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Introduction
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How can you ascertain the will of God? This is a big question, not just for healing, but for
anything. How can we find the will of God? There are so many people who talk about it so
mysteriously. “Oh, if we only knew the will of God. If we could find the will of God.” Well, how
are you going to find it? How are you going to know when you get it? How can you know the
will of God? Millions of people believe that when something happens, some way or another it
was the will of God, and we don’t understand it all, but it was His will.
When I’ve gone to pray for someone to be healed and asked them, “Do you believe it’s God’s
will for you to be healed?” they’ve said, “Well, I don’t know. I hope so.” So I asked, “How
would you know?” They answered, “Well, I thought you’d pray, and if I get healed, then it was
God’s will, and if I don’t, then it meant it wasn’t His will.”
So how are they ascertaining the will of God? By results or lack of results, aren’t they? People
don’t do that in every other area, though. They only do it in specific, traditionally-slanted areas.
People don’t do that with salvation now do they? What if we did that with people getting born
again? How would we know if it’s God’s will for them to be saved or not? Well, if they make
heaven, we’ll know it was God’s will, and if they bust hell wide open, then we’ll know it was not
God’s will for them to be saved.
No, this is the most important thing about a person’s life. Are there people who are perishing
without the Lord? Is it the will of God? No, it is not. Well then, is it true that everything that
happens is God’s will? No, it is not, and if it’s that way with the most important thing—our
eternal salvation—why would we think it’s so different concerning something temporal like our
healing, or like the meeting of our physical needs?
You cannot ascertain the will of God just by what happens. That is a spiritually-irresponsible
stance, a spiritually-lazy position. It’s mighty convenient to say that everything that happens is
the Lord’s will, and everything that doesn’t happen is the Lord’s will. You hear people,
Christians, who you rub shoulders with, talking about this. They’re late, or they didn’t get
something done, or they mess up, and they say, “Well, it must have been God’s will.” It was
God’s will for you to goof off and watch TV all night and not be ready? That was God’s will?
Or they’re reaching to the floorboard, trying to find the cheeseburger that they dropped, and they
run through an intersection, have a wreck, tear up their car, and say, “We don’t understand it, but
it must have been God’s will.” Really? It was God’s will for you to be looking for a
cheeseburger on the floorboard and have a wreck? Do you see what I’m talking about?
“Well,” they say, “we just don’t understand all these things, but you know, everything happens
for a reason.” Have you heard that before? “Everything happens for a reason…” That’s like
saying, “The sun shines, and we can see…We get in water, and it’s wet...” You haven’t said
anything. Well, sure, there’s a reason. The reason could be you weren’t paying attention. The
reason could be you didn’t listen to God.
Prideful people don’t want to take responsibility for anything, and so it’s very convenient to say
that everything that happens is mysteriously the will of God. What’s so convenient about it is
that they never get called on anything. They’re never held accountable for anything. Why?