It’s thrilling to us how the Lord is working. When God starts something, God is going to keep it going, and He is going to conclude it in His time. He who hath begun a good work in us is going to perfect it unto the end! In spite of the problems and questions, the Lord is in it, and God is working.
You cannot look to your own wisdom, you cannot rest in your own understanding; you must look for the supernatural, miraculous and powerful leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible to solve the problems on your own. Lean not to your own understanding, but “in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5–6.
You cannot possibly solve the problems in your own wisdom, your own strength, your own mind, your own understanding, your own trying to put two and two together. You’re going to have to ask the Lord by the supernatural, miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, to give you downright, outright, upright revelations, heaven-right, straight from Him, to show you exactly what to do.
We’ve tried to never depend upon our own wisdom, our own understanding, or what we think is the thing to do, but to look directly to Him and expect His direct, revelatory, revolutionary, immediate guidance.
I want to tell you, if something is God’s work, if it’s a thing of God, no man can stand against it. It’s not dependent on any man or even any group of people. If a thing is of God, no man is going to affect it one way or the other. But if it were of man, then the whole thing would come to naught!
It’s God who’s been blessing, been protecting, been miraculously, supernaturally, amazingly providing. If God is in it, He’s the one who has done it! God is the one who knows what to do, He is the one doing it, and if we follow Him, we cannot fail. If we follow the Lord, it’s impossible for us to fail, because He is the one who’s doing it. All we have to do is follow Jesus!
He cannot fail. He cannot deny Himself. Even though we are faithless, He remains faithful. He cannot break His word. God is going to carry us through. He has begun a good work in us, and He’s going to complete it to the end.
We must look utterly to God for rescue, utterly to Him for our supplies, totally to Him to protect us, and completely to Him in everything that we do, every way that we go, every plan we make, every problem we have. We can’t lean to our own understanding; we must, in all our ways, in every little thing, acknowledge Him, and He will direct our paths.
God is the one who wants to get the glory, and God is the only one who can do it. Then He wants you to praise and thank Him and glorify Him because He did it. You’d better keep saying, “Wow, look what God has done! Look what the Lord is doing! Look how great He’s working! Look how many disciples He’s getting!”
Give God all the credit all the time for every little thing, and He will never fail to continue to prosper you, empower you, protect you, keep you, and multiply you.
God alone can do it, and God alone can show what to do, how to do it, protect in doing it, supply the needs, and lead and guide every step of the way. So don’t try to figure it out for yourself. Get down in desperate prayer. Cry out to God and ask Him for the solution, and He will never fail.
Has He ever failed you? Has He ever failed to show you what to do? Even if He didn’t show you what to do, He went ahead and did it Himself. Even if He didn’t tell you what He was going to do, He did it. We sometimes didn’t find out what He’d done until after He’d done it. So you don’t even always have to know what He’s going to do.
Only God knows what to do, and only God knows what He wants done, and only God can do it. Do you get the point? Don’t forget it! God has His own plan, His own way. God knows what He’s doing. So for God’s sake, let Him do it, and just look to Him to find out what He’s doing, and what He wants you to do, and which way He’s going.
God is the one who’s leading. God is the one who’s doing. God is the one who’s planning. God is the one whose program it is. God is the one whose business it is. So for God’s sake, follow God!—Not yourself, not your own ideas, not your own plans and programs, but for God’s sake follow God!
Don’t try to figure it out for yourself. Don’t try to reason around with your own understanding, but get down in prayer and cry out to God with strong crying and tears and desperation, and look to Him for the answers. God alone has the answers and God alone can do it. It’s His business, His program, and His plan. We’re His people, it’s His world, it’s His idea, and it’s got to be His whole leading, His decision. It’s got to be His protection. It’s got to be His provision. And His prevision as well: He’s the one that sees the future.
You know it’s His wonder that He’s doing, so you know that God is going to do it. If a thing is of God, no man can stand against it, and if it were not of God, it would have come to naught a long time ago.
If God is in it at all and He wants His message to get around the world, then He’s the one who is spreading it! We just follow what He shows us to do, whisper by whisper, step by step, until it’s spread around the world! He’s doing it when we just follow that still small voice. So what are you going to do? Well, God’s just going to have to do it. It’s wonderful, it’s thrilling when you realize that you don’t have to do it!
You’ve got to keep your eyes on God. You’ve got to see God. He’s the only way you’ll ever survive, and the only way you’ll ever be able to heave that sigh of relief and say, “Well, thank God I don’t have to solve it! Thank God I don’t have to know what to do! When the time comes, God will do it.”
For God’s sake, stop worrying about tomorrow! It’s today that God has provided the strength and the provision for and the protection for and the problems for, and today is all you have to worry about! You don’t even have to worry about tomorrow, much less next week, or next month, and for God’s sake, you certainly don’t have to worry about next year! When tomorrow comes, God’s going to take care of it!
The world got so bad in Noah’s day that there was no place to go, and God rescued him in a supernatural way. It was in a way that they had never planned or never expected by the wildest stretch of their imagination, because how could they imagine such a thing as a worldwide flood?
God delivered them, and spared them by supernatural, miraculous means. Oh, they had to do their part too. They had to obey God and do the part of building that great big boat out of wood with their own bare hands. They had to do what they could do, but then God did what they couldn’t.
He helps you if you do your part and obey and help yourself as much as you can. Do what you know you can do, and then stop worrying about the rest that you can’t do: God will take care of that part. God will do what you can’t do. You do what you can, and God will do what you can’t.
That’s the way it’s always been—Like when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John chapter 11). The people couldn’t raise him from the dead, but they could roll away the stone from the door. So what did Jesus do? Did He roll away the stone? No, He said, “Roll ye away the stone,” and they did it. Their obedience in rolling away the stone was a manifestation of their faith that God was going to do what they couldn’t do. Your obedience in doing what God tells you to do shows your faith that God is going to do the rest, what you can’t do.
They could have argued with Him, saying, “What’s the use of rolling away the stone, Jesus? He’s been dead for four days! He stinks, he’s rotting! There’s no use in us pushing and sweating and prying with a crowbar and worrying about getting the stone out of the way, Lord. The future of raising the dead is an impossible situation, so we might as well not even try to roll away the stone. We might as well not even try to do what we can do today, because the future is so impossible. Let’s just quit, and let’s not even do what we know we can do. Let’s not even do what God has already told us to do. Let’s just forget the whole deal, because the future is so impossible! We can’t do this!” Is that what they did? No!
They manifested their faith by obedience. When Jesus said, “Roll ye away the stone,” they said, “Wow! He’s going to do what we can’t do. He’s going to raise the dead! We believe it, so let’s get that stone out of the way quick! Let’s make room for God! Let’s hurry up! Let’s make a way for the Lord; He’s going to start working! Let’s do what we can do. Let’s clear the way! God’s going to do mighty miracles tomorrow! He’s going to do greater things than we ever imagined! Let’s do what we can do today, so God will be able to do what He can do tomorrow!”