Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We're going to talk about Gethsemane, and the passage that we'll be in will be Matthew 26 if you'd like to turn to it. When I was up at the grandchildren's, I said to them, "What do you want for Christmas?" which is a silly thing for a grandma to say because they immediately flew into the kitchen drawer where they knew the catalogs were and came out with a pile of catalogs that mommy keeps. They turned immediately to the toy section—they knew just where to go—and began saying, "I'll have this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this." I was sorry I'd asked.

I would have been very, very surprised if instead of saying "I want this, I want that, I want the other," if those little children had said to me, "But it's not what I want, it's what you want, Nana." Now, that's too much to ask at that age, I guess, but when they grow up, I hope that maturity will bring that sort of response. I asked my big son, "Would he like anything for Christmas?" and he said, "No, mother. You know I grew out of Christmas presents a long time ago. Use your money for something else." I suppose that's maturity. Yet so many of us are children in the matter of saying not what I want, but what you want.

We're going to talk about doing God's will. I mean really doing God's will. We're going to talk about planning to do it, knowing what it is, and just doing it. Not even praying about it—that's where we're heading, knowing God's will and doing it. Of course, the passage before us in Gethsemane is the prize passage in the whole of the scriptures to give us some clues as to how Jesus pulled himself alongside a will of God that he did not want to do.

Our will and our emotions are interesting things. Our emotions are like clamoring children, crying out, "I want this, I want that, I want the other," complaining often when they do not get what they want, demanding their own way. Our will is like the mother, patiently and insistently getting her will done. The little children reminded me of my emotions: clamoring, crying, stamping their feet, insisting on their own way.

If the mother's will is right, then she needs to prevail over the clamoring children, over the emotions, and not allow the children's clamor to come to a verdict on the matter. Sooner or later, those little children I noticed fell into line with the mother's will, but it was not without conflict and it was not without battle. Basically speaking, that's what we're going to come back to over and over again because I think as women specifically and particularly, we live our Christian life so often in the area of our emotions and not in the area of our willing, our deciding, our choices.

We are creatures of emotion, aren't we? So often we allow them, like the clamoring children, to say, "I want, I want," and we get our own way in the area of our emotions against our better will. If you think of your will as yourself, as the deepest part of you, don't think there's you and then there's your will over here. I don't know the theology of this; I'm trying to help you to understand it. Just for this study, think of your will as your ego, as the real you, as your inner being, as everything that makes up the heart of you as a person. That's your will, and that's where you begin.

How do we will to do our Heavenly Father's will? Well, Jesus, when he was on earth, experienced the battle of his emotions, never more than in Gethsemane, against the right will, the part of him that was the deepest part of him. He was able to say, "Not my will, but Thine be done," because he'd lived the whole of his life based on conforming to the divine purpose. "I must be about my Father's business. I do always those things that please him. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me while it is day; the night comes when no man can work." At twelve, it had been decided what the emotions said from then on in was sort of irrelevant. The emotions were the children, and his will was the adult, bringing the emotions eventually in line with the will.

We have to see to it that our will joins hands with the will of God for our life just as Jesus saw to it that he joined hands with the will of God for his life. That begins when we say, "I will accept Christ. I will make him my Lord. I will follow him. I will let the Word instruct me in the way that I ought to go. I will, I will, God-ward." The Christian life is willing God-ward every day of your life. Prayer is the place that that happens, that that can be said. "I will accept Jesus as my Savior," and Revelation 3:20 says he will come in. It's sure.

I remember Stuart preaching one time in England to a little congregation in a church. People weren't listening to him; there's a group of kids on the back row from varying ages under ten or so, eating sweets and kicking up a fuss. They didn't look as though they were listening either, and there were a handful of people spread around. They certainly weren't listening. There were two people in the choir behind him—that was all. They weren't listening, and he was getting a bit fed up. He thought he would try and get their attention by quoting a verse wrong.

