“…but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to."

Well to make a long story short, can you guess where we had dinner the next time with those friends? Exactly, sitting in our dining room at our new dining table.

Has this happened in your life? You firmly say No! And Yes happens. It isn’t as though you didn’t mean it when you said no, but somehow someway your No became Yes right before your very eyes.

I once heard a father say that his first response to anything his children asked for was, NO! He said his reason for this is that it gave him time to think about his children’s request so he could make the right decision.

Truthfully, I am not too sure about this father’s technique. I think the father was giving his children mixed messages. I now if I had a father who said no and then changed his mind, I would be relentless in my efforts to change all his nos to yeses.

As a matter of fact some people try to do this regularly with God. However, unlike the father who said No and Yes happened, when God, our heavenly Father says No! It is NO!

This is the case with this morning’s scripture lesson. Paul and his companions had traveled to Asia to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. But as the story tells us

“They were kept by the Holy Spirit
from preaching the Word.”

So they continued on traveling through Mysia and Bithynia to Troas. (We know this area today as Turkey and Asia Minor.) They have traveled to Troas for the same purpose to preach the gospel.

“…But the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”

Basically God said to them,

“Absolutely not.”

Has God ever said to you,

“Absolutely not?"

I am not talking about requests for a sunny day for a graduation or a picnic or your weekend down the shore. I am talking about praying with urgency and fervency because your dreams, your life is crumbling all around you. You find yourself in the midst of a storm of uncertainty, tragedy or suffering. You are throwing prayers of desperation up to God with the speed of a Randy Johnson fastball. Yet it seems with every prayer the dominoes continue to fall one after another after another after another. God, stop them you cry out! And God says,

“NO!”

So what do you do?  How do you deal with God’s NO!

Let’s be honest, it is no small matter to keep our hearts from dark condemning conclusions about God when your life is crumbling. We feel rejected and neglected.  We are angry and in our anger we judge God as a God lacking in love and wisdom and power.  As Ron Susek points out in his book, God Will Answer, ‘Our needs and God’s so often meet as gladiators in battle.’

Truth is when God says NO our behavior resembles that of a small child who pesters and pesters and badgers and if that doesn’t work throws a full-scale temper tantrum.  We declare that our God is mean.  He doesn’t love us and so we punish Him by going off to our room to be away from them.

Which leads me to wonder, why is it OK for us to say NO to God, but it is NOT OK for God to say NO to us?  And we do say NO.  Look at our culture, our lifestyle choices and the presence of sin.  We hold grudges, speak unkindly, refuse to forgive and forget, fail to be good stewards of our God given resources.  Are you going to tell me that we don’t say NO to God?  OK for us to say no to God, BUT God forbid that God should say NO to us.

This past Tuesday night in our discussion on the book God Will Answer the question came up about liberal and conservative Christians and how Christian groups line up on both sides of the issues such as war, abortion, homosexuality, stem cell research.  How do you know which side is right?  The point I made, which was not meant to be a cop-out but an observation that these issues are carts before the horse.  Instead of focusing on these issues we should focus on living by God’s Word and Will.  If we stopped saying NO to God’s Word and Will we would not have these issues to deal with.

We must realize that NO is not in God’s loving heart unless our desire is self destructive OR outside of God’s perfect will.  God says NO to short range goals and desires with no eternal significance.  God’s No is not an end, only a bend in our pathway to YES.

Acts 16:6-10 makes this very clear.

“The Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to…
but during the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him,
come over to Macedonia and help us.”

If Paul had stayed focused on his desire to preach the gospel in Asia he would have missed the marvel of God’s YES.  When we are more focused on our wants, our desires, our feelings, and our demands we miss the marvel of God’s YES.

What divine YES are you missing out on because you are still pouting, complaining or even ignoring God because God said, NO!

God’s NO does not negate that God is a GOOD LORD.  He is a GOOD LORD on good days and bad days, on rainy days and sunny days, when the market is up and when it is down, when we are at war and when we are at peace. NOTHING changes God’s nature.  Until you and I wholly believe that God is always GOOD, we will not see and experience God’s divine YES that follows every NO.

God’s THOU SHALT NOT
is always ABSOLUTELY NOT

But God will use
THOU SHALL NOT
as a bend in your life leading to
THOU SHALL.