For that which I do I know not: for not what I would, that do I practice; but what I hate, that I do.
But if what I would not, that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good.
So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me.
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not.
For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practice.
But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me.
I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will the Father honor.
Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father, glorify Thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.
Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray.
And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and sore troubled.
Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and watch with Me.
And He went forward a little, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.
And He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Again a second time He went away, and prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, Thy will be done.
And He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
And He left them again, and went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words.
Then cometh He to the disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Arise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that betrayeth Me.
Let us have a little prayer.
Dear Lord, as we wait in Thy presence, we pray that Thou wilt open our hearts to see Thee. We pray that we are here in Thy very presence, not to hear what man has to say, but to hear what Thou hast to say.
Speak, O Lord. Speak directly to our hearts. Remove all obstacles. May Thy word find its rest in our hearts and bring forth fruit unto Thyself. Lord, glorify Thyself in us and through us. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
I suppose, brothers and sisters, you all know why we are here this morning. We are here not to hear just some teaching. We are here to exercise our spirit.
So I hope none of you here remain passive, but be very active in your spirit, people of God. Because spiritual exercise, exercise unto godliness, is profitable for everything. It has the promise of life, eternal life, not only of this age but also for the age to come.
So I hope that none of us will miss the marvelous promise that our Lord has given to us. We have all been fellowshipping recently on this matter of how spiritual exercise saves our soul.
God has not only delivered us from the great death. He is now delivering us, and He will yet deliver us. In other words, He wants not only to save our spirit; He wants to save our soul and save our body, because His salvation is full and complete.
It is important, brothers and sisters, not only to know that we are saved so far as our spirit is concerned. Our dead spirit is quickened into new life, and Christ comes into our spirit to dwell there, to be the life there. The Holy Spirit comes into our spirit to manage that life of Christ in us, that it may grow into maturity and conform to the image of Christ.
But do we know that salvation of the soul is a present salvation? We were saved, thank God for that, but we need to be saved daily so far as our soul is concerned.
Our souls need to be delivered from ourselves—the old life in the soul—and be replaced by the life of Christ, that He will be the One who is in charge, not only of our spirit but also of our soul.
To put it another way, our feeling, our thinking, and our deciding—all these—will be under the control of the life of Christ, instead of expressing just ourselves: our natural life, our soul life, our self-life, our flesh, ourselves. Now that is the salvation of our soul.
We have been sharing on this matter of how our emotion is being delivered. We have also shared on this matter of how our natural mind needs to be delivered. Now this morning, we would like to focus our attention on how our will may be delivered.
Our emotion, our feeling, is the most active of all the faculties of our soul. It is volatile. It is changing all the time. It is very evident.
Our mind is deep. It is the most influential of all the faculties of our soul. But our will is the deciding factor of our being.
So we find in John Bunyan’s The Holy War, he used our mind as the battlefield, and he said our will is the citadel. The enemy fights in our mind in order to get to our will.
So our will is actually the most important part of our soul. It is our dignity.
Now, our God is the supreme will of the universe. He is the only free will. To put it another way, He does everything according to His good pleasure.
He does not need to ask for your permission, as it were. But He is able to do anything He wants to do, because He is the supreme will of the universe.
And it was His good pleasure to create man. When He created us, He created us according to His own image, after His own likeness. So He gave us also a free will.
When man was first created, he had free will. I feel it really means that you can exercise your will either way you want to. You have the privilege of choosing one way or the other. You are your own master. Now that is the dignity of man.
And even God gave man a free will. If He did not provide man with opportunities to choose, what would that free will be?
So that is the reason why we find in the book of Genesis, after God created man, He put man in the garden of Eden. And there He planted in the midst of the garden two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why did He do that?
Because He gave man a free will, and He gave man the opportunity to make his choice. How does he want to live his life?
Does he want to live his life by the life of God? That is eating the tree of life. Does he want to live a life depending upon God, doing God’s will, and living for the glory of God? That is one way he can live.
And there is another way he can live. He can live by eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, again, we say this is not a bad tree. As a matter of fact, it is better than all the other trees in the garden of Eden. Only, it is not as good as the tree of life: the better, but not the best.
And by eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what does it mean? It means that you will have that knowledge of knowing what is good and what is bad. That is the highest knowledge we can have in the world. It is higher than scientific knowledge, higher than philosophical knowledge. It is moral knowledge; it is ethics, the highest knowledge.
And by having this knowledge, you can decide what is good and what is bad. You can be independent of God. You can be as God.
Two ways of life were before man: whether you want a life lived by the life of God—a dependent life, but a glorious life—or whether you want to live a life governed by your knowledge, be your own master, independent; and it ends in death.
Unfortunately, our forefather chose the life of independence. He wanted to be his own master. He wanted to decide according to his knowledge. He did not need God; he wanted to be God.