With great emphasis, he said, "Jesus said, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I may come in. I might come in and sup with him and he with me.'" Nobody turned a hair, so they obviously weren't listening, except a kid on the back row that looked as though he wasn't, but was. He jumped up on the seat and he said, "That's wrong!" Immediately, he got everyone's attention, which was a very delightful thing. Stuart said, "What's wrong?" He said, "He didn't say 'I might.' He said 'I will.' I will come in."

Stuart said, "So what's the difference between 'I might' and 'I will'?" The little boy said, "Well, if 'I might,' I might not, but if 'I will,' I will." He said, "I will come in." So we join wills, and from then on, he's willing to will his way. He intertwines his will with ours. "God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure," the verse says. God is working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. Having said, "I will accept Christ," and him having said, "I will come in," there are two wills now. We are to will his way; we are to say, "Amen," to his purposes every day of our life.

Once the will of God is in our life in the person of Jesus, who always willed to do his Father's will, he has come into our life to continue to do what he did on earth: to will to do his Father's will. Once our will is joined hands with the will of God, the only problem we have is the emotions. It's a little bit like having, if you can think of a picture of a boat, and on the boat is written "God's will and my will." God's will and my will are in this boat—that's us. But there's a rope, and on the end of the rope, there's a little dinghy, and the dinghy is tossing this and that way, just absolutely surging around in the sea.

That's representing our emotions. God's will and mine are the big boat, and the little boat is our emotions, and there's a rope, and that rope is prayer. When we get down to praying, what we're able to do is use that rope of prayer to pull our emotions alongside the will of God. Our will has become his will; his will has become our will, but our emotions are out here saying, "Hey, I don't want to do this! I don't want to do this! I don't want to be this!" It's prayer that pulls our emotions alongside the will of God. That's what prayer is for.

In "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life," which every one of you should have if you don't—Hannah Whitall Smith, it's the classic on living the Christian life—she says this: "Your surging emotions are like a tossing vessel at anchor. By degrees, they yield to the steady pull of the cable, finding themselves attached to the mighty power of God. By the choice of your will, they must inevitably come into captivity and give their allegiance to him." There's the picture of the big boat and the picture of the little tossing boat, our emotions.

You are your will. Another picture, if pictures help you, is that your will is king. Your will is ego; your will is your true self. The little king, the little you, joins hands with the Big King, with God, and the emotions are your servants. When your emotions are king, you're going to be in trouble, especially with living the Christian life. They are there to serve you, and they don't always serve you very well. Servants do not always serve you very well, but you are the king. If the little king has joined hands with the Big King, then you're going to do his will. That is decided, out of the area of your emotions.

The Holy Spirit, Jesus without his body, who has come in to do the will of God and to help you to will and to do of his good pleasure—he will help you. The Holy Spirit will help you to do this. That's what he's there to do. Let's read about this in Gethsemane because all I've said you'll see as we go on in chapter 26 of Matthew's Gospel, verse 36. Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."

Going a little further, he fell with his face to the ground and he prayed, "My Father, if it's possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will." Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you won't fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it's possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, then Your will be done." When he came back, he again found them sleeping because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and he went away once more and he prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer." Jesus was not shrinking from the physical agony of death, but the spiritual agony of being made sin for us—he who knew no sin. There's a very important verse about Gethsemane in Hebrews chapter five, verse seven. "Christ, in the days when he was a man on earth, appealed to the one who could save him from death in desperate prayers and the agony of tears. His prayers were heard; he was freed from shrinking from death."

In your translation, it might say his prayers were heard and he was delivered from death. Phillips translates that "from shrinking from death." Again, not from physical death, but from the spiritual death he was to die. Here again, we start and tread in the absolute unknown theologically. How could God die? Who knows how this could be? But apparently, there was a death that he had to die that he began to be aware of the sense of dread concerning this death. His will was firm. His meat was to do the will of him that sent him. He'd spent the whole of his life moving towards this pivotal point in the gospel story.

