June 21, 2016 Show with Terry Burlingame on “When God’s Will & My Will Disconnect”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity who are living on the planet earth listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 21st day of June 2016, and I'm delighted that at the urging of my dear friend

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Joe Bianchi of Calvary Press, I'm delighted that we have for the very first time on this program an author named

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Terry Burlingame, and perhaps he can correct me in a

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I'm using a pictorial image to remember his last name from now on, to remember the

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Olympic Games in Berlin when when Jesse Owens won the track and field event for the

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United States, the Berlin Games, but we are going to be discussing a very needed topic to address and also very controversial issue, when

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God's will and my will disconnect. This is a topic that is no doubt on the minds of many frustrated and sad

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Christians who are longing for something to occur in their lives and they pray fervently to our

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Lord to answer their prayer and for some reason it appears as if that is not happening.

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It appears very often that God has turned a deaf ear to our prayers and also there's a matter of theological controversy in regard to the will of God versus our will and when they disconnect, as the title says, but let me welcome our guest for the first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Terry Burlingame, who earned a doctor of ministry and pastoral counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary and is a member of the

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Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. After retiring from the U .S.

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Army chaplaincy, he served as a senior pastor for 10 years and currently he is a counselor with the

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Biblical Counseling Center in Jenison, Michigan, involved in ministries at Jamestown Bible Church and as a member of the board at David's House Ministries.

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Terry and his wife Barbara have three children and eight grandchildren and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

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Terry Burlingame. Well, thank you. It's a great pleasure. It's an honor to be with you today,

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Chris, to be able to talk about what God's doing, to talk about his word, and to see what he does during this period of time.

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And you did pronounce the name correctly, so I commend you for that. Okay, great. Well, I'm very happy about that and I hope you don't mind the way

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I remembered how to pronounce it. Chris has got to do anything he can. And well, first of all, before we get into the heart of our subject, let me also introduce you to my co -host here,

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Reverend Buzz Taylor. Terry, it's good to meet you. And it's good to meet you as well, Buzz. Looking forward to hearing what you got to say for us today.

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Thank you. Tell us something about the Biblical Counseling Center in Jennison, Michigan.

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Well, the Biblical Counseling Center there began years back with a man by the name of John Cruz.

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And we are a ministry that's dedicated to helping people biblically through problems that they face of various types and sorts.

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It's a small center, but a center that is focused upon Christ and his word. We work with churches, work with people when really addressing problems of various sorts and needs.

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And what is David's House? Yeah, I was going to ask that also. Okay. David's House Ministries is a ministry here locally in the

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Grand Rapids area that provides homes in a Christian setting for adults with developmental disabilities.

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And currently we provide a home for 37 individuals and four houses. And just broke ground this last week to add to that about six more homes that will double the size.

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But just a compassionate ministry based upon the word of God and a

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Christian emphasis to help those who are unable to really help themselves provide that home, that setting surrounding support needs for individuals with various kinds of disabilities.

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And our son, Jonathan, is one of the residents in that home. What's with the name David's House? Where did you come up with that?

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Well, it's often said that the founder has a son named David who lives there.

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But it really comes from David who provided a home for Mephibosheth.

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Okay. I was wondering if King David was in there somewhere. So it's after David and his care for Mephibosheth who did not care for himself in providing that home.

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And so our desire is to help those who help the individual, but also help families, minister to families who are unable to, or don't have all the resources, the means, the supports necessary to provide for their loved ones.

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I want to make sure that I mention Calvary Press's website in case by some unfortunate circumstance

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I forget to mention it by the end of the program. I'm sure I won't, but I might as well also just make absolutely certain

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I don't. Calvarypress .com, they are the publishers of the discussing today.

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Calvarypress .com, When God's Will and My Will Disconnect. First of all, what was the catalyst that led you to write this book?

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Well, you know, it first came to me really during my own personal reading of Scripture, and that was maybe nine years or so ago.

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I was reading through the book of Genesis, and I came to the portion, very familiar portion of Joseph and the

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Scriptures and him being denied by his brothers and hated by his brothers and sold into Egypt and so on.

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And it just struck me that of Joseph's consistent faithfulness that we have recorded for us in Scriptures, that he must have made some decisions along the way that to keep himself in line with what he had known to be true and what he had taught to be true as a young man, as a child.

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And so just in reading the Scriptures and going through Genesis, going through the story of Joseph, I began to make some notes.

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And I am a believer that when you read Scripture, you ought to have a pen in hand to make notes and to make comments and begin to write down things.

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And came with some choices, I think, that Joseph made. And then began to see how those related to my own personal life and to the lives of others, that there are choices we need to make.

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Things don't go the way we expect, anticipate, want them to go. How are we going to respond to that?

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And so that comes out of the Scripture, out of looking at Joseph's life and comparing

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Scripture with Scripture and looking at our own lives and saying, we need to make some right choices along the way here.

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And they're not always easy choices to make. Amen. And one of the chapters in your book is

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Decision One, I choose to accept that I am not in control.

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That is something that reverberates in the memories of anyone who has ever been to a 12 step recovery program, that God is in control.

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That is the initial decision that you list in the book. Obviously, many of the recovery programs fall apart in their steps after that in some way or shape or form and contradict

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Scriptures in some fashion. But tell us what you mean by this in your chapter in this book.

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Yeah, thank you, Chris. And I really believe this is foundational for every other decision that we make in every other chapter that's written in this book.

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What is my view of, what do I believe about God? Do I believe

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God to be who He says He is? Do I believe that all the time? Or do

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I believe only when things are going fine, going my way, and I'm not facing problems, struggles, difficulties, and so on?

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What do I really believe about God? And I've got to come back to the foundational aspect that God is in control.

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He's a sovereign, loving, caring God. He's a creator God who designed me, who designed people, who designed this world with purpose.

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And He's going to fulfill His purpose. And I may not like the things that happen.

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They might be a surprise to me and turn my world in a sense upside down.

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But if I believe that God is in control, that He has a divine purpose for everything that's happening, and He's going to use it in some way for my benefit and for His glory,

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I can rest in that. I can sit back and say, okay, now what do

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I do? Believing that God is in control of the how do

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I respond to this? What is the right response? And if I get frustrated with God, if I get upset with God, if I become angry and say, you know,

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I don't like God right now. I don't like the things that God is doing in my life. I think that God missed the boat somewhere.

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I don't think God really understands. What I'm really doing is denying the

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God of Scripture. I am doubting that He is who He says He is and that He will do what

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He says He will do for us as His people. I'm His child, and He promises to take care of me, provide for me everything that I need, to help me in every situation of my life.

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And I've got to be willing to believe that no matter what the circumstances, no matter what happens to me.

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And, you know, I use somewhat of the foundational passage of Scripture for all of this, 2

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Peter chapter 1, where He says to us in verse 3, His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.

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And if I believe that, if I believe the Word, if I believe He's given me everything I need for life and godliness, if I believe

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He's in control, then I can approach those situations and circumstances of my life.

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I can help others approach the circumstances and situations of their lives and say, okay, now what's

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God doing? And how does He want me to respond in a manner that will be honoring to Him and glorifying to Him?

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Amen. And now let me give our email address if anybody listening would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

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Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, that's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA. And please feel free, if this is about an intimate, personal, private matter that has a sensitivity to it, you may remain anonymous, if it makes you feel more comfortable.

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Otherwise, we ask of you to please give us your first name, city and state or country. And one of the things that is being taught today by many

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Christians, spanning theological lines everywhere from Pentecostals to even some fundamentalist

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Baptists and others, who would say that you are totally off -base, you are perhaps even heretical, and even, dare

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I say, you may be blaspheming the name of God by attaching Him to things that are absolutely horrific, filled with sin, things that are tragedies in our lives that involve our children.

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I can still remember vividly not

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Joel Osteen, but his father, I think his father's name was Joe, if I'm not mistaken, or John Osteen, John Osteen was his father, his late father, when he was the host of that television program.

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And he, I can still remember him with his arms folded, as he always used to march around from behind his pulpit, with his arms folded, with an angry look on his face, unlike his son.

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And he would say that there are people out there who think that if your little itty -bitty baby is crossing the street and he gets hit by a car and killed, that God had something to do with that.

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God had nothing to do with it, that was the devil. And I remember thinking as a young Christian, listening to that, thinking to myself, you mean the devil can overpower

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God? Or was God asleep when that happened? Or what was, how can you possibly take comfort in thinking that your child had been killed by the hands of Satan, and that God had nothing to do with it at all, because that just means it's purposeless, has no meaning, and to me it would make the tragedy even a more devastating and horrific event, if you could comment on that.

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Yeah, and I think it becomes hopeless. It's a hopeless outlook, and the fact of, okay, where do

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I go from here? And what is going to happen next that Satan has full control of and God has no control of?