And the result, we all know. Because he decided to live that way, God said, “Now you are dead.” Your spirit was dead. You do not need Me anymore, because the spirit gives us God-consciousness.
So we who are born of Adam, throughout the centuries—all who are born of Adam—inherit his fallen life.
We are no longer born with free will. That is a tremendous mistake people think. Do you think that we have free will so we can decide everything by ourselves? Not so.
According to the word of God, Adam was created with a free will, but we are born with a captured will. We all are born with a captured will. We are captured by the enemy of God. We are under the bondage of the law of sin and of death. We are not free.
Even though the world will not recognize this, we as believers need to understand that our will is not free anymore. Our will is under bondage; it is a captured will.
No matter how we will, it will be within a certain area. We cannot will outside of that area. To put it another way, we cannot will the will of God.
Now, you remember 1 Corinthians 2:14. What does it say? I mean chapter 2, verse 14.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.
The natural man—the natural man here simply means those who are born of Adam. So we were all natural men. And a natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. Why? Because the things of God are folly to him, and he cannot know them. It is beyond him, because he is dead to God. These things have to be understood spiritually.
Now again, turn to Romans 8. What do you find there in Romans 8, verses 7 and 8?
Because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be:
and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Is it that clear? The mind of the flesh—the natural mind—is against God. It is God’s enemy. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.
In other words, even if you want to subject yourself to the law of God, you cannot, because your will is in bondage, in captivity. So those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Period.
Now, do you believe that, or will you question that? Do you think you are not so?
So the reformer Martin Luther wrote a book, a pretty thick book. It was called The Bondage of the Will. Our will is under bondage.
And John Calvin, another reformer, taught election. In other words, we cannot choose our own destiny. Everything is by the sovereignty of God, because we have no free will to choose.
Do you accept that? Now John Wesley came and said, “No, we have free will. Whosoever will can accept Jesus Christ.”
I remember once D. L. Moody had a special session only for atheists and agnostics. The hall was filled with atheists and agnostics, and he preached the gospel to them. It was so powerful.
After he finished, someone stood up and said, “I can’t. I can’t believe. I cannot believe.”
But Moody said, “It is not you can’t; it is you won’t. You will not.”
So here you find a contradiction. If we do not have free will to choose, how can we choose Christ? If our will is in bondage, in enmity with God, how comes that we believe in the Lord Jesus and are saved?
So you find in Christianity these two schools of thought have been fighting against each other ever since, and it has never been settled.
Even today, the Baptists believe in divine election, and the Methodists believe in free will. How are you going to reconcile these two schools of thinking? But strangely, the Bible teaches both.
They are side by side. If you read the letter to the Romans, in chapter 9 it teaches the sovereignty of God. Everything is by God’s election. He chooses this way or that way, and who are you to question Him?
But right after chapter 9, in chapter 10, it teaches free will.
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach:
because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Thank God, there is no way of reconciling these two opposite principles. But God is the only One who is able to work with both principles. Man cannot do that, but God alone can do that.
So somehow we find, even though we are not free-will people, God is still able to reach us and somehow choose us and bring us into eternal life. Is not that marvelous?
I think the best story is what D. L. Moody taught. He said, when you come to the gate of salvation, what do you see written upon the gate?
Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
If it is written there, “Your name,” and not “whosoever,” then only you can enter. But when you see “whosoever,” that includes you; that includes everybody. So you are qualified.
So this man just went through the gate. And after he went through the gate and looked back, he saw written on the backside of the gate, “Blessed are you who are chosen by God.” That is it.
So, dear brothers and sisters, do not try to use your mind to reconcile these two opposite principles. You cannot. You either strengthen the one or weaken the other. But God is above all these things.
How marvelous is His way of salvation, that He even reaches us whose wills were in bondage. Thank God for that. You are chosen even before the foundation of the world by the sovereignty of God. That makes our salvation so sure.
Now, what is the condition of your will now—you who have believed in the Lord Jesus, you who are saved? What is the condition of your will now? Is it still in bondage, captured by the enemy? No. The Lord has done something to your will.
Because of the lack of words to describe it, I would call it this: you have an awakened will. Your will is awakened to God.
How do you know? Because after you are saved, is it not true that you will to do the will of God? You want to do the will of God.
Before that, you had no desire at all. You wanted to do your own will. You wanted to do what the world willed, according to the will of the world. But no longer. You know He is the Lord, and you want to please Him. You want to do the thing that is right in His eyes, not just in your eyes.
That is Romans 7. Romans 7 is the experience of an awakened will, because it says, “I will to do the will of God, but I cannot. I hate it, but I do it.” Is not that our experience as Christians?