His emotions were like the tossing vessel. His emotions were like the clamoring children saying, "I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that." Verse 36 says he began to be in terrible distress and misery. "My heart is nearly breaking. My Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet it must not be what I want, but what You want. Your will must be done." Another translation said he was deeply moved. God cannot grant any prayer that's not in accordance with His will. God could not grant the prayer of Jesus, and this again is a mystery. If it be possible, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me.

The will of God was there was no other way. If there had been another way, it would have been found. It's God's purpose that man should think, love, will within the circle of God's will. Saint Augustine said, "Oh Lord, grant that I may do Thy will as if it were my will, so that Thou mayest do my will as if it were Thy will." It had been decided before Jesus ever became a baby that he would die for the sins of the world. So it seems a strange thing to find the Son of God, having moved towards this pivotal point, knowing what would happen, praying that it wouldn't. He was choosing to live his life inside our humanity, remember?

He understands that the spirit indeed was willing, but the flesh, his humanity, was weak. Many people think that this refers not to the disciples, who obviously were weak in the fact that they were sleeping and not praying, but to himself. It was a statement of humanity—that when we know what to do, we don't do it, as Paul said in Romans 7 and 8. Yet this is the confidence we have in him: if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. If we know he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know we have the petitions we desired of him. When we do what he bids, he does what we ask.

The first prayer of Jesus was one of petition. Is there any other way? The Father's answer was, "No, my son. There is no other way. You know it, and I know it." The second and third prayers were prayers of submission. "Thy will be done." If we listen to God, then God will listen to us, that's for sure. Hebrews 5:7 says he was heard. In another gospel, not Matthew, we read that at this point, after the first prayer, an angel came and strengthened him in his agony from the shrinking horror of the particular death he was facing.

This is not the death that we will face. Nobody before or since or ever will face the death such as Jesus Christ was facing. But the will of the Son joined hands with the will of the Father, and the power came. He pulled himself alongside the will of God. He reached down with prayer and pulled that little tossing boat alongside, and those clamoring children came in line. He rose from his Gethsemane experience full of power, calm, ready, and went out to meet his betrayer.

There was huge conflict in the garden, of course, for the tempter was in the garden. Years ago, I wrote a book called "There's a Snake in My Garden," and it was really my discovery as a young Christian that there was indeed a snake in my beautiful garden. I lived in a beautiful garden, everything was right. It was like paradise, but there was a snake in my garden and I didn't know it. There was a snake in Eden in one garden. Now there's a snake in another garden in Gethsemane. Jesus spent a lot of time in gardens, but there was always a snake there.

He had met the snake in the garden of the desert, if you remember, and overcome him. But the same temptations are there again. Remember when we did that study on the temptations of Christ? He is not original—the same temptations over and over again. In the area of his legitimate needs, this was a premature death. In fact, one translator, the Living Bible, Ken Taylor, says that he thinks that's what Christ meant when he prayed that God would save him from death—from a premature death—and he has reasons for believing that. He was thirty years of age.

This was a legitimate need he was praying for. "Lord, let me live longer. Maybe I could die at the end of forty years or fifty years and think what much more I could accomplish on the earth. Think how many more disciples I could get. Think how much surer the Kingdom of God would be if I could disciple more people." Maybe all those sort of thoughts were going through his mind. The tempter was using the same thing: "This is a legitimate need. You can ask God to fulfill a legitimate need."

Remember the second temptation? Use your own powers to prove you're God. Even as Jesus was praying in the garden, he could see the little lights coming down the Kidron Valley of the people coming to arrest him. In between those three prayers, when he looked out, the Garden of Gethsemane is set on a hillside and the valley is in between the City of Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemane. The people came over the Kidron Valley with their torches. I'm quite sure as Jesus prayed in the garden, he could see the little lights getting nearer and nearer and nearer on the way.