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And my future and my expectations, my anticipation of God's provision and care for me really goes out the window, and I'm denying the

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God of the Scriptures. And so when someone says, you know, what I'm doing, what I say is heretical,

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I say, well, it's what the Scripture teaches, and I have to go back to the authority of the

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Word of God, the full Word of God, and I can't pick and choose the things that I like or don't like about God.

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You need to accept the full Word of God, and God very clearly speaks about him being sovereign, and we can see situations.

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Joseph is a perfect example of this, of how, you know, what looked at, you know,

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Jacob could have said, God had nothing to do with this. This is all of Satan's work.

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You know, if he had been, this is all of Satan's work. My son, my favored son, he's lost, he's gone, and there's nothing that I can do.

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God just took his side away from this for a removed his hand, and Satan has his full power here, and it's his fault in all of this.

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But how does the story end? The story ends with Joseph saying, you know,

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God had a plan. God had a purpose, and all those things that others meant for evil,

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God had a purpose. And everything that maybe seemed wrong in my life, God was using in a way to take care of his people, bring glory to his name, and in reality, then to show the full measure of his redemptive plan, and that was all part of what he was doing.

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Now, I can't answer the question that they have, or that even

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I've had with our own son, that says, you know, how come this happened?

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If God really cared for me, he would have protected my son. If God was really involved, he would not let this happen.

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Why can't I always answer those questions? Like, we don't know. We don't know the purpose of God's design.

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We only see, I sometimes use this illustration, Chris. We have before us a 10 ,000 -piece jigsaw puzzle, and I've got three pieces, and I don't have the picture.

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And I try to somehow at times define and figure out what's going on in my life, but those three pieces,

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I don't have the full picture. I can't do that. Not to trust the fact that God is working things together perfectly for his glory, for a divine purpose that's beyond my understanding.

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I don't need to know. From my ways are greater than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, Isaiah 55.

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I don't need to know. What I do need to know is what God has revealed to me in his

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Word. That I can trust, and if I trust that, no matter what the tragedy or horrific circumstance might be, if I believe that, then

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I can rest. I can rest and have confidence that my God is at work, and I look to you to be at work, even though I don't understand.

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Well, as Chris and I heard a few weeks ago, we were at some meetings with Modi Bakam, and he pointed out that story with Joseph was actually, he showed the larger purpose of even that.

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It wasn't just to preserve this family, but it was, there was already prophecies made, you know, about the messianic line, and that it was going to be through Judah and so forth.

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And really the whole thing of the story of Joseph was to save Judah so that ultimately we would come up with Jesus the

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Christ. And, you know, we have the entire Old Testament as a testimony of God's faithfulness to his plan, but if we don't understand that he is actually accomplishing something in the earth through history, then we're kind of lost if it's just like, you know, my own individual life is all that matters.

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We have to see the larger picture. Well, I think you're so right there, Buzz, because sometimes when we say we become so self -focused in my life, my situation, my child, my disruption, my disease, whatever it might be, and we become so focused on everything else.

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Yeah, and I can still vividly remember when I was working for a major Christian radio station when 9 -11 occurred, the day that will remain an infamy that is known by the date,

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September 11th, and when the mad men or evil men crash their planes into the

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World Trade Center, and you could actually see the

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World Trade Center from the office building that the radio station was in, where the conference room is in.

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You could see the World Trade Center from there, and providentially, I was not in work that day because I received a phone call that night before that that the meeting had been canceled, and so I would not have been anywhere near the

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World Trade Center, but it would have definitely kept me in New Jersey overnight where the radio station was.

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I doubt that I would have been able to get back to Long Island that evening if I had gone in, but I can remember that the station had been airing words of encouragement and comfort by various pastors, and over and over and over again.

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Now, I'm not talking about liberal pastors. I'm talking about conservative Bible -believing pastors, even some fundamentalist

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Baptist pastors, saying, you're going to hear people saying that God had something to do with this.

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Don't listen to that lie. God had nothing to do with what happened on September 11th.

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That is just a lie of Satan straight from the pit of hell, and I remember thinking to myself, what are these

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Christians talking about? I mean, if God is not impotent and weak, and if he cannot be overcome by the plan and will of Satan or even sinful men, how on earth could you worship him as being an all -powerful and almighty

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God? It doesn't, those things don't match. Absolutely, and that's why you have to come back to the fact, who do

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I believe God is? Who do I believe he is? What does the scripture say that God, who

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God is, and will I believe that regardless of the situation? You know,

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I don't know how God's using the events of 9 -1 -1, but we do know there are lives that have been changed.

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People have come to Christ because of that. We don't know, you know, if our world should last, if Christ should carry before he comes back, of how a life that was changed on that particular day because of that circumstance, how that person is going to impact someone else, impact someone else.

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We don't understand that. We don't know how that works in the fullness of God's redemptive plan, but if God's in control,

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I've got to believe the fact that he was not surprised by that event, that he's not surprised by it.

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If he's not surprised by it, he's going to use it in a powerful way for his glory, and I think you're absolutely right.

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Now, how can we worship a God who is surprised, who doesn't know, whose hands are not in control, and we don't have any expectation of tomorrow?

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You know, what can I believe about what's going to happen in times if my

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God's not in control? And one thing that we do know with absolute certainty is that Jesus wants us to use events like this when they occur to remind us of our need to repent, because that's exactly what he told those asking him about, those who perished when the

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Tower of Siloam collapsed, and that was a much less significant event than what happened in New York City on September 11th.

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In New York City, there were thousands of people died, and a comparative handful died when the

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Tower of Siloam had collapsed, and one of the things that when people have said to me that God can never be involved in evil events that are accomplished by wicked men in rebellion, well,

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I always point them to 2 Samuel 12, when

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Nathan the prophet reveals to David that he is the evil man that Nathan was describing in a parable about a man whose precious pet sheep that he cared for like his child was killed and eaten by wicked men, and wanted to enact vengeance upon these people, and Nathan said that he was the man, and he was basically revealing to him how he had done such an abhorrent thing in the sight of God in the murder of Uriah and the adultery with Bathsheba, and of course the murder of Uriah, the

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Hittite, to cover it up because Bathsheba was pregnant, and when

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Nathan is letting David know how God is going to chastise him, and in fact

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God is speaking through Nathan, he says to David, Thus says the

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Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household.

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I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.

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Indeed, you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all

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Israel and under the sun. This is God telling David that he is going to bring about wicked and evil things that even include adultery in the sight of all

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Israel. That's pretty remarkable, isn't it? Absolutely, and there again we see

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God orchestrating those things, but what's the purpose? The purpose is in the fulfillment of his redemptive plan, in helping us to realize the depth of our own sin, our own helplessness, and the fulfillment of his redemptive plan.

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He works in ways that we don't have to understand, and I think that's a key for us, that we are so prone to want to understand everything, the reason for everything, and have the answers for everything, and we just cannot.

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We have to accept that. We have to go to a break right now, and we do have some listeners online waiting to have their questions asked and answered on air by Terry Burlingame, and our email address if you'd like to join them is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with Terry Burlingame, and when

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That's the Thriving Story. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned in to Iron Sharpens Iron, our guest today is Terry Burlingame.

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And we are discussing his new book, Hot Off the Press, When God's Will and My Will Disconnect, available now through calvarypress .com.

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That's calvarypress .com. And we have a couple of listeners online who are asking questions.

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The first is from Tom in West Islet, Long Island, New York. He asks,

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I'm in the middle of one tough season. My daughter is in recovery after relapsing, losing my job at the end of the year.

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No real clear answers on either front. I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders.

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I read my Bible every day and pray unceasingly, but I feel lacking in my trust in His promises.

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How does one praise authentically when you feel so burdened? How do I find the strength to be patient?

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How do I know what doors are the ones He wishes me to walk through? That is a tremendous series of questions there from Tom in West Islet.

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And if you could go through those questions, Terry. Wow, Tom, you have been hit with some things that are definitely most difficult.

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We want to be very careful to say there's just no easy, in one sense, easy answers for these things.

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I mean, a daughter in recovery, having lost your job, and looking at what you do, how do things get back together, how is your daughter going to do?

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Is she going to be able to be successful in recovery?

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I'm not sure what the recovery is from that difficult, difficult situation things of life.

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You said you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and lacking trust.

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I think we go back again, Tom, to truth, that we don't carry the weight of the world on our shoulders.

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We can feel that way. But we need to remember that God, again, like we said a little bit earlier, is not surprised by these things.

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He knows and He cares for you. If you're His child, if you trust Jesus Christ and His redemptive work in your life, you're

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His child, and He is going to care for you, provide for you, love you, help you through all of these situations.

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You can read the Bible, and you can look at the promises and say, well, I just don't see them fitting right now.

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And I understand that. We may not always see them just fitting our situation and having the great answer we're looking for that will relieve the struggle, the pressure that we're facing.

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But I have to go back and say, okay, but what is God doing and what is

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He telling me? Was He faithful to me yesterday? Was He faithful when you had the job? Was He faithful when your daughter was doing well?

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Was He faithful when He saved you? If He was faithful, then is He still not faithful?