That is the difference between Christians and unbelievers. Unbelievers do not even will to do God’s will; they do not will to please God. Their only will is to please themselves.
But we as believers, as a sign of being true believers, in our heart we do have a weak will wanting to do God’s will, wanting to please Him. And it really hurts us. Why? Because I will to do the right thing, but I do not do it. I do not have the strength to do it.
The thing that I do not want to do, I do, because I am somehow still under a force. There is a law of sin and death in my flesh that is still very strong in me. But according to my inward man, I love the law of God. I want to please God. But my outward way says, “No, you need to please yourself and to please the world.”
That is our condition.
Do you cry out like the apostle Paul, “O wretched man that I am! Who can deliver me from this body of death?” Nobody can. You cannot. I cannot. But there is One. Thank God, through Jesus Christ.
In other words, the salvation of our will is through Jesus Christ. He is able to strengthen our will. He is able to make our will a submissive, a sanctified will, that we may live a life pleasing to Him. How?
On the one hand, we find that God has already made every provision for the deliverance of our will.
Our Lord Jesus, when He was crucified on the cross, not only bore our sins in His body, but He also put our old man away on the cross, in Him and with Him.
In other words, so far as the work of Christ is concerned, your old man was dead. When Christ died, old Adam in him died.
So the apostle Paul can say:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
In other words, brothers and sisters, God has already made a provision for us to have a will that will do the will of God. And the only One who is able to do that is Christ.
And Christ lives in you. He is your life and is able to live through you in perfect obedience to God. The only thing is: not I, but Christ. If you cast yourself totally upon Him, He will do it, because this is what He is.
Now, how do you get into it? Well, read Romans 12. That is the secret. After you have known all that Christ has done for you, how do you respond? The first thing:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
In other words, that is why we find that in our Christian experience, consecration is the first Christian experience. After you have believed in the Lord Jesus, the first thing you should do is present your body—that is, present your whole being—to the Lord.
And say, “Lord, I do not want to live by myself anymore. I give myself to You. You live in me. No longer I, but Christ. I am Yours.”
And as you give yourself to the Lord, something happens. The Holy Spirit renews your mind.
Once you thought the world was so lovely. How can you not love it? But now something happens. You see the world as ugly. You count all things as refuse. Who wants to collect this garbage? Throw it out.
And you consider the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the most precious, excellent thing. You love to do the will of God.
Somehow the strength is there. Not only is the understanding there, but the strength is there. You find what you could not do before, you are able to do now. But not you—it is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So, in other words, for an awakened will to be strengthened, it has to be a consecrated will. Why? Because God respects our will.
If you do not want it, God says, “I will not force it. You can go your way as you like.”
The reason why you find the power of God, the life of God, is not so evident in your Christian life is not because His life is weak. It is because you do not allow Him to live. You want to struggle by yourself. Why? Struggle to death.
But if you just let Him do it, He will do it. He is faithful.
Here I find the story of F. B. Meyer most helpful. You know, F. B. Meyer was a very famous preacher. When he was young, he was very eloquent, and he loved the Lord. He was pastor of a church in Edinburgh, Scotland—quite successful.
But one day another young man visited him. That young man’s name was C. T. Studd, the cricketer of England at that time, well known by everybody. But God laid hold of him. He gave up everything to go to China to be a missionary.
Before he went, he traveled around visiting different places, and it happened that he came to F. B. Meyer’s place. He stayed with F. B. Meyer, and it was in November. Edinburgh was very chilly.
Early in the morning, F. B. Meyer noticed that there was light in C. T. Studd’s room. As the host, he was a little concerned. “Has anything happened?” But he dared not go and knock on the door because it was still very early.
So he waited, but the light was still there. Finally, he went to the room and knocked on the door. A voice said, “Come in.”
He went in, and he saw C. T. Studd wrapped in a rug because he was very cold. He was sitting there reading the Bible.
So F. B. Meyer said, “You are early.”
And C. T. Studd said, “I love my Lord. I am searching the Bible to find His command, that I may do it.”
Now, is not that wonderful? When we read the Bible, what are we searching for? Promises. And we are even so lazy: instead of searching the Bible for promises, we can have a promise book and just pick it.
Who wants to search the Scriptures for commands? You shy away from it. But C. T. Studd searched the Scriptures for God’s commands because he loved the Lord.
So F. B. Meyer said that there was something in C. T. Studd that he did not have. So he asked, “What is the secret? How can I have what you have?”
And C. T. Studd said, “Have you consecrated yourself to the Lord?”
Is that not a joke—to ask a famous preacher, “Have you consecrated yourself to the Lord?” “Of course I did.”
“No,” C. T. Studd said, “go and hand over to the Lord everything in your life, one by one.”
“Well, I have never done that.”
“Go and do it.”
