conform to this world, but be transformed by the remaining of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. With our seven stages of God's will, there is His providential will. his revealed will and his secret will his potential will meaning only made possible without cooperation then there is god direct his will his permitted will and his perfect will i'm not going to say anything about the first four but i do want to speak a little while on the last three God directs His will, God permits His wills, and His perfect will. David, as you remember, is on his face before the Lord, filled with sorrow. The hours of suspense and tension and anxiety were passing because of the conviction of His Son. The little one was lingering between life and death. During those anxious hours David was on his feet before the Lord. Then the news came that God had taken the little lad to heaven. David arose. He washed his feet. He bathed and he sat down to eat. Up until then he wouldn't be. But when he arose, washed his feet, refreshed himself and sat down to eat. And it seemed as though a load had been lifted and rose tending the court to not understand David's action. Why they said, David, while the child was alive, he passed it. He prayed, he wept. We couldn't see to it. But now that the child is dead, why it seems as though he was a different man, he seemed relieved. David said, can I bring him back? I shall go to him, he shall not return to me. All hours of waiting and anxiety are over relative to our young brother. We cannot bring him back. He has gone and thank God we shall go to him, those of us who will say. He cannot return unto us. And now God's will. I believe as David profited from that experience in his life, God would have us to profit from what we have so sadly experienced in the last day of life. God directed with, meaning strictly this, that God directed what he directed the praise upon Egypt. He directed those serpents to Satanists. people Israel. He sent high serpents among them. He directed the storms to correct his wandering servant Jonah. Here is God directed his way. God deliberately, intentionally, shrewdly, that is his way. Now none of us for a moment would think that what has happened with God directed his way. not for a moment. But then there's God permitted it. Meaning that God permitted something to happen. It wasn't God's directive will that Satan passed through, but God permitted. that test that the hand has taken. He permitted Job to be put into that position of testing and the trial it was God's permitted with. God did not direct Satan to tempt our first parents, but he permitted Satan to enter the garden and to tempt us. In other words, what has happened, I firmly believe, has happened in God's permitted with. In other words, there's a way in which nature must take its course. And remember, the laws of nature are the laws of God. And if a Christian breaks the laws of gravity, he's going to suffer for it just like any unsaved person will. For the laws of nature are God's law. And nature must take its course. If there is a disease in your body, just because you are a Christian, God is not going to discuss. When we violate certain laws, we must pay the price and suffer the consequences, just like an unsaved person. And slowly on, we run to the uncertain footing that he did. And the result was he failed. and the laws of gravity were broken and you know the result. The same thing would have happened had a wicked ungodly man been in the same position and done the same thing. There are those laws that govern God's universe, God's universe, and the Christian will suffer if he violates those laws just as much as the unfaithful. And so nature takes its course. When the waters of the flood were upon the earth, God could have reduced those waters and dried them up in a moment, but it took a whole year. As the waters escaped, as they decided, as they finally dried up from off the face of the earth, nature taking its course. And so we lay so much of us, for many of us, in God's permissive will. is a nice target. In other words, it means, as in the case of Israel, God gave them their desire, but he sent leanness into their heart. He permitted them to have what they want. And so often it is the case with us, we insist on a certain course, we insist upon a certain thing, we try and press our demand, we force our will on the will of God, God knowing that it's not exactly what he would have us do and be, yet he permits us to have it that we may learn in that. And so God gave them their requests that he sent inness into their hearts. And it is true that we seem to spend so much of our time, so much of our life in God's permitted way. What has happened takes me back, and especially when that hymn was given out, to my life. I used to go around with a young fellow by the name of Frank Norman. five years my senior frank and i were very close we were very much alike but frank became interested in my sister and she took into the meeting at the chapel and frank was saved when frank found christ He and I taught it. I wanted nothing out of him. He used to go to the meetings all the time and began studying to be a missionary in Spain. All his evenings were spent studying the words. And then, four years later, I found track. She was the first one I wanted to tell after my love. Frank and I went back together, a mover, brother, almost. That only spiritual level almost physically. You were so attached to yourself. Instead of him having the influence over me, which he should have done, being the elder, I, the young boy, had the influence over him. He had never been hunting in his life. And I suggested to him that we go hunting. So he went. And he enjoyed it so much that finally he became entombed. And he said, now let's take some time off and let's go hunting. He was neglecting his family, reading his diary, and we were going hunting. the outcome was that frank norman was shot at myself he accidentally shot himself and i caught him at arms and frank norman went to hell at his hands god revealed to me that he had a word for me to do and there i learned the lesson that i'd never forgotten frank's death It was a message from God to me. Because he was forgetting the missing teeth, he had an uncle in New Zealand with a large seat rack. And he said to me, he said, let's work our way to the Pacific Coast. And then he said, take a trip across to New Zealand and work for my father, my uncle rather, on that seat rack. God says, no, I want Nestor Wilson down in Georgia. In North Carolina, but it's my way. And he likely had a word for Frank to do it. And so the result was that Frank was taken to heaven. And I learned my lesson. It was gone to Mrs. Rift. And we're only hoping that as a result of Leon's death, God will put his hand upon another young man and raise him up and use him for his glory. If you don't understand these things, then this... Yet, God permits us for his glory. God's perfect will. Now, I beseech you therefore, burdened by the mercies of God and so on him in verse two, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the remaining of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And I want to say this carefully. I trust lovingly. Had our young brother been in God's perfect will, what has happened would never have. I believe he got into God's commitment with him. To be in God's perfect will is to be in constant fellowship with him. It is to be in the center of God's will. And I am convinced that our young brother has been in God's perfect will. He would not have continued. I believe had he gone before the Lord and prayed about the day before him, asking God to do that, that he wanted the will of God, I believe it would have been otherwise today. It's when we get out of God's perfect will, I get into his permissive will, that trouble comes. Our trouble comes when we get into the path of this disease. He said, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your body a livingly sacrifice. In the Old Testament the sacrifices were placed upon the altar. But do you remember there were some test hits in connection with that altar? And those test hits were to keep the sacrifice on the altar. You know as well as I know how difficult it is to keep the sacrifice. on the altar. We come to the Lord, we commit ourselves to Him on occasion, weakly faithly, we yield and surrender, we put ourselves on the altar, we put ourselves in God's hand, for those that have said that we allow ourselves to get off that altar. We have no question that our young brother time and time again on his knees before God would commit himself to the Lord. and no doubt knew something of being on the altar for God's reason. But the tragic thing is, he got off the altar. And I believe that's what happened. Had he remained in God's presence, things would have been better. Little did the conveners of this conference realize that when they invited three speakers to this conference, But the one who was going to give the most effective and the most fruitful minister was Leon, a boy of fifteen. But I don't take any ministry from this platform from Brother Howling, or Brother Atul, or myself. I've spoken as loudly, as Leon said. I think that God should be this young man who is so ministered. to all our hearts. His ministry of death has spoken to sinners, and it has touched the saints, and it has touched my heart deeply. If God has faced the face with eternity, his death has warned all of us that we know not the day of our death, and we cannot boast the command. I believe his death will serve as a warning in what we speak to others who may attempt the same thing and not do that may prevent other ways from experiencing what he experienced. In many ways I believe his death will be caught. Let us all take this time to be the heart so that our young brother will not have died in vain. And I trust that he pointed to the old society this morning, about spending our lives not in God's permitted way, but in the very center of his persecutor.