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And if He is still faithful, is He not going to help you? And we liken this somewhat,

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Tom, to what Peter talks about, what Paul talks about, the trials of our faith, the sufferings that we go through.

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What's He doing with those? He's working through those things to develop in us maturity and growth to become more like Christ.

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We don't see how that's going to happen. We don't know how He's going to work. We don't know what your next job is going to look like.

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But right now we do know that what does He call you to do today? He calls you to be faithful.

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He calls you to submit yourself under His authority. He calls upon you as a person without a job to be diligently seeking to find a job and to see what door

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He does open. You said, how do I know which door to go through? Well, which doors are there?

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You want to think about the fact of, well, if you have two doors or three doors and they're all open, are ready to be opened by you, well, choose one.

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Choose one to go through, the one that makes the best sense for you at this point in time. And you do what you can do.

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You do what you can do and remain faithful to God and trusting Him and His Word and anticipating, and this is key,

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Tom, to anticipate that God is going to work in you as well as through you in a very difficult situation for your benefit and for His glory.

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We don't know how that's going to happen, but in the midst of the trial, in the midst of the struggle, the suffering.

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Yeah. You know, you were talking about, of course, we have to watch our attitudes during these times of trust.

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And of course, James really directly dealt with that issue when he says to consider it joy when you encounter various trials.

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Now, when he's talking about various trials, I don't think he's talking about you stubbed your toe. I think he's talking about things like a daughter going through recovery and losing a job and things like that when you encounter various trials.

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And we look at that and say, oh, be real. How can you consider that joy? And even then, they were being persecuted for their faith and being tortured and killed.

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But the next word in that text is knowing. So there's something we're supposed to know about what's happening.

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And though I think it's dangerous to try to find a one -to -one correspondence, like I did this, so he's punishing me.

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Yet James says that the trying of our faith produces endurance. Let it have its perfect work that we can be complete and lacking in nothing.

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And then he says, if you lack wisdom, and of course, that's in the context of the suffering, you know, ask

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God and he's not going to get mad at you unless, of course, he gives one stipulation.

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You know, you don't want to confront God. It says, ask in faith, nothing wavering.

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You know, we can say, Lord, what are you trying to accomplish in my life? Or we can say, God, would you please stop picking on me? If we say,

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Lord, stop picking on me, he's going to give us another test because we didn't learn yet. But if we learn the lesson that he's got for us, then what we rejoice later, because we can look back and say, this is what he taught me through this.

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While I'm in it, I don't know that. But, you know, I've developed a habit in my own life when I get to my rope's end and there's nothing to do but hang on.

39:45

I realize, you know, in three months from now, I'm going to know exactly how this worked out. And three months later, wow, it really did.

39:53

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I think one of the things to recognize, too, is that you use the phrase, you know,

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God's picking on me. God doesn't pick on us. No, no, he does not. He really doesn't. We feel that way at times.

40:05

I have to go back and not base what I do and how I respond to things based on my feelings, based rather upon what

40:13

I know to be true. I can't deny my feelings. I wrote later on the book about, you know, we have emotions and we have to work through our emotions and those are real, those emotions that we face.

40:23

I can't deny that. But I can, but I do based on how I feel at any given time.

40:30

By the way, go ahead. I'm sorry, I interrupted you there, Bertha. Okay, I reminded the scripture in 1

40:35

Corinthians 10, and we know this well, where it says, no temptation has seized you or overtaken you, which is common thought, common demand.

40:43

And I need to look at the fact that when I begin to doubt, I don't feel like worshiping.

40:50

When I begin to wonder, you know, how to praise God or how to respond to God, I'm really falling into a pattern of distrusting

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God, which is a temptation of sin. He says, no temptation has seized you, which is not common to men, but God is faithful.

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And that's the key for this whole passage. And he will not allow you to be tempted, tried, put into a situation beyond your ability, but will in the midst of that circumstance, provide the way of escape, provide the way through it that you might be able to endure it.

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And there's where the patience and the endurance and the perseverance comes in. God is faithful, and he will help you through that.

41:37

And by the way, Tom in West Islip, if you give me your full mailing address, we're going to send you a free copy of our guest book,

41:46

When God's Will and My Will Disconnect by Terry Burlingame, compliments of calvarypress .com.

41:54

And also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who's shipping it out to you at no cost to us at cvbbs .com,

42:05

cvbbs .com. And we thank Calvary Press and Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for shipping that book out to you.

42:14

And, you know, I just recently heard one of the most precious gifts in the realm of pastors and authors and preachers that God has given to the church,

42:30

Jeffrey Thomas from Wales, from Aberystwyth, Wales, he told me to pronounce it correctly.

42:37

And I just saw him recently speak at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and he was preaching on Romans 828.

42:47

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love

42:54

God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And some translations even say to those who are the called, according to his purpose.

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And he said, Jeff Thomas said that a way of exegeting that passage when it's boiled down to its essence, he said, whenever, and he is speaking to Christians, of course, those who are disciples of Christ, whenever we ask

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God for something, he will either give us what we ask for, or he will give us something better.

43:31

And I just loved that because he was not saying this like a name it and claim it preacher.

43:38

He was talking about even if we are going through the most horrific trial in our lives, and even if we never clearly see the good that is being done for us and to us in this life, we can trust in knowing that he is giving us something better than we even asked him for, and that it will work out for that purpose.

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So I just want to thank Jeff Thomas for that jewel that he gave to me on Sunday.

44:11

We also have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, who asks, would you say that one of the biggest heresies of our day that abuses the providence of God is the prosperity movement?

44:27

Terry? Well, absolutely it's a heresy.

44:34

One of the biggest heresies abusing the providence of God, there's a lot that abuse the providence of God, and so I'm not sure how

44:41

I would rate them necessarily, but we have to look at the prosperity gospel that it says, no, what is it doing?

44:47

It is saying that you are going to, things are going to get better. You're going to have it better.

44:52

You're not going to struggle if you do this, this, this, and this. And it is heretical because that's not what

44:59

God teaches. And it is denying the very sovereign design of God and really denying what we're just talking about, you know, from James, from how

45:10

God uses trials in our lives to bring us to maturity, that he works through circumstance in our life.

45:16

And he never promises, never promises to us that things will always go well for us.

45:23

That's just not part of the scriptures. And so, you know, absolutely that the quick answer is, yeah, it's a heretical teaching denying the authority of the word of God, denying the providence of God, the sovereignty of God, and really doing damage as people put their trust in that which is not true and have an open expectation, which is not going to be fulfilled because God does not promise that to us.

45:52

Yeah. And the way that that sin of the prosperity movement just gives a hopelessness to people who are being told that everything that is happening around them, that's bringing them sadness and grief and sorrow, that is all because they don't have enough faith.

46:16

And you could be the most godly person in the world and be going through these tragedies in your life.

46:24

And these kinds of lies can bring you to the very end of the rope or your rope.

46:36

And, you know, it's like the prosperity movement is being used by Satan, the accuser of just basically whispering in the true

46:52

Christian's ear, you know, why you're going through this, don't you? It's just because you're not good enough.

46:58

Your faith isn't strong enough. You're never going to be good enough and you're never going to be strong enough.

47:03

You might as well just give up. Why even bother with this Christianity nonsense? You know,

47:08

I've met people who were members of churches and denominations and aberrant

47:14

Christian groups that put people on the treadmill of works righteousness. And they did give up after a while.

47:22

They just said to themselves and to everybody else, I really did try my best, but I'm being told every week that I could lose my salvation if I don't live up to this or that and that everything that's negative around me is because of my faith being too weak.

47:38

Well, it's never going to be stronger. I just give up. Thankfully, several of these people that I know that went through that phase were restored to the body of Christ by God's grace and into a much clearer biblical truth in regard to God's grace and so on.

48:00

But do you have any comment about that, about the hopelessness?

48:05

It's not just technically heresy in a discussion that theologians may have in a study over cigars and brandy.

48:17

This is a thing that could rob people of all hope and joy in the Christian life.

48:23

Well, I think you're actually right there because you look at the situations and where does it lead to? And I cannot have peace.

48:30

I cannot have joy. I cannot have hope if things do not get better and if I'm constantly being, in a sense, condemned or condemning myself because I don't have sufficient faith.

48:41

And what am I putting my faith in? I'm putting my faith in an expectation that someone gives to me that is not founded in Scripture.

48:50

And I come back to 1 Peter now in chapter 1 and a very familiar passage where it says,

48:56

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. His great mercy, He's caused us to be born again to a living hope, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the dead end to an inheritance, and so on.

49:07

He says, in this you greatly rejoice, going on now. So now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.

49:17

I think it's interesting, if necessary. What's it necessary about it? Well, there's a purpose for it.

49:23

So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it's tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

49:38

Though you don't see Him now, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him. Rejoice with joy inexpressible and filled with glory.

49:48

Obtain the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. And there's hope that there are some necessary trials, struggles, suffering, difficulties

49:58

I have to go through. But what's He doing? He is working those things in my life and through me to develop my faith and to bring me to a point of maturity.

