In Gal. 1:4 Paul tells us that the Lord Jesus gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world; and in the 6th chapter of the same epistle he reminds us that it is the cross of Christ which has caused this separation and deliverance.

And what is it that makes this world, or age, with all its beauty, its industry, its success in material things, its advancement and progress, an evil world? Is it not just this?-The will of man asserts itself against God and in every way opposes Him and His truth.

Satan fell because, being lifted up with pride, he rebelled against the will of God and sought to assert his own will. Man sinned and fell in just the same way, by rebellion against God and the endeavor to assert his own will. God said to Adam, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat," but one. Adam defied the will of God when the devil tempted man, and so opened the floodgates of sin and rebellion to all of his descendants. At Babel it was the same. God told Noah and his sons to go forth and replenish the earth. Men defied the will of God, asserted their own will and started to build the tower of Babel, "lest we be scattered abroad." But God defeated their purpose by confounding their language and "He scattered them abroad."

Then to Israel were given the oracles of God, that they might keep them and be a sample people who should glorify the name of the Lord in subjection to Him. They defied the will of God, asserted their own will, and went into idolatry. But God again defeated them by sending them to Babylon for seventy years, and they there had such an experience of the evils of idolatry that they have kept from it ever since.

When God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him, men again asserted their own will, killed the Heir that they might seize the inheritance, and put the Son of God on the cross of Calvary. But God raised Him from the dead and gave Him a name above every name, to which every knee must bow.

Thus man throughout his entire history has asserted his own will against that of God, but ever to fall back defeated. God makes even the wrath of man to praise Him.

But there has been a Man on earth who did not assert His own will, who passed through this world with every thought, purpose, desire, intention, word and act in submission to the will of God. It was the Man Jesus. As He entered the world, He said, "A body hast Thou prepared Me.. .1 come to do Thy will, O God" (Heb. 10:5-7). His food was to do the will of Him that sent Him and to finish His work (John 4:34). When His holy soul faced the awfulness of the world's sin about to be placed upon Him, that on the cross He might make propitiation for it, He prayed, "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me," but immediately added, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done" (Lk. 22:42).

Blessed Jesus, in Thee we behold an absolutely dependent Man, not asserting His own will but ever seeking to do the will of God! May we indeed learn to be like Thee! For it is only as we take this place of subjection and obedience, and cease to assert our own will, that we are saved and blessed. So long as we assert our own will we are in rebellion against God. It is only when we will to do God's will that we can know the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 7:17). It was when Rebekah said, "I will go," that her true blessing began (Gen. 24:58), as it is also true of us that salvation and eternal life come when we bow to the Lord Jesus Christ in the obedience of faith. "I mil take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord" (Ps. 116:13). Then comes blessing. "The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever" (1 John 2:17).

Having come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and been saved by the obedience of faith, as children of God we are no longer to live the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men but to the will of God (1 Pet. 4:2). And in such a pathway our Lord Jesus Christ is our Great Exemplar (Phil. 2:5). We are to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (Col. 1:9,10). By the renewing of our mind (no doubt by the study of the Word of God), the Lord's people are to "prove that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2). God's will is perfect. The more we seek to do it the happier we are. It is this which differentiates a child of God from a child of the devil. God has delivered us from a world in which the will of man is ever asserted, only to fall back defeated. He has brought us into a place where we have liberty to obey the will of God to our eternal joy and blessing. And so may we each serve God in singleness of heart, following our Lord Jesus Christ, "not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart" (Eph. 6:6). F. L. French