God's Will About the Future

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James 4:13-17

Go to now, you 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:…

The text applies with very peculiar force when our friends and fellow-workers are passing away from us. Perhaps we have been reckoning what this brother would do this week, and that sister next week, and so on. They have appeared amongst us in such buoyant health that we have scarcely thought it possible that they would be struck down all in a moment. Yet so it has often been. The uncertainty of life comes home to us when such things occur, and we begin to wonder that we have reckoned anything at all safe, or even probable, in such a shifting, changing world as this.

I. COUNTING ON THE FUTURE IS FOLLY. The fact of frail, feeble man so proudly ordering his own life and forgetting God seems to the Apostle James so preposterous that he scarcely deems it worth while to argue the point; he only says, "Go to now!" Let us first look at the form of this folly, and notice what it was that these people said when they were counting on the future. They evidently thought everything was at their own dispersal. They said, "We will go, we will continue, we will buy, we will sell, we will get gain." but is it not foolish for a man to feel that he can do as he likes, and that everything will fall out as he desires; that he can both propose and dispose, and has not to ask God's consent at all? Is it so, O man, that thy life is self-governed? Is there not, after all, One greater than thyself? Notice that these people, while they thought everything was at their disposal, used everything for worldly objects. They said, "We will buy; then we will carry our goods to another market at a little distance; we will sell at a profit; and so we will get gain." Their first and their last thoughts were of the earth earthy, and their one idea seemed to be that they might get sufficient to make them feel that they were rich and increased in goods. That was the highest ambition upon their minds. Are there not many who are living just in that way now? All that these men of old spoke of doing was to be done entirely in their own strength. They said, "We will, we will." They had no thought of asking the Divine blessing, nor of entreating the help of the Most High. Alas, that men should do even so to-day, that, without seeking counsel of God, they should go forward in proud disdain, or in complete forgetfulness of "the arrow that flieth by day," and "the pestilence that walketh in the darkness," until they are suddenly overwhelmed in eternal ruin! It is evident that to these men everything seemed certain. "We will go into such a city." How did they know they would ever get there?" We will buy and sell, and get gain." Did they regulate the markets? Might there be no fall in prices? Oh, no! they looked upon the future as a dead certainty, and upon themselves as people who were sure to win, whatever might become of others. They had also the foolish idea that they were immortal. "All men count all men mortal but themselves." Without any saving clause, they said, "We will continue there a year." Having looked at the form of this folly of counting on the future, let us speak a little on the folly itself. It is a great folly to build hopes on that which may never come. It is unwise to count your chickens before they are hatched; it is madness to risk everything on the unsubstantial future. How do we know what will be on the morrow? How can we reckon upon an) thing in a world like this, where nothing is certain but uncertainty? Besides, the folly is seen in the frailty of our lives, and the brevity of them. Life is even as a vapour. Sometimes those vapours, especially at the time of sunset, are exceedingly brilliant. They seem to be magnificence itself when the sun paints them with heavenly colours; but in a little while they are all gone, and the whole panorama of the sunset has disappeared. Such is our life. It may sometimes be very bright and glorious; but still it is only like a painted cloud, and very soon the cloud and the colour on it are alike gone.

II. IGNORANCE OF THE FUTURE IS A MATTER OF FACT. "Ye know not what shall be on the morrow." Whether it will come to us laden with sickness or health, prosperity or adversity, we cannot tell. To-morrow may mark the end of our life; possibly even the end of the age. How frail is our hold on this world! In a moment we are gone — gone like the moth; you put your finger upon it, and it is crushed. Man is not great; man is less than little. He is as nothing; he is but a dream. Ere he can scarcely say that he is here, we are compelled to say that he is gone.