50:10

And I'll see where that will result in praise and honor and glory. And I miss all of that if I wallow in what has happened and that God hasn't just made it all better for me.

50:25

He never promises to make it all better till eternity. And then it's all better.

50:32

And then it will be all better. And then we can see then the fullness of what He is doing and has done.

50:39

But today, my faith grows through those things that seem so disconnected.

50:47

But I trust the fact that God is at work for a purpose. And Paul said in Romans chapter 8, a little earlier in that passage you were reading earlier,

50:57

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

51:04

There will be suffering. We live in a stricken, sin -fallen, fallen world that has been corrupted by sin.

51:15

And there are going to be problems and struggles. It's not perfect. A perfect world will come.

51:20

But this is not perfect at this point. Well, tell me, how can we know, this is kind of a loaded question because I think

51:28

I know where you're going to answer this, but how can we know the difference between my will and God's will?

51:36

Well, first of all, is it in harmony with the Word of God? And what I am doing, is that in harmony with God's Word?

51:44

Let me go back to Tom's question earlier, which door do I go through?

51:50

Well, is there any door that is out of harmony with the will of God? Is there a door that's open that is going to put me in a sinning or sinful or unfaithful situation?

52:02

Is there a door that is contrary to the principles of God's Word? Well, then that's very clear.

52:08

That's not a door I should go to. That's not the place for me to go. What's God's will for me?

52:14

And I think that's part of, Chris, what we've grappled with, and sometimes so wrongly, is

52:20

God's will is defined for me in Scripture. God's will is for me to be faithful.

52:27

God's will is for me to trust Him. God's will is for me to give Him praise. His will is for me to be thankful.

52:34

God's will is for me to worship Him, to trust Him, to believe Him, to be the man, the person

52:42

He has called me to be, that has the character qualities developed that are in harmony with Christ, to be an imitator of Jesus Christ, to be filled with the fruit of the

52:51

Spirit, to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit in my life. That's God's will. And I don't think we need to be quite so concerned at times, do

52:59

I take this job or this job, go to this school or that school? Yes, that's what

53:04

I was in reference to largely, because that's the way a lot of people think, is like, there is this dot that is the center of God's will, and like, you know,

53:13

He's got this special girl for me to marry, and if I don't find her and marry her,

53:19

I'm going to be a failure in marriage, and unfortunately so is she, because I didn't get her, you know? Or you may be in love with someone that you are hoping is the one that God has chosen for you, and it may even look that way for a while, and the difference between knowing the prescribed will of God and the decreed will of God, that's the part that's not always easy.

53:49

You know when you are disobeying God when you look at the scriptures, but there are certain things obviously that He has decreed that we don't know, like whom we're going to marry and so on.

54:00

I like what, I think it's Kevin DeYoung that says, just find someone you like and marry them.

54:14

Obviously they have to be willing. Find someone you like, you know, walking in harmony with the

54:20

Word of God, and you know, and just go ahead and get married. Yeah, well you answered pretty much like I expected you to, and I'm glad for that, because God is much more concerned about what we are than what we do, because if we are what we're supposed to be, we will be doing what we're supposed to be doing.

54:39

Absolutely. By the way, Tyler and Mastic Beach, you have also won a free copy of When God's Will and My Will Disconnect by our guest

54:49

Terry Burlingame. Tyler's getting a pretty good library now. Compliments of calvarypress .com,

54:55

and we look forward to other listeners to email us your questions at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

55:03

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and we're going to be going to a break in a minute, but before we go to the break,

55:10

I'd like to bring up another chapter in your book and have you to start contemplating it even before we go into the break.

55:19

Decision two is I choose to confess sin. By the way, I love how a Calvinist has so many decisions in a book, kind of trip up the hyper -Calvinists out there, but I choose to confess sin.

55:34

If you could tell us a bit about that before the break, and then we'll continue when we return. Well, this is, and I say this in the book, all the other decisions

55:44

I say, this is, I can see where Joseph made this decision either, you know, very consciously or subconsciously, he's making these decisions that he went along with faithfully.

55:57

We don't have record that Joseph sinned. Well, we know that he did.

56:04

But he sinned in his life because he was a man. But we don't know what his attitude was towards his brothers, towards his dad, towards the people on the caravan, towards Potiphar, for Potiphar's wife, the prison, other, we don't know a lot of things.

56:19

But my hunch is, and this is a hunch, and this is where this comes into play here.

56:25

I need to look at my own life and see if the circumstances that are going on in my life are because of my sin. Have I gone against the will of God?

56:34

Am I living contrary to God's design? Am I sinning in my life and living in that sin and not willing to confess that sin, not willing to repent of that sin?

56:46

And so is sin making a very definite impact on what I am doing right now, where I'm at and the struggles that I'm facing?

56:56

Amen. And we're going to go to a break right now. And before we go to the break,

57:01

I want to ask you a question so you can have the break period to mill it over a bit. Do you not believe, since you are a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace and God's sovereign control over all things, that even if we're going to take

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Romans 8 .28 as a promise that we can cling to, can we not even say, and this is a dangerous thing to say because people will misread what

57:33

I'm saying and think that I'm giving an excuse for sin or giving people a relaxed attitude towards sin or thinking they have a liberty to sin.

57:45

But can we not, especially if our lives are in shambles because of sin that we have committed, serious, grievous, scandalous public sin perhaps, that when we are in repentance and we are trying to bring about restoration with those that we love and in every other human connection that we have on this earth, not to mention to be brought in the right fellowship with God himself, can we not even view these wicked deeds and sins that we ourselves have committed as being part of God's plan that will be worked together for our good?

58:29

Very controversial question, a question that may even evoke anger in some of my listeners, but I think it's a truth that needs to be asked, or an important question

58:39

I should say, that needs to be asked. And we'll get your answer from it right after these messages. If you'd like to join us on the air as well, our email address is

58:48

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

58:56

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Don't go away, we're going to be right back with Terry Berlingame.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

01:03:04

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in for the last hour and the next hour to come, our guest today is

01:03:10

Terry Burlingame. We're discussing his book, When God's Will and Will Disconnect, hot off the press, from calvarypress .com.

01:03:21

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:03:28

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Before the break, Terry, I asked you, do even our sins work together for the good for those who love

01:03:39

God and are called according to purpose? Well, if we believe that God works all things together, we have to say he will use our sin.

01:03:48

Now, does God cause us to sin? Well, we're totally responsible. He gives us that very, he tells us that very clearly.

01:03:54

I'm responsible for every one of my actions. I'm responsible for things that I say, the things that I do.

01:04:00

I'll be held accountable for that. I'm, I'm responsible. And there's no moving around that.

01:04:06

And in God's sovereign design, there are some things that we maybe don't understand fully. Um, we cannot understand fully because we don't have that mind of God that is able to grasp the fullness of how he works in an amazing way.

01:04:21

But I think about the fact that then I cannot blame

01:04:27

God for my sin saying he caused me to sin so that this will happen.

01:04:34

What does he say to us in James chapter one? He says very clearly, he says, don't not, not for us to expect.

01:04:42

I had it here. I'm going to turn back to it. Um, God does not tempt with evil. He himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he's allured and enticed by his own desire.

01:04:53

The desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin. Him is fully grown, rebirth to death. The film that has been in horrendous sin, as you mentioned earlier,

01:05:02

Chris, that has gone through, um, situations where they have made some awful choices that have impacted their lives, their lives, their family, perhaps job situations, people's circumstances.

01:05:16

They've impacted those because some horrible choices they've made. Um, we have to go back and take responsibility for that and say,

01:05:24

I said, I, I am the one who was enticed.

01:05:30

I am the one who made the choice to sin. And I'm responsible for that sin.

01:05:35

I think of what, what did David say? Um, after he, we mentioned earlier the sins with Bathsheba, what did he say against me?

01:05:43

And the only have I done this evil in your sight? I've, I have done it. I am the one who has come before you and I have sinned.

01:05:52

Um, now that I'm responsible for that. And I think that's one of the reasons you go back to Psalm 139, um, when

01:06:01

David prays and he talks about, you know, in this Psalm, how

01:06:06

God knows everything there is to know about me. And he masterfully formed me in my mother's womb for purpose.

01:06:16

And David though concludes not by saying, therefore, God, you're responsible for everything that I do.

01:06:23

That is contrary to your, your will. You're responsible for what I said. No, he says, rather, he says, search me.

01:06:31

Oh God, know my heart. Um, try me, know my thoughts. If there'd be any grievous or wicked way in me, and then leave me in the way everlasting.

01:06:40

Help me, lead me in the way that I should go to repent of that sin, get out of that sin and live in a manner that is righteous before you.

01:06:51

Um, but I think we also then have to look another part of your question, Chris, that God doesn't waste anything.

01:06:57

And the person has been in that horrific sin and comes to a point of realizing this is sinfulness and honestly repents of sin.

