“Come now, you that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year,
and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is
your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For that
you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live, and do this or that. But now you
rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knows
to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.”
James 4:13-17
Still, whether you write, “If the Lord wills” or not, always let it be clearly understood. And let it be conspicuous in all your arrangements that you recognize that God is over all and that you are under His control. When you say, “I will do this or that,” always add, in thought, if not in words, “If the Lord wills.” No harm can come to you if you bow to God’s sovereign sway.
We should recognize God in the affairs of the future, because first, there is a divine will which governs all things. I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. Even the little things in life are not overlooked by the all-seeing eyes. “The very hairs of your head are numbered.” The station of a rush by the river is as fixed and foreknown as the station of a king. And the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as much as the stars in their courses. All things are under regulation and have an appointed place in God’s plan—and nothing happens after all but what He permits or ordains. Knowing that, we will not always say, “If the Lord wills,” yet we will always feel it. Whatever our purposes may be, there is a higher power which we must always acknowledge—and there is an omnipotent purpose before which we must bow in lowliest reverence, saying, “If the Lord wills.”
God's Will About the Future, Sermon 2242 - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Still, whether you write, “If the Lord wills” or not, always let it be clearly understood. And let it be conspicuous in all your arrangements that you recognize that God is over all and that you are under His control. When you say, “I will do this or that,” always add, in thought, if not in words, “If the Lord wills.” No harm can come to you if you bow to God’s sovereign sway.
We should recognize God in the affairs of the future, because first, there is a divine will which governs all things. I believe that nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. Even the little things in life are not overlooked by the all-seeing eyes. “The very hairs of your head are numbered.” The station of a rush by the river is as fixed and foreknown as the station of a king. And the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as much as the stars in their courses. All things are under regulation and have an appointed place in God’s plan—and nothing happens after all but what He permits or ordains. Knowing that, we will not always say, “If the Lord wills,” yet we will always feel it. Whatever our purposes may be, there is a higher power which we must always acknowledge—and there is an omnipotent purpose before which we must bow in lowliest reverence, saying, “If the Lord wills.”
God's Will About the Future, Sermon 2242 - Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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