the nation of Israel.

Balaam was very interested in that money, wanting to provide for his family and for his future retirement.

But he was forbidden by God to curse the nation that the Lord was determined to bless.

It was a clash of Balaam’s wants and will against Jehovah’s will.

Eventually Balaam made the journey to visit his potential benefactor, and to see the people he was being asked to curse.

Along the way there was a conflict with one of the angels of God, and with Balaam’s talking donkey.

Then several times, this false prophet attempted to curse Israel, but God reversed his words into blessings.

Back and forth the man went against the will of the sovereign God, but the outcome was guaranteed.

God’s will always supercedes the whims of man.

Then eventually Balaam tried a different tack, and ultimately he was slain for his rebellion against God.

Today, the story of Balaam and Balak is just one of the footnotes in Biblical history.

The real history is that God had His way, as He always does.

God is God;

God is sovereign;

Jehovah is in control of His creation.

And you and I had better bring our hearts into alignment with that sovereignty.

“I will, only if God wills.”

But as I said a few minutes ago, only those whose hearts have been regenerated will be willing to do this.

If you are living in rebellion against the will of God, it is proof that you are lost and headed toward Hell.

You need to be born again; you need a new heart.

You need to throw yourself down at the feet of Christ and at the foot of the cross.

You need to repent of your sin and believe the gospel about the Lord’s forgiveness and salvation.

What IS your attitude toward the sovereignty of God?