The devil, I'm sure, said to him, "You have the power to breathe on those people and they'll disappear." In fact, it says when they came to arrest him and they said, "Are you Jesus of Nazareth?" and he said, "I AM," they all fell backwards and fell on their faces—the sheer power and authority of his Word. However, he then helped them arrest him. This was no martyr's death; this was a pre-ordained decision to lay his life down. In fact, Jesus said, "No man takes it from me. I lay it down of myself."

The tempter, the snake, was in his garden. Thirdly, of course, Satan ever still wanting God to worship him because that's his problem. He wants to be God; he doesn't want to be Satan. "One prayer, Jesus. Just, just give me a chance to answer one of your prayers. Let me be your God. I'll get you off the cross. It's me that's going to put you there. I'm the one that's instigating them to try you and to nail you to the tree, so I can stop it. I'm the prince of this world. Ask me!"

The three same temptations that Jesus had faced over and over and over again. No wonder he was in agony as he prayed through those things. Satan only wanted one prayer; one second would be enough, and you and I would not be going to heaven. Jesus, however, overcame. So there was conflict in the garden. Jesus was facing the cup, and the cup that he talked about so much in the upper room before Gethsemane—"This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood; this take, this drink, in remembrance of me."

The cup in scripture is a metaphor for suffering. You can look up many, many references. Psalm 11 verse 6, 75 verse 8, Jeremiah 25:15-28, talks about people drinking the cup to the dregs, and it's basically a metaphor for suffering. "The Lord gives you a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs." It's a very vivid metaphor of people drinking a cup to the dregs. It's also used in celebration—"my cup runs over." But here and mostly, it is used in the sense of suffering.

Jesus said, "Shall I not drink the cup? Shall I not drink it to the dregs?" What is this cup? The emphasis is primarily thought of as accepting the will of God for him, meant to drink the cup of sin, of your sin and my sin and the results of it. This Jesus believed was the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Even when it brought suffering and death upon God's devoted servant, it had to be done. It was the right thing to do. It was good in that sense. It was acceptable, and he accepted it in Gethsemane. It was perfect because God's only way of making things right was the cross.

According to Romans 12, he presented his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which was his spiritual worship. He was renewed in his mind, and he proved what was the good and acceptable and perfect will of God in prayer. This had to be done, this cup. Shall I not drink it? There was conflict and there was the cup. He had to bear grief in order to conquer our sadness. He was frightened in the very presence of death, this death that he had to die, and he prayed, "Let this cup pass from me."

There was an unaccustomed terror, and we cannot possibly start to understand it until you realize he who was the light was to be extinguished. He that was the life was to die, and he was troubled by a sadness and fear that was foreign to God himself. God did not know what it was to sin, yet now he was to be made sin for you and for me. He was afflicted by this grief and sorrow. He was troubled in his mind. Luke says he was seized with anguish; Mark says he was dismayed.

Again, I want to emphasize this wasn't the simple horror of physical death. It was a sight of the dread tribunal of God that came to him. The judge himself, armed with vengeance past understanding, our sins whose burden was laid on him, weighed on him with their vast mass. He had to deal with the judgment of God. This was the cup. He prostrated himself as a slave would to his master and he worshipped God. A definition of worship is to prostrate yourself and kiss toward the master. "Whatever you want, I will do."

Some people have said they can't grasp or grapple with this concept. This Jesus, who for so long calmly faced the prospect of death, should now be less courageous than the Maccabean martyrs or many thousands of disciples that have died and faced martyrdom with courage. The anguish in Gethsemane is not likely to be passed over, for Jesus was going to be the sacrificial, wrath-averting Passover Lamb. That phrase out of a commentary has lived with me this past week: the sacrificial, wrath-averting Passover Lamb.