01:07:12

And I say, honestly repents, doesn't just say I'm sorry for it, but he honestly seeks forgiveness for sin and repents and chooses to go an opposite way.

01:07:21

God used that experience in a way to bring glory to his name, to magnify his design.

01:07:28

How he does that, we don't need to know, understand fully. Our responsibility is what?

01:07:35

Our responsibility is to live faithfully and to seek to make righteous choices, decisions.

01:07:41

And so for that individual comes to that point, repents of his sin and say, okay, Lord, I am yours.

01:07:49

I give myself to you as a living sacrifice, which is now my reasonable act of worship. And I don't want to be not conformed to the world anymore.

01:07:57

I'm going to be transformed by the renewing of my mind that I might prove as a good, the perfect, acceptable will that you've given to me.

01:08:04

And in that sacrifice, even how God will work and improve his life. Amen.

01:08:11

And, uh, I, I asked that knowing that some, uh, as I even, uh, gave a caveat when

01:08:20

I was asking it, some might twist, uh, my question and think that those who want to live in a licentious manner, uh, may take advantage of a, of a truth like that.

01:08:35

Well, wouldn't you say that if somebody is eagerly looking forward to live in a licentious manner, they should take no, uh, uh, peace or confidence that they are saved at all.

01:08:47

That, that, that promise in Romans 8 28 is only for those who are true disciples of Christ.

01:08:55

And therefore people who, although they may profess to be Christ, uh, to be

01:09:01

Christians, I should say, uh, they, if they are looking for every opportunity or every loophole to continue in sin, they, that is just an evidence that they are not truly one of his.

01:09:14

Am I right? Well, I think that's something that people really have to get a grasp of. If I have been redeemed, if I have seen the awfulness of my sin, if I understand the horror of judgment, if I, if I begin to understand the redemptive love of God and the offering of his son, the

01:09:35

Lord Jesus Christ, if I begin to see the, the, the blood that was shed for me for the cleansing of all of my sin, if I see his redemptive love by which he has taken me out of the misery of my, my own self and the right, rightful destination of judgment,

01:10:00

I see how he's rescued me from all that and delivered me from that, brought me to himself, made me his child, brought me into his family, give me an eternal inheritance.

01:10:10

I will not want to continue in sin. I mean, that's what

01:10:16

John is getting at in first John chapter three. He says, behold, what manner of love the father's lavished upon us.

01:10:22

We should be called children of God. He goes on to say the fact that, you know, if anyone who has this hope in him does not sin, well, does not continue in, willfully continue in known sin, that I'm just going to sit and say, well, that's just who

01:10:37

I am. No, that is who you are naturally as a sinner. But now as a child of God being made a new creation, first Corinthians chapter five, being made alive in Christ, there is going to be a difference.

01:10:53

And now who you are is not that same person. And you want to be freed from that bondage of sin so you can live in the fullness of what

01:11:02

God has to offer us. Amen. And also there is comfort to those who have repented from a life that perhaps they were indeed genuine

01:11:19

Christians, but in a season of backslidden a rebellion. And they have by God's mercy recovered from that and been drawn back to a right state of mind.

01:11:31

And they are in repentance. They need not look back at the trail of devastation they left behind and have utter hopelessness to the point where some might even contemplate suicide because their children won't talk to them anymore.

01:11:47

Their, their spouses have left them. They've been fired from their job. They may be even facing prison time, but they don't need to be fashioning a noose in that jail cell.

01:11:59

They can, now that they are repentant, know that God is a God of forgiveness and mercy, and that he will even use those things, those evil deeds for the good of those who love

01:12:10

God and are called according to his purpose. Would I, would I have been overstepping the bounds of truth there?

01:12:17

Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. God is a forgiving God. He's in the business of forgiveness. You know, what did

01:12:23

Paul say? You know, in looking at his own life and the things that he had done as a persecutor of Christians, right?

01:12:33

Forgetting those things are behind because I need, I need to move ahead. I need to press onto the mark of the pride of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

01:12:41

I need to move ahead. From this point forward, you know, I have maybe wasted many a day, a month, year, whatever it might be, and caused some awful consequences because of my evil choices.

01:12:56

But being forgiven by God and being accepted by him and being a recipient of this wonderful grace,

01:13:05

I can move forward knowing that his continuing grace will be sufficient for me in every situation of my life and that he will use me as I yield myself to him as that living sacrifice.

01:13:17

He'll use me for his glory. And my call now is to be faithful. Amen. I love the way that Micah put it.

01:13:25

You know, what does he require of you? Yes. Do justly, do the right thing, love mercy, love the fact that you're forgiven and love forgiving and walk humbly with God, walk humbly with him and see what he will do in your life.

01:13:40

Amen. Well, when you talk about colliding wills here, could you, or I don't know if you do in your book or not, do you relate this at all to the

01:13:49

Lord's prayer? You know, I do. And, um, I, I, I, you know, look at the fact that how does the

01:13:58

Lord teach us to pray? And when, when we look at scripture,

01:14:04

I mentioned earlier, the fact is so important, I believe to interact with God's word when we read it, to read the word of God with a pen, to be thinking about what

01:14:14

God is saying, to try to bring about the application of what, what

01:14:21

I need to do, how I respond to God's word. And I need to be a man of prayer.

01:14:27

We need to be people of prayer and not just the quick instantaneous,

01:14:33

I call it sometimes a drive to McDonald's prayer. We need our intentional and closet prayer where we come before the

01:14:44

Lord. I think what the Lord did for us in Matthew chapter six, he has given us a template for prayer that we can look at that and say, this is not just a prayer for me to repeat in 13 seconds or however long, but it's a template for me to pray and to recognize that prayer is directed to doing the will of God, to giving him praise, to recognizing his sovereign, holy character, to anticipate coming and to bring my will into conformity with his and every aspect of who

01:15:28

I am and that I want, you know, your will and my life to be done.

01:15:36

Not my will and help me Lord to that desire, what you desire for me to want, what you want for me.

01:15:48

Um, you know, what does it say? And, um, and I, the psalm 36, 37, he says, commit to the

01:15:55

Lord and he will give, commit yourself to the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

01:16:01

And so if I am intentional in prayer, and if I'm using

01:16:07

Matthew six and breath as a discussion for another time, how you take that and use it as a template for prayer that, um,

01:16:15

I am seeking then not just asking God to make things good for me today, whether it'll be fine that I'll get praise or that I'll get the good grade in school or whatever it might be that revolves around me, but that I'll be the person that you want me to be in my will will be in harmony with your will.

01:16:34

I'll be a person of thankfulness. I'll be a person of forgiveness. I'll be one who wants to forgive. Um, you know, the, that part of the prayer where he says to us, um, he teaches us pray, um, forgive us as we forgive.

01:16:49

Well, how well do we forgive? You know, and we talk about that later on the book, but the need for us to be people of, for that are people are forgivers of those who've sinned against us.

01:17:02

What do we have to hold against them? You know, so I think he teaches us that at least not to temptation, but deliverance from the evil one that we need to be armed with, um, the armor of God.

01:17:15

We need to be, we need to be actively, um, praying to be protected, not from just circumstances, but protected by God's armor that we will have a right and righteous attitude.

01:17:32

Those things are before us. We need to realize that when we pray, uh, we don't say in Jesus name simply to indicate

01:17:41

I'm finished and it's your turn. It means that we are to be praying for those things that we believe if Christ were there praying, he would be praying also.

01:17:52

We are praying in his stead for the things that are deliberately his will. And I find it interesting in light of our conversation earlier about the word of faith movement.

01:18:01

They have totally turned this around and they have said that if you pray, Lord, if it be your will to do something that it's an indication of a non -faith and that we can't expect to receive anything from God because we're simply saying,

01:18:13

I don't believe you or whatever, you know, I don't believe what's revealed in your word or something like that. They've taken this and totally turned it on its head.

01:18:21

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I think that we, we need to, we can know we're praying the will of God.

01:18:29

We're praying what is in harmony with the scriptures. And so we look at scripture. And for instance,

01:18:35

I often will go back to use Colossians chapter one versus nine through 14 and helping people learn how to pray.

01:18:43

If I'm praying this, um, I am praying with God once in my life, Paul wrote, he says, um, that I might be filled out.

01:18:51

I'll personalize it. I encourage people to do this. I might be filled with the knowledge of your will.

01:18:57

Yes. Understanding I would walk in a manner worthy of you, fully pleasing you in every way.

01:19:03

I'd bear fruit in every good work, increase in your knowledge. I'd be straightened with all power according to your glorious might for all endurance and patience and joy that I would give.

01:19:12

Thanks to you as my father, as you have qualified me to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, for you delivered me from the powers of darkness brought me to the kingdom of your own son.

01:19:21

And if I'm praying that I know that God will work through that prayer because that's in harmony with his words.

01:19:27

Yes. Yes. For good weather. And it doesn't come well.

