And now, in St. Mark the 7th chapter and the 7th verse, to bring a text to this subject that was just read in I Chronicles 13. To make a text for this I want Mark 7:7:

-- in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men.

Now, I know nothing but the Message the Lord has given me, and that's all I can speak on. And now, I'm going to speak on a subject this morning which I thought would be good. And tonight I want to speak on, Meat in Due Season, if the Lord willing--"Spiritual Food in Due Season," and how to receive it. Now, and this morning: "Trying To Do God A Service Without Being The Will Of God."

God is sovereign. And we see here what David done in the Scripture reading of I Chronicles 13. And he was--his intentions were good. But God does not give us merits on good intentions. There's only one way to serve God; that's by doing His will at His command. And God, being sovereign, there's no one to tell Him what to do or how to do it; He does it the way-- He knows the right way to do it. And that makes me feel good. And it ought to make all of us feel good, and I'm sure it does. For one would have it coming this way, and one have it going that way, and one the other way--

But one great thing again about God, He's not left us, now, without knowing what's the Truth and how to do it. He wouldn't be just to punish us for doing something that we didn't know how it was going to be done, and then let us stumble into something. He's not that kind of a God. He's a God that speaks a Word and expects His children to believe It. And therefore, He knows what's best, and when to do it, and how to do it. We have our ideas of it, but He knows.

And then, if He set up a system that what He was going to do and didn't tell us what was going to happen and how it was going to happen, then we stumbling at it would be--would be justified in our stumbling, or trying to do something; each one would be justified. But there's only one way and that is His Word.

And another thing, David here, we see that in his heart he wanted to do something that was good. He had no bad motive or no bad objective, but the house--or the ark of the Lord was away from the--the people; and he wanted to bring the ark of God back to its place, so the people would consult God about the things that they wanted.

Instead of just letting it go, we-- What if Brother Blair and the father of this little boy said, "Well, it's too bad, child's just got hurt, killed. I guess, just something that happened"? but they went quickly to God.

What if the little lady and her husband, a minister of the Gospel, a few nights ago or days, when that little lady had that bursted spine that just stood up-- The doctor said, "She'll be paralyzed all of her life." What if the husband--she had said, "Well, honey, we'll just console ourselves to that."

But quickly they done something about it; they went to God. And how many things in the Bible could we refer to of how when people get in trouble, get to God.

-- Brother Branham
July 18, 1965 am