And he did. While he was praying, handing over everything that he could think of in his life to the Lord, it seemed as if he saw the Lord stretching His hand.
And F. B. Meyer gave Him a whole bundle of keys—keys to every room of his life, big keys and small keys. But he kept back a small key to a small room.
And the Lord shook His head. The Lord said, “If I am not Lord of all, I am not Lord at all.”
So F. B. Meyer pleaded with the Lord, “Allow me to keep this little key for myself. I am willing to serve You with double effort.”
And the Lord began to turn away. In his desperation, he cried out, “Make me willing to be willing.”
And the Lord came back, took the whole bundle with the small key away, and began to search every room of his life, clean it, fill it with Himself, with His Spirit, and use him mightily. That is his own story.
To have an awakened will is not enough. As a matter of fact, it is almost as if it is worse, because formerly you had no conscience, but now you are conscious.
But thank God, He does not want us to remain in that situation. He is able to deliver you, if only you will surrender your will to Him. And this is a lifelong experience.
As you are willing and stand on that ground, gradually you will find your will is being sanctified. You have a sanctified will. That is, you only will the will of God.
Brothers and sisters, think of the life of our Lord Jesus.
He came to this world to become a man. Yes, He is God; yet when He took upon Himself the flesh of man, He had the soul of a man. He had feeling. He was the most compassionate of men. He had His mind, His thought. He had His will.
But you find throughout His life, He never did anything according to His own will. The one thing that governed His life was, “What is the Father’s will for Me?”
That was the predominant thing in His life. Did He have no temptation? Remember, before His death, after His last entry into Jerusalem, for the first time you see the whole world was after Him. Even the Greeks wanted to see Him.
People said that was the glory time of our Lord Jesus in His whole life. And the Lord Himself said, “The hour of glory has come.” But His sense of glory was different.
He said:
Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
“I am the grain of wheat. I fall into the ground, not just to live, but to die. And unless I die, I cannot bear much fruit.”
He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
“Anyone who wants to serve Me, be where I am.” But His soul was much troubled, and He said, “Father, I came for this hour.” By the hour He meant the hour of death. “Glorify Thy name.”
And the voice out of heaven said, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
Do you think the matter was solved at that time? No. He went to the garden of Gethsemane.
He knew something extremely important. The whole universe was suspended, as it were, waiting for that hour. His burden was so heavy. His soul was so depressed.
He left the disciples behind, took three of them, and asked them to wait for Him, to pray with Him for an hour. Then He went forward.
He prostrated Himself and said, “Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from Me. But not My will, but Thy will be done.”
Do you see the burden of that hour? The whole world was suspended, waiting to see how it would turn out.
In order to save the world, He had to be made sin for us—He who knew no sin had to be made sin for us. And to His soul, this was unbearable. He could not do it. It was too much.
He prayed. He struggled. He laid down His will and accepted His Father’s will. And peace returned to Him.
Brothers and sisters, do you see this? Has this ever happened to you in a small way? Our experience can never be compared with what the Lord had gone through. He did it for the whole world. He did it for mankind.
The struggle was fierce. When He prayed, His sweat became as drops of blood. He was so exhausted that an angel had to come to sustain Him.
Brothers and sisters, that is the fight for the will of God, unto death.
So that is why we find how He fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 40:
I am come to do Thy will.
Brothers and sisters, are we going through this purifying of our will? Are you willing to take the cross and follow the Lord?
I have never met Miss Barber, Margaret Barber. She was a little before my time. But I heard that she was a very strong-willed woman.
You can understand: if she was not a strong-willed woman, how could she have gone through all the things that happened in her life?
Brother Nee, as a young man, knew how strong her will was. Oftentimes he went to Miss Barber to complain, and Miss Barber always said, “You are the younger; you submit.”
Miss Barber was not naturally a person who could easily yield her will to God. In her life she struggled, and once the Lord was demanding something in her life, and she could not give it to the Lord.
You may think, “You are such a spiritual person; surely you have no problem.” No. She had problems—bigger problems, more serious than we have.
But listen to her prayer. She said, “Lord, do not give up. Wait until I turn around.”
And thank God, she turned around.
Oh, brothers and sisters, think of the condition of our will. Are you really surrendered?
Can you truthfully say, “Lord, not my will, but Thy will be done”?
How many of us today have a sanctified will—will nothing but the will of God, in spite of our own will?
Now that is how our will is sanctified: through spiritual exercise. This never comes easy. It never comes naturally. It comes through spiritual exercise. May the Lord help us.
Lord, Lord, search our hearts.
We expose ourselves to Thee, Lord. Thou art the only One who knows the intents and the thoughts of our hearts. Everything is naked before Thee.
Lord, search us to see if there is any resistance, rebellion, or idolatrous way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting. We worship Thee in Thy precious name. Amen.