He personally carried our load of sins in his own body when he died on the tree, 1 Peter 2:24. With his wounds, ours are healed. "Our best response," says a commentator, "is in hushed worship." He comes to the disciples. The conflict is started, the cup must be drunk, but he has his companions. Surely they will help. He needs their support, their emotional support. He was ready to do the Father's will, but he was wrestling with the limitations of his humanness. So he comes to them.

They, however, are worn out with sorrow, and this is not, "Oh, we'll go to sleep, we don't understand it." This isn't, "Well, I'm just physically tired and it's late." The Bible tells us specifically in Luke's Gospel that they were worn out with his sorrow, that they couldn't understand it. Can you imagine their fear? Have you ever seen a child when a parent is frightened? They can't handle that. As long as the parent is calm, the child will feel safe and secure. But when they see the parent cry, when they see the parent, as Hebrews says, with loud cryings and prayers, distraught, distressed, sweating as it were great drops of blood that fell to the ground, what does that do to the children?

What did it do to the disciples? They couldn't handle it. They could not handle it, and so they were worn out and they fell asleep with sorrow. It says they couldn't keep their eyes open. You know when you go through an incredible emotional distress, what it does to you? It wipes you out. You just literally sleep. It's a physical, human reaction. So he comes to them, however, he does not excuse it. He says, "Come on, you're facing the same temptations as me, you just don't know it. Of a lesser sort, but there's a cross around the corner of tomorrow for you as well as there is for me, and you're not going to be ready."

We never know when there's a cross around the corner of tomorrow, do we? If we have not spent time in Gethsemane, then like the disciples, we will betray him when our time comes. Jesus was trying to encourage them to go through their own personal Gethsemane in order to be ready for the tomorrow. So he comes to them, but they are asleep. His companions, his friends let him down. His will and the Father's will were one in reality about the passion. He accepted the fact, however, that he must drink this cup alone without the Father—"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

He was going to write salvation history, okay? He was going to write salvation history, and he had to write it alone. That's why he was in agony. He and his Father had always been one, but now there was to be a separation as our sin came in between his God and himself. What he had to do on the cross, he had to do himself. Twelve legions of angels hovered ready to help him, and God held them back and he said, "This you have to do alone."

That's the agony of Gethsemane. So he was battling not only his human needs in his companions who were asleep, but he was looking forward to the next twenty-four, forty-eight hours when he knew that he would hang there alone for us. So the first prayer is made: if there's any other way. Then the second and the third: "Your will be done." He was heard by the Father and strengthened by his angels, and he was ready. He struggled and died alone in order that we need never be alone when we struggle and when we die.

That's what he did for us, and it was done in Gethsemane. There would be no Golgotha without Gethsemane. There won't be for us either. If we are going to die to ourselves, if we are going to get those turbulent emotions, those clamoring children, and get them in line with the will of God as he tells us what it is, then we are going to need Gethsemane. If we're planning to do God's will, having purposed to do it, then we're going to find the need of privacy. We're going to have to find a garden. You've got to choose a Gethsemane.

The Bible says he was accustomed to go there as his habit was. He loved Gethsemane. It's a beautiful garden, those of you that have been privileged to visit it. It's probably the place, the authentic place. There are still trees there, they say two thousand years of age, and you see these incredible olive trees, for it was an olive press—very fitting, an olive press. The trees are beautiful, the garden is quiet. He chose his Gethsemane. We look back to it in horror, but he looked forward to it with joy. It only became a dark place after the cross. It was a wonderful place.

You and I need to choose a private Gethsemane. I remember my mother-in-law. Her Gethsemane was a rocking chair. She would rock back and forth, back and forth with her Bible on her knee, and I have that picture indelibly impressed on my mind. That was her Gethsemane. When she came to visit us and she was told that she had one more bout of cancer that probably would take her home this time—she was a wonderful woman of faith—she came to a point where she sat in my rocking chair, seeing that was the place she was used to reading her Bible.