III. RECOGNITION OF GOD WITH REGARD TO THE FUTURE IS TRUE WISDOM. I do not think that we need always, in every letter and in every handbill, put "If the Lord will"; yet I wish that we oftener used those very words. I rather like what Fuller says when he describes himself as writing in his letter such passages as "God willing," or "God lending me life." He says, "I observe, Lord, that I can scarcely hold my hand from encircling these words in a parenthesis, as if they were not essential to the sentence, but may as well be left out as put in. Whereas, indeed, they are not only of the commission at large, but so of the quorum, that without them all the rest is nothing; wherefore, hereafter, I will write these words freely and fairly, without any enclosure about them. Let critics censure it for bad grammar, I am sure it is good divinity."

1. We should recognise God in the affairs of the future, because, first, there is a Divine will which governs all things.

2. But while many of God's purposes are hidden from us, there is a revealed will which we must not violate. I say now, "I will do this or that," but certain other things may occur which will render it improper for me to do so.

3. In addition to this, there is a providential will of God which we should always consult. When you come where two roads meet, in your perplexity pull up, kneel down, and lift your hearts to heaven, asking your Father the way. And whenever we are purposing what we should do — and we ought to make some purposes, for God's people are not to be without forethought or prudence — we should always say, or mean without saying, "All my plans must wait till the Lord sets before me an open door. If God permit, I will do this; but if the Lord will, I will stop, and do nothing. My strength shall be to sit still, unless the Master wishes me to go forward."

4. There is yet another sense I would give to this expression: there is a royal will which we would seek to fulfil. That will is that the Lord's people should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. So, as the servants of the Most High, we go forth to do this or that, "if the Lord will" — that is to say, if by so doing we can fulfil the great will of God in the salvation of men.

IV. BOASTINGS ABOUT THE FUTURE ARE EVIL. One man says about a certain matter, "I will do it, I have made up my mind," and he thinks, "You cannot turn me; I am a man who, when he has once put his foot down, is not to be shifted from his place." Then he laughs, and prides himself upon the strength of his will; but his boasting is sheer arrogance. Yet he rejoices in it; and the Word of God is true of such a one: "All such rejoicing is evil." Another man says, "I shall do it, the thing is certain"; and when a difficulty is suggested, he answers, "Tut, do not tell me about my proposing and God's disposing; I will propose, and I will also dispose; I do not see any difficulty. I shall carry it out, I tell you. I shall succeed." Then he laughs in his foolish pride, and rejoices in his proud folly. All such rejoicings are evil. I hear a third man say, "I can do it; I feel quite competent." To him the message is the same — his boasting is evil. Though he thinks to himself, "Whatever comes in my way, I am always ready for it," he is greatly mistaken, and errs grievously. But that young man yonder talks in a different tone. He has been planning what he will do when he succeeds; for, of course, he is going to succeed. Well, I hope that he may. He is going to buy, and sell, and get gain; and he says, "I will do so-and-so when I am rich." He intends then to have his fling, and to enjoy himself; he laughs as he thinks what he will do when his toilsome beginnings are over, and he can have his own way. I would ask him to pause and consider his life in a more serious vein: "All such rejoicing is evil."

V. THE USING OF THE PRESENT IS OUR DUTY. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

1. In the first place, it is sinful to defer obedience to the gospel. All the commands of God to the characters to whom they are given come as a present demand. Obey them now.

2. In the next place, it is sinful to neglect the common duties of life, under the idea that we shall do something more by and by. If we could all be quiet enough to hear that clock tick, we should hear it say "Now! now! now I now!" The clock therein resembles the call of God in the daily duties of the hour. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin," even though he may dream of hew he will, in years to come, make up for his present neglect.

3. Then it is sinful to postpone purposes of service. Mr. Whitefield said that he would not go to bed unless he had put even his gloves in their right place. If he should die in the night, he would not like to have anybody asking, "Where did he leave his gloves?" That is the way for a Christian man always to live — have everything in order, even to a pair of gloves, Finish up your work every night; nay, finish up every minute. I have this last word: "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" — that is, it is sinful in proportion to our knowledge. If there is any brother here into whose mind God has put something fresh, something good, I pray him to translate it into action at once. "Oh, but nobody has done it before!" Somebody must be first, and why should not you be first if you are sure that it is a good thing, and has come into your heart through God the Holy Ghost?

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