In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience and their state of good.
But from that day, that day of disobedience, the whole creation has been groaning and travailing together in pain until now. But to discover the fountain of the disease is also to discover the secret of the remedy. If the world owes its present misery to the fact that man has followed his own will, the world will see its perfect day when man submits his own will to the will of God. “Come and let us return” is the prophet’s cry, “let us get back to the old allegiance.” “Come and let us return” is the preacher’s call to-day. The way to the millennium is along the path of obedience. When God’s kingship is real and effective, because men everywhere are obedient, the Golden Age will have dawned. The new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness will be a blessed fact when—
We learn with God to will one will,
To do and to endure.
Thy Will be done! This petition teaches us that it must be our supreme desire that God may have His way with us. You will notice, as I pointed out a Saturday or two ago, that this petition comes before the petitions for personal blessing. It is infinitely more important that God’s will should be done than that we should have the things upon which we have set our hearts. “Thy will be done!” Do you not feel humbled and reproached by this petition? I will speak for myself, and say that this petition and its place in the prayer put me to utter shame. Why, our very prayers are selfish! A secularist once said with a sneer that “prayer was a machine warranted by theologians to make God do whatsoever His clients want.” Have not our prayers given some ground for the sneer? Have not our wants and interests occupied too large a place in our petition? This is the true order in prayer—God first. This is the petition that must dominate every other, “Thy will be done.”
Let me not be misunderstood. I am far from saying it is wrong to tell God about our personal wishes and desires. No! Tell Him everything. There ought to be no reserve in the conversation between a child and his Father. I am not afraid or ashamed to tell God about my personal affairs. I ask Him to preserve me from trouble and loss. I ask Him to keep me safe from harm and danger. I ask Him to ward off from me sickness and suffering. I ask Him to watch over those I love. But there is another prayer I must learn to pray, another prayer I must learn to pray first—and oh! what a lot of learning it takes—and that prayer is this, “Thy will be done.” For it may be God’s will to send me the very things I shrink from. He may see that it is the discipline of trouble and loss and sickness that I need. I am but as a little child, blind and ignorant as a little child, and when I pray for temporal gifts, I may be only praying to my own hurt. This is the only prayer for me, for you, for all men, “Father, Thy will be done.” We wish for success in life, but because such a success might prove a curse and not a blessing, we must add, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” We pray for freedom from bereavement and sorrow, but because such discipline may result in truest blessedness, we add, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” We pray for peace and comfort and quietness, but because struggle and conflict may be necessary, in order to make us strong, we add, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” We have not learned to pray truly at all, until every petition in our prayers is made subject to this one; until it becomes our chief and supreme desire that God’s will may be done.
Will it be hard? Hard? I know of nothing harder. This is the great feat of life. You can only learn to say “Thy will be done” through struggle and agony and heartbreak. This old Book compares the agony through which men must pass before they learn sincerely to pray this prayer, to the agony inflicted by the plucking out of an eye or the cutting off of a limb. Obedience to God leads to the land of blessedness and peace, but the gate by which we enter—the gate of self-denial—is a narrow gate, and we have to agonise to enter in. God has a will for each of us, and His will concerning us often clashes with our own. The desires of the flesh and of the mind hanker after earthly comfort and wealth and ease. God’s will concerning us is, that whatever the cost and the pain, we should be clean and honest and true. Scarcely a day passes but our desires and the will of God for us come into violent conflict. To surrender our own wills, to make God’s will ours, means pain. It is a dying. It is a crucifixion. But there are one or two considerations of which I would like to remind you, which ought to make this surrender easier for us. This is the first:—
(1) The will we are asked to make our own is our Father’s will. “Thy will be done!” Whose will? Our Father’s will! After all, it ought not to be very difficult to obey a father’s will, to fulfil a father’s desire, even when that will runs counter to our own, for we know there is love in the case. Remember, you are not asked to obey a despot; you are not asked to obey a tyrant; you are not asked to obey a slave-driver; you are asked to do the will of your Father—your Father, whose love is only to be measured by the Cross of Jesus Christ. It was the remembrance that the will He was called upon to obey was His Father’s will, that helped Jesus in the Garden. It was a hard thing for our Lord to say “Thy will be done,” when He knew that involved the Cross and the Grave; for Jesus, let me say it with all reverence, had all a man’s feelings, and He shrank from the bitter agony and shame. He would gladly have escaped the Cross and the Tomb. “If it be possible, let this cup pass.” Then he remembered it was His Father who was bidding Him drink that bitter cup. That thought steadied Him, gave Him courage, made Him strong, He was ready for anything and everything that His Father appointed. “The cup which the Father hath given me to drink shall I not drink it?” We, too, shall be strong to make God’s will our own, when we remember it is our Father’s will. For our Father is love—love at its best and highest. Mr. Spurgeon tells a story about a man who had in his garden a weather-cock which had on it this inscription, “God is Love.” A friend seeing it asked if it was meant to imply that God’s love was as fickle as the wind. “No,” was the reply, “I mean that from whatever quarter the wind may happen to blow, God is still love.” Bear that in mind—God is love; the will you are asked to obey is your Father’s will. Then, though that will ordain for us sorrow, sickness, pain, loss, we shall have grace to say, “Thy will be done.”
The second consideration which I would impress upon you is this:—