I can see her now in the house down in Brookfield in a nice big bay window in this lovely old-fashioned rocking chair. Mother Briscoe sitting there with a cup of coffee and her Bible on her knee. I remember my husband coming in, it was after I'd brought her back from the hospital after that death sentence, if you like. I said, "I think you'd better go and talk to mom. She's struggling." I remember Stuart standing by the window, and I remember Mother Briscoe saying as I crept out of the room and left them alone, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die."

It wasn't that she was afraid of what was after death; it was the process. It was the process. "I don't want to die." It was her Gethsemane. Yet I watched mother pull those turbulent emotions, those clamoring children alongside the apparent will of God for her life and say, "Not my will, but Thine be done." She told us all how to die. You want to know how to die? Come and talk to me, and I'll tell you about my mother-in-law because she sure did it the right way. But I remember her Gethsemane. It was a rocking chair.

Maybe it's a kitchen table. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, which was my Gethsemane in England, and I remember having to get in the car and go down to Liverpool and tell my mother I was moving to the States. My mother was a widow; my mother was not a believer, and that was my Gethsemane. I had to pull my turbulent emotions alongside the will of God and I had to go and tell her. I knew she'd never come, which she never did because she had an inordinate fear of flying and would never get on an airplane. It was hard. It wasn't anything like Jesus's Gethsemane, but my kitchen table was my Gethsemane.

I remember another time where there was a hillside that was my Gethsemane. It was my garden. It overlooked Capernwray Hall where we were serving. I remember going up there with Prince—we used to like to chase the sheep and the cows—and then I could have my prayer time while he was having a wonderful time. Prince was the dog, in case you're wondering. We were sitting on the hillside, and we had been invited to come here to Elmbrook. I was coming off ten or twelve years of very, very stretching, stressful ministry, wanting very much to come for many reasons.

I remember saying to God, "I'm going to stay up here in my Gethsemane until I'm willing to either stay or to go," because I was only willing to come, I wasn't willing to stay. I remember staying up there pretty well half the day with Prince chasing cows to his delight all day until I was able to say, "Not my will, but Thine be done." But then I had to climb it again and again and again because it was a year and a half before we got our visa to come. I remember saying to God, "I don't think I can stay willing to stay or to go much longer."

It was very hard for me to say, "Not my will, but Thine be done," because my turbulent emotions, my clamoring children, were saying, "This is what I want." I had to say not what I want, but what You want. Do you have a garden? Do you have a Gethsemane? Well, then do you have a personal plan when you get there? Do you have a group of friends to watch—a garden called Gethsemane, a group of friends to watch with you? Do you have that?

Jesus did. They weren't an awful lot of good, but he still had them and he still apparently wanted them, and they were some help. Maybe some of you say, "Well, I couldn't ask anyone to pray for me. Who'd pray for me?" Well, all you need to do is look around for somebody like Peter, James, and John—people that fall asleep all the time instead of praying. I'm sure you can find somebody like that. Don't start and say, "Well, I need a spiritual giant to pray for me," because there aren't any spiritual giants, but there's plenty of people like Peter and James and John, just people like us.

I believe we should all have people praying. We should all have a group of people; we should all have our three that we take aside to watch with us. How can we possibly do without it if Jesus saw fit to need it? Then what are we doing without it? Maybe it's false pride; maybe it's a wrong sense of our own importance or value. But if he needed three people, we need three people, and I would challenge you very practically to find them. To ask God to show you three people that would pray for you personally, because there's going to be many Gethsemanes if you're going to do the will of God.

Then, of course, there's got to be the life-long devotional discipline, the growing of this life, this decision. There'll be many hindrances. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. What you have to do is take will by the hand, and you and will have to go and pray. Leave the emotions clamoring, and one day one emotion will say to the other, "Come on, we're not going to stop her; we may as well go along," and the children will come, and you'll find prayer will be a wonderful time.