01:19:34

I was ever promised that it would. Right. And, uh, we do have a listener in, uh, in any

01:19:42

Indianapolis, Indiana, Aaron, uh, who asks, I have heard people say it must be

01:19:49

God's will for me to do X, Y, Z, something that is godly, of course, like marriage, just because he has given such an intense desire in me for it.

01:20:02

I wonder if Terry might address that train of thought if time allows. Yes. Does that mean if a

01:20:07

Christian has an intense desire to do something that is lawful for God, or should

01:20:15

I say lawful in God's word, and also something that he, uh, you know, commends highly something that is holy and beautiful and et cetera.

01:20:27

If we have an intense desire for that thing, does that mean it is God's will certainly that, that, that we are to pursue that, that that is to be something that will be accomplished in our life.

01:20:41

That's really, um, a thoughtful question, Aaron. Um, I appreciate you asking that and you put in one of the, you said, for example, marriage, um,

01:20:50

I don't know if that was your words, Chris, or if that was Aaron's words. And like we said earlier, um, you know, sure.

01:20:58

Get married. Um, the, you want to, if God gives you an intense desire, whether it be for marriage or to do something, you want to look and be able to say, okay, is this, is this possible?

01:21:12

Am I gifted for this? Okay. Let me take marriage, for example, first, because you know,

01:21:18

God made us to be married, right? He made us to, you know, men and women, male and female, and his desire designed for us is to be married.

01:21:26

He gives the desire not to be married and that's fine. But if he gives you a desire to be married, then

01:21:32

I think you can have the expectation that somewhere along the line, you know, you'll get married because that's his, he's working through that desire.

01:21:41

But let's say I have a desire to be, um, a great vocal singer.

01:21:48

Well, I might have an intense desire for that, but you know what? I do not have the ability, and my family would attest to that, that ability.

01:22:00

And so I may have a desire, but I need to put it through a, I need to sift that through a little bit and say, okay, is the desire biblical?

01:22:10

Is it a desire that I can fulfill? Is it, is it reasonable?

01:22:16

Am I at a point in life where I should step forward to complete that? And so I know we're talking generically here,

01:22:23

Aaron, but we want to think about the fact that, you know, God gives us desires, and often those desires are in harmony with his will.

01:22:33

He gives us a desire to do something. He also maybe then equips us to do that. And if he gives us a desire and equips us to do it, then

01:22:41

I need to ask the question, do I have the opportunity to do that? Is it reasonable for me to do that at this point in time?

01:22:49

And we don't want to make decisions where you just, you know, step off the limb somewhere and say, well,

01:22:55

God gave me a desire to fly. I think I'm going to do that right now. No. We want to count the cost.

01:23:03

Is this reasonable? Is this the right time? Is this work well in harmony with his word?

01:23:12

But also he gives us the advice in scripture, what's the counsel from godly friends?

01:23:21

What's the counsel given to you? To go to someone that is godly, a couple people that are godly that you know that you have trust, and ask, is this the right direction for me to go at this point in time?

01:23:35

He gives us godly counselors for a purpose to help us think through how to respond to those questions of, should

01:23:44

I do this or should I not do this at this point? I have a desire for it, but should I move forward with it or not?

01:23:50

And of course, uh, Aaron or whoever else is listening, they don't know their own future, obviously, and they may not always have an intense desire to be married or anything else for that matter.

01:24:03

I know, I personally know godly people who once had a very intense desire to be married, especially if they had been widows or widowers or divorced, and later in life, after a divorce or something, or they became a

01:24:24

Christian, or this may have even happened during their Christian walk, whatever the case is, they had an intense desire for a season to be married, but then later in life, they came committed to the fact that they believed that they were being more effectively used by god as a single person, and they were actually finding much unexpected joy and peace in their solitude and not having those demands upon them that a marriage requires.

01:24:55

So that's another thing to consider, isn't it? That we don't know that this intense desire we have is something that we're always going to have.

01:25:03

And that's actually right, and I think that coming along with that, with that intense desire, I need to ask the question, am

01:25:10

I content with where I'm at today? You know, am I content being single?

01:25:16

Am I content with this job? Am I content with living in this place? Am I content if I am married and now suddenly

01:25:26

I'm widowed, you know, because of a death? Am I content?

01:25:33

And in the midst of the intense desire, I need to ask the question, is that intense desire controlling me?

01:25:43

Or am I desiring contentment in who I am and what god is doing in my life?

01:25:50

And we'll see then how he works that desire as I move further down the road.

01:25:56

Yeah, because an intense desire can become an idol, can't it? Absolutely, absolutely. My life can revolve around the desire to do something which is not reasonable for me to do right now, or which is not possible for me to do right now, or which is no longer an option for me right now, that I can't do that.

01:26:18

And so I have that intense desire, but it's gone. So how am

01:26:24

I going to respond? You know, Joseph may have had an intense desire to be a shepherd. Well, that didn't work.

01:26:33

And so we had to go back and look and say, okay, where am I now? Can I be content with where I am now doing what

01:26:41

I'm doing? I may have been a very good shepherd. I may have done things very well, and I've been left back to the place

01:26:48

I was. But now this is where I'm at. And God, would you please give me the wisdom and the understanding of your will in this place at this time, that I might be content, have your peace to be able to move forward using the gifts that you've given to me in order to accomplish your will.

01:27:10

And that is a very important aspect that you've just brought up, contentment, isn't it?

01:27:16

Because when you're uncontent with your state in life, you're really saying to God, you owe me something different.

01:27:28

You owe me something better. You're really acting in some senses in a defiance, aren't you?

01:27:35

Well, and I'm minimizing the character of God. And I'm minimizing His word.

01:27:40

I'm denying. I go back to that first decision. I choose to accept that I'm not controlled, that God's in control.

01:27:47

And if I choose to accept that God is in control, and I trust God and who He is in His character, then

01:27:54

I can be content knowing that He will provide for me exactly what I need. And He will lead me in the path that I need to go.

01:28:01

And He will work the circumstance of my life, the people in my life, the counsel in my life, as I seek to remain faithful.

01:28:10

He will work through all of that in a righteous way. And let me repeat our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

01:28:26

It is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:28:32

Please give us your first name, your city and state, your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:28:39

USA. And you may remain anonymous if that is your wish. If you're asking about a personal and private matter that necessitates or makes you feel more comfortable to not identify yourself, our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:29:04

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we do have another listener who, let's see,

01:29:14

Sean is calling from, or should

01:29:19

I say emailing from Hudsonville, Michigan. And Sean has a question and I have to, because of the fact that I am going blind at 54 years of age,

01:29:30

I have to enlarge this so I can read it. The typeface is very small here.

01:29:40

Excellent questions and program today, Sean says. I would like to ask

01:29:46

Dr. Burlingame how I can know God's will for my life and what, if I feel like I've missed his will for my life, how then shall

01:29:55

I proceed? And that's Sean from Hudsonville, Michigan. Well you kind of have already answered that to a degree but perhaps you could add something to that for Sean.

01:30:06

I think one of the things we look at, Sean, is that if I think I've missed God's will for my life,

01:30:13

I can't turn the clock back. I can't spend time concerned about, wondering about, okay, what did

01:30:21

I do wrong? Which decision did I make that I should have made differently? How could I have responded?

01:30:27

I can't go back there. I'm going back and being the Monday morning quarterback doesn't do us any good at this point in time.

01:30:34

What I need to do is say, okay, where am I at today? Where am I at and what does

01:30:40

God have for me right now? The things I've learned, the mistakes

01:30:45

I've made, the sins of the past, the way I've seen God work in my life in the past, where am

01:30:51

I at today? What have I learned and how can I move forward?

01:30:57

And seeking to live in harmony with what he has revealed to me in his word. I don't want to spend too many days of my life trying to reflect on what could have been if I would have made this decision differently, because there's nothing

01:31:15

I can do about it. I made the decision I made at that point in time. I can't do anything different at this point.

01:31:22

So it's not missing God's will as much as we need to ask the question, what does

01:31:29

God desire of me today? And how does he want me to live? And how can

01:31:34

I best use the gift that he's given to me in a situation I'm at right now?

01:31:41

And Sean, you are also eligible to be receiving a free copy of the book that we have been discussing today,

01:31:51

When God's Will and My Will Disconnect by Terry Burlingame. We need your full mailing address.

01:31:58

You just gave me Hudsonville, Michigan. So if you give us your full mailing address, we'll have

01:32:04

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service ship that out to you as soon as possible.

01:32:10

And we'd like to thank calvarypress .com for providing these books, as I mentioned earlier.

01:32:17

And the the decision number three that you bring up in the book is an interesting decision that I want you to definitely comment on and expand.

01:32:31

I choose faithfulness. Yeah, and I said it, you know,

01:32:39

I choose faithfulness to live faithfully before God in imperfect circumstances.

01:32:46

And Joseph, as I look at Joseph, we see through the snapshot given to us of his life, that he remained faithful to God.

01:33:01

God bless me here, you know, speaking of how God blessed Pharaoh and his family, because it was

01:33:07

Joseph and who he was a person. I relied upon the Lord when in prison, how when his brothers came back, how he responded to his brothers, how he responded to his father and provided for them.