Until then, it might just be you and will. But if you're going to live your prayer life in the area of your emotions, you will never get round to praying, and you'll never be ready for Gethsemane. You have to be ready before the cross; you have to have practiced as Jesus did. So we need to make a promise. What's the promise? I've had a wonderful time just reading hymns, trying to find those that talk about the passion of the Lord, and I came across an old hymn by William Hone.

"The proudest heart that ever beat hath been subdued in me. The wildest will that ever rose to scorn Thy cause and aid Thy foes is quelled, my God, by Thee. Thy will, not my will be done. My heart be ever Thine, confessing Thee the mighty Word, my Savior Christ, my God, my Lord, Thy cross shall be my sign." There are some incredibly beautiful hymns that have got lost to the church somewhere along the way, but there's one of them. We need to make that promise every day.

How do we know what God's will is? There are broad principles in the Bible. First of all, though, you need to be honest. Do you want to know God's will? Are you willing to do it if he reveals it to you? Often we do know what he wants us to do, but we pretend we're confused and we can't find it out. So you have to be honest enough with your heart and say, "If God showed me what to do, would I do it? Am I willing? Do I purpose to do God's will fully if only he shows me?" That's the question we need to ask ourselves and to be honest enough to answer it.

If you're yielded, he'll show you. Then the broad principles of that will will be found in the scriptures. The will of God is in harmony with the Word of God. The perfect will of God will not contradict the perfect Word of God. If what you're planning to do is contradicting the Word of God, then it's not the will of God; it's as simple as that. Take adultery. I had a woman say to me, "I've fallen in love with somebody else's husband." Her emotions were clamoring; they were saying, "I want him." She said, "I'm praying about it." I said, "Don't waste your breath. Don't waste your breath."

God is not going to say anything more than he's said already, and he's said it: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's husband." There are general principles: "This is the will of God concerning you, even your sanctification." In other words, His will is that you should be holy, and this is an unholy thing that you're doing, so don't pray to know what the will of God is in this matter. He's already told you. There are basic principles that we then have to apply in practice, in the specifics.

It's not always easy to figure out what that's all about. You need to be knowledgeable in the scriptures, soaking in the scriptures—not just texting it, not just taking a text and saying this must be the Word of God because this one text says it. Do you know the scriptures in the broad principles of the scriptures? And then just be sensible about it. Use the common sense God has given you. Use the advice of other Christians. Use all the means of the guidance that God has given you to discern His will. But you have enough in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Word, and if you're honest, you'll know. You'll find out.

You'll often have to pray, "Lord, not what I want, but what You want," sometimes with strong crying, but never as many tears as he shed for us. Sometimes in deep distress, but never as deep as his. Sometimes he'll ask you to drink a baby cup of grief, but you'll never be asked to drink to the dregs the cup of God's wrath against sin. It's not so hard when you see him in Gethsemane for you. It's not so hard. Let's pray.

Lord, says in the scriptures, "Thanks be to God for the indescribable gift," and I've been trying to describe it. How do you describe the indescribable? Forgive me for the shallowness of this talk, and yet Lord, help us to catch the sound of your prayer and realize the depth of your distress. Lord, not too many people want to come and hear about Gethsemane, and yet we need to live there and help our clamoring emotions through prayer to be brought in line with your will for our lives: the general will of God and the specific will of God on a daily basis.

Teach us like Jesus to find a Gethsemane, to find a group of friends, and to decide on a growing devotional discipline of prayer. In our little dyings, as we lay down our lives for our friends, help us to know the joy after the cross that you looked forward to. So subdue our wills, melt them and mold them so that we do not know which is ours or Thine, so that we only will to will Your will, whatever we want emotionally. Help us to remember that Your Holy Spirit does not come into our lives to do his deepest work in the shallowest part of us, which is our emotions, but in the deepest decidings and decisions of our lives. Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget Thy love for me, lest I forget Thine agony, lead me to Calvary. For Jesus' sake, Amen.