01:33:20

He realized that God was at work throughout all of his life to, for that moment in history, chose to be faithful.

01:33:30

And I think that when we go through those circumstances of our lives, when things just seem so disconnected for us, when we don't understand the why of things and just feel like we've been set back, you know, a hundred yards and don't feel like we can get up and move any further,

01:33:55

I need to choose to be faithful in what I know God has called me to do.

01:34:02

I need to anticipate that God is going to continue working.

01:34:08

He was faithful to me yesterday. He'll be faithful to me tomorrow. I need to choose to be faithful to Him today, as well as be faithful to Him tomorrow.

01:34:20

And realizing that in choosing faithfulness, things may not suddenly turn around.

01:34:28

Things may continue to be very difficult. You know,

01:34:33

I look at Joseph, and here just to give an example, he was faithful before God.

01:34:39

He was faithful in running from Potiphar's wife. He was faithful in resisting sin. He had been a faithful servant, but yet he ends up in prison.

01:34:49

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01:36:16

Welcome back, Terry. I am so sorry that I accidentally interrupted you with our final ad for the day.

01:36:22

That was unintentional. I do to be quiet at that point. No, but that was unintentional, and if you could pick up right where you left off.

01:36:31

I am so sorry for that interruption. Well, you know, picking up where I left off is kind of a hard thing to remember where I left off at.

01:36:39

Well, you were speaking about the faithful, you choose to be faithful. And referring back to Joseph, you know, if we had been in Joseph's situation, we, you know, people generally speaking, where I hear

01:36:52

I've done all the right things. I was a good servant. I ran from Potiphar's wife. I made the best of the situation

01:37:00

I had. At that point in time, I chose not to sin. I end up in prison. And most of us could easily go into the mode of complaining, of moaning, of griping, of sulking, of all those kinds of attitudes.

01:37:16

And what does Joseph do? He chooses to be the best prisoner he can be.

01:37:22

God, you know, he's put in charge. I think by God's grace, you know, worked through the prison guard. He's put in charge of the prisoners.

01:37:29

And then he becomes willing, and that's the key, willing to be used by God when there are dreams to interpret.

01:37:40

And he did that. And then he was faithful when the cupbearer didn't remember it.

01:37:48

He remained faithful. And then when the cupbearer did remember, he came to interpret for those dreams.

01:37:54

You know, I recognize that my circumstances should not dictate my faithfulness, but rather God's grace should dictate my faithfulness.

01:38:08

My faithfulness should be dictated by God's grace and mercy and what He is doing and what

01:38:13

He has promised me. And the circumstances, whether they are circumstances which

01:38:19

I don't like or circumstances that are maybe very favorable for me, I need to continue to be faithful.

01:38:26

One of the things I talked about is the fact that Joseph, it says, was a good -looking man in so many words.

01:38:34

You know, he was handsome and how he looked or what made his appearance outstanding, we don't really know.

01:38:42

But we don't have any indication that he wanted that or used that to his advantage in some way.

01:38:52

No. He took who he was and he remained faithful before God. I'm faithful as a person,

01:39:00

I think from those circumstances which hit us that are so difficult that I need to step back and say, okay, what is my response to be like?

01:39:13

What does God desire of me right now? What is my attitude? Philippians 2, do

01:39:18

I have the attitude of Christ? Am I seeking to be thankful,

01:39:25

Philippians 4, and giving praise to God for who He is? Am I keeping my eyes focused upon Him?

01:39:33

Seek those things that are above in Colossians 3. Set my heart on things above for Christ to see at the very right hand of God.

01:39:40

Am I bringing myself before Him as a living sacrifice in Romans 12? Am I being faithful regardless of circumstances?

01:39:50

And my circumstances don't determine my response to God. And you have your fourth decision in the book, is

01:40:01

I choose purity, if you could explain. Yeah. This is,

01:40:08

I think that it's a choice that is so relevant, important, vital to be made today.

01:40:20

The situation, of course, what I just was talking about with Joseph and choosing to run from Potiphar's wife.

01:40:29

Now, many might have excused Joseph's sin had he chosen to go to bed with Potiphar's wife.

01:40:38

Might have excused that, you know, he was a young man. It wasn't, he didn't, wasn't the initiator.

01:40:44

He was a servant and he was to serve Potiphar, Potiphar's wife. You know, it could have put a lot of justifications to that, but it was sin.

01:40:56

And Joseph chose to run, not thinking about, okay, where the consequences are going to be.

01:41:05

If I run from this temptation to sin, am

01:41:11

I going to get in trouble? How will she respond? What will

01:41:16

Potiphar say? What will the remnant... He didn't, he didn't go through all of that. He was tempted to sin.

01:41:23

He said, I got to get out of here. Left his cloak behind and he ran out. And I think that there is a pattern here that we need to carefully think about in our own minds, is how do

01:41:37

I respond to the temptation of sin, whether it be a sexual sin or any sin?

01:41:43

Am I willing to respond in such a way to resist it and to flee?

01:41:52

And it's one thing to run from a temptation and say, well, I'm tempted to do something, so I'm going to turn my head.

01:41:59

But, you know, we look at Joseph, there was repeated temptations. He came after him day after day, after day, after day, luring him.

01:42:09

And he said, no, I'm not going to go there. You know, and he didn't go down the pathway as a young man in Proverbs 7 that said,

01:42:19

OK, I'm going to walk down this road where I know I'm going to be tempted. He did not do that. But in the face of repeated temptations, he said no.

01:42:30

Even when it seemed like there was no way out, he said no, because there was a way out.

01:42:37

If there's not a way out, 1 Corinthians 10, 13 is not truthful. Or it says, no temptation can take you which is common to man.

01:42:44

We talked about that already. And so God will always provide a way out for us, out of sin for us if we choose to flee.

01:42:56

And I think one of the foundational things we need to remember, Christian, is that regardless of the sin, regardless of how strong a temptation to impurity is, that sin is against God.

01:43:18

It's not just against a person. It's not just involving me and one other person.

01:43:24

It's not something that's done in secret. But it's sin against a holy, righteous God who is my

01:43:31

Redeemer. And I need to keep that in mind. I need to keep in mind the fact that I am vulnerable to sin and that sin is going to...

01:43:43

I'm going to be tempted. I'm going to be tempted with impurities. And if I gain victory over this particular sin,

01:43:53

I may well be tempted with this sin tomorrow or another sin or something I haven't even thought about as sin.

01:44:00

I'm vulnerable to temptation because I live in the flesh. That's going to happen. And so I've got to be on guard.

01:44:08

And this is where we go back once again to what Paul said.

01:44:13

In Ephesians 6, he talks about the armor of God. He says to us in Corinthians that our warfare is not of the flesh, but of divine power, you know, to destroy strongholds.

01:44:24

That's where our weapons of warfare are. We can, by the power of God, destroy those things.

01:44:31

That we can take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. But that has got to be a conscious decision because it's natural for us to sin.

01:44:42

It's natural for us to lust. It's natural for us to fall into impurity. It's natural for us to desire what is contrary to the

01:44:51

Word of God. And we have got to work at and make intentional decisions to say,

01:44:57

I'm not going to sin because sin is against God. Sin is contrary to the holiness of God.

01:45:07

And in the end result, it's not going to be good. There might be immediate pleasure or there might be some momentary fulfillment, but the consequences of sin can be and often are devastating.

01:45:26

And is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth going against the glory of God? Is it worth going against the principles of the

01:45:34

Word of God? Is it worth ruining my testimony before other people? Is it worth all that to fall into sin?

01:45:40

I need to make intentional decisions to say, I am not going to sin. And if I've been repeatedly tempted in a particular area of sin in my life,

01:45:54

I've got to be willing to say, no. What am

01:45:59

I doing? How am I continually falling into that sin? What am I doing to fall into that sin repeatedly?

01:46:05

I need to change some patterns to be able to say, no, I'm not going to do that. You know, it's interesting that in James 4, 7, we have the command to submit therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

01:46:25

But in other areas regarding sexual temptation and immorality and lust, we are to flee.

01:46:34

Flee immorality in 1 Corinthians and flee from useful lusts in 2

01:46:43

Timothy and so on. We are not to be hanging around and seeing if we could stand the test of our sexual temptations.

01:46:53

Am I right in contrasting them that way? I think it's so clear that we cannot blame

01:47:01

Satan for all of our temptations and all of our sins.

01:47:09

It's absolutely true that he tempts us and he knows where we're vulnerable. He knows where our weaknesses are. He tempts us.

01:47:15

But we have flesh. We have our fallen nature before our redemption.

01:47:21

And we have to fight against that. And we have to fight against those fleshly desires that are contrary to God's Word.

01:47:30

You know, the Lord said, if you look at a woman to lust after her, you've already committed adultery.

01:47:37

Well, I need to keep that in mind. And I need to seek to have my thoughts transformed by the

01:47:43

Spirit of God so I look at a person rather than lustfully as a creation of God, just like I am, knit together in that person's womb or their mother's womb, just like I was, for purpose.

01:47:58

And their purpose is not to flaunt themselves or to provide themselves an object of lust for another person.

01:48:07

No. Their purpose is to glorify God. And so what am I doing when

01:48:13

I am lusting after a person whose purpose is to glorify God? No, they're misusing their purpose to begin with.

01:48:20

And now I'm also living in a way that's contrary. And so I need to think, you know, in sexual temptation,

01:48:28

I need to think about people. I need to think about how God has made me and why He's made me the way

01:48:34

He has made me. And I need to think about my purpose in life.

01:48:39

It's to bring glory and honor to God. Not everything you do, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, to offer the glory of God and recognize

01:48:47

I'm responsible. Like we talked earlier, I am responsible for my sin. I'm responsible for my actions.

01:48:54

But by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit of God within me, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, which

01:49:01

He's made me a new creation, I can resist temptation and I can choose purity.

01:49:09

And when I fail, I can choose forgiveness. But forgiveness never the license to fail, but the hope that comes when failure happens, when sin does happen, that God is a gracious God and desires to turn me around to use me for His glory.

01:49:33

And we have a listener who, his name is David. He hasn't provided his city and state or country, so I'm not where,

01:49:42

I'm not sure where David is from. But he asks,

01:49:48

He is in me to will and work for His good pleasure. As a Christian, He is the shepherd and I am the sheep.

01:49:56

As I understand it, God has everything under His control. So how can I be out of His will?

01:50:01

I am a sinner, so I sin. When I do, 1 John 1 verse 9 is applied.

01:50:09

I know I make choices, but I believe He guides my steps according to His will. Am I wrong or am

01:50:16

I on the right path with this thinking? I'm not sure if you can decipher exactly the point that David is trying to make, but let me ask you to respond first.

01:50:29

Well, let me try here, David. What I think, what I'm hearing you say is, you know, if I have sinned, is that sin out of the will of God?

01:50:40

If you're a sovereign God, is my sinning out of the will of God? I go back to 1 John 1 verse 9,

01:50:46

I ask forgiveness. Now, if I confess my sin, I will be forgiven of sin. Well, we're right in the fact we confess our sins, we will be forgiven.

01:50:54

We've got to remember, though, that true confession involves repentance, which means a turning away from that sin, because I do not want to continue in no sin.

01:51:05

But is your sinning part of the will of God? Well, does God look upon sinfulness?

01:51:13

Does God, no, that's what Christ came for, to redeem us from sin, to free us from the entrapment of sin.

01:51:19

We want to be very careful to say that my sin was the will of God, that God, it was

01:51:28

God's will for me to sin, that I might be forgiven of sin, that this might happen.

01:51:34

We've got to be very careful of that. We are responsible, and all sin is against God and against His holiness.

01:51:41

We need to be very careful not to try to justify our sin as being part of the will of God. Now, God's going to use it, and this is part of that sovereign design of God.

01:51:50

We may not fully understand how He is sovereign over all things, that He is in control,

01:51:56

I'm not in control. I get that, but we also have to get the fact that we are totally responsible, and sin is sin against God, and we are held accountable for our sin.

01:52:08

We need to seek forgiveness of our sin, need to repent of our sin, and seek to not follow into a pattern of sin in our lives, but to be changed by the power of the

01:52:20

Spirit of God. David follows up with a question. He, meaning you,

01:52:26

Terry, seems to be saying that we could live sin -free if we resist and choose not to sin.

01:52:33

Is that really possible? Well, as long as I'm wearing flesh, it's not possible, but I believe that the

01:52:42

Lord does give to us a pattern that we can resist sin, we can be free from sin, and as a child of God, He has given us everything we need for life and godliness, which does mean that we could, that He has provided for us what is necessary for us to live sinlessly.

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However, being in the flesh, we're not going to see that.

01:53:10

Now, we are going to sin. We are not going to see ourselves sinless here on earth.

01:53:17

We have to be very careful to think of ourselves that we have resisted every sin and we're to live righteous.

01:53:23

No, there's none that's righteous. We can't do that. Only one person walked upon the earth totally sin -free, and that was

01:53:31

Jesus Christ. We can seek to identify sin and be free from sin, but as long as we have flesh, we're going to recognize we have imperfections, and we need to seek to earnestly be free from sin that we're in bondage to.

01:53:52

You know, the writer of Hebrews, I think, pinned it very well when he said that we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched by the feeling of our infirmities.

01:54:04

I think I might have combined a few different Bible versions there, but it says

01:54:10

He can relate to us, and of course, it says, you know, He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin, and I think we interpret yet without sin as being, well, gee,

01:54:19

I'm not without sin, so I'm just this crud, you know. Well, no, yet without sin is just a parenthetical statement.

01:54:27

He was tempted, though He didn't sin, but He, because He hasn't sinned, is the only one who can understand the full blast of the temptation that comes against us, and in light of that, in that context,

01:54:39

He says to come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need to come for mercy.

01:54:46

We're coming for mercy because we have sinned, and He's not looking at us like, how dare you step out of line like that.

01:54:52

It's like, yeah, I saw that one coming, and now you need help. Yeah, yeah,

01:54:58

I think you're absolutely right. You know, and I think that we need to be careful, you know, going back to David's question.

01:55:05

We need to be careful not to say, since I am in the flesh,

01:55:11

I will never be perfect. Therefore, this sin is going to remain in me. You know, we need to address it.

01:55:19

The old, I'm only human excuse. We can't say that. You gotta say, okay,

01:55:24

I need to strive to be godly. I need to strive for purity.

01:55:30

I need to strive for faithfulness. I need to strive to live in a matter that is holy before the

01:55:37

Lord and recognizing that I cannot do that on my own up to the power of the

01:55:44

Spirit of God working within me, who has sealed me for the day of redemption. I can't overcome sin, but then there's going to be tomorrow.

01:55:54

You know, I'm going to have to overcome sin again tomorrow, and it's going to continue to be there, and so I've got to be very careful.

01:56:01

I'm not going to live sinlessly, but I need to strive for godliness in my life.

01:56:08

Well, you know, we have, and of course, we can never use the excuse that Flip Wilson used to use in drag.

01:56:17

I don't know if you're old enough, Terry, to remember the Flip Wilson show, but he used to do a character named

01:56:22

Geraldine, and Geraldine is the one that coined the famous phrase, the devil made me do it, and we can't use that as an excuse either, can we?

01:56:32

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We can't blame our sin. We can't blame our wrongdoings on the devil.

01:56:40

Just like Eve did. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the devil. There's temptation that comes from that direction, but I'm the one who chooses.

01:56:50

I've got to choose, and I can choose the right thing, I can choose the wrong thing.

01:56:55

I can choose the sin. I can choose righteousness, and that's why I think why

01:57:00

Paul says, set your mind, keep focused on things above for Christ to be at the right hand of God.

01:57:07

I've got to be continually seeking that, and you know, David says in Psalm 1, you know, like that tree tied by rivers of water, you know, that you're continually rising on the truth of God's Word and living the power of his

01:57:26

Spirit. Well, you know, we've reached only decision five, and we don't have time to tackle it, so I definitely want you to return until we get through all 15 of these decisions that you talk about in this book.

01:57:40

Wow, okay. If you're willing to do that. If you are willing, and God is willing most of all.

01:57:49

I will choose to do so. Right, well I'm looking forward to that, and if you stay on the line after we go off the air,

01:57:57

I have my calendar open in front of me, and I can get you squeezed into a date that's open on your calendar as well.

01:58:04

If you could, in a minute and a half, just summarize what you want our listeners to have most etched on their hearts and minds today.

01:58:13

Thank you, Chris. One of the things I think that's so important for us is to, when we face those circumstances of life, those unwanted, awful, disconnected situations, to keep in mind that our

01:58:34

God is able to help us and work innocent through us for His glory, for our good, and can fill us with His peace and joy.

01:58:46

I love a phrase that Corrie Ten Boom used years back, and many of you will remember

01:58:52

Corrie Ten Boom. Some of you won't. Yes. There is no pit so deep that my

01:58:58

God is not deeper still. Amen. Nothing that we can go through that my

01:59:03

Lord does not understand. You know, and Chris, you were talking a minute ago about Hebrews, and our great high priest,

01:59:10

Jesus Christ, and, you know, He understands everything we go through, and I need to trust

01:59:16

Him for that. Amen. And that was a woman who survived a Nazi concentration camp and witnessed her entire family disappear from this earth at the wicked hands of the

01:59:28

Nazis, well, because they were hiding Jews in their home. Horrific circumstances, and she remained faithful.

01:59:35

Yes. Trusting the fact that God would be faithful to her.

01:59:41

Amen. And we are out of time, and I want everybody to always remember that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:46

Savior than you are a sinner. If you'd like Terry's book, go to calvarypress .com,