Now we come to the petition itself. It is a tremendous encouragement.
There are some people – and we cannot criticise this – who rejoice in doctrine, and there is even a movement among the churches which is re-emphasising good sound doctrines. And yet at the same time you see a flaw: conduct does not accompany the interest in doctrine. Something is badly wrong, because the great purpose of the Christian life and God’s training course is conduct. His great task within us is to ‘make you perfect in every good work to do his will’. Is he working in us? Is he changing us? There must be faith which works; we must be being formed so there is this exhortation.
Am I a disordered person? Are there broken parts in my life? Some just receive no attention at all, so that there is selfish ambition, or areas of unfaithfulness, or omission of certain Christian duties which I do not attempt. I may harbour ill-will, love some Christians, dislike others, and make no attempt to build bridges or repair breaches. There may be peevishness, unconquered sin, areas of laziness, prayerlessness. Is there inconsistency and disorder in the life?
The atheists insist that right living and good moral conduct can be achieved without religion. Of cause, it cannot be and the evidence for that is all around us. Even in our nation as religion has declined, so morality has declined: goodwill and the virtues of kindness and humility. We can compare nations that have no Christian tradition with those that do, and you can see the vast differences between them in these areas. If you try it without the power of God, you can achieve some good deeds, but as fast as you succeed in one thing, you will fail in another. We don’t want generosity without humility. We don't want to join the modern atheistic ideas that pride is alright, that greed is acceptable, that deceit is only a situational thing. You can even deceive, so they say, as long as you don't hurt anybody by it. And so they rewrite the code of righteous and vastly reduce it to a few things, and in God’s judgements they fail even in that.
The church in its community may have the truth, may preach true doctrines, and yet it is possible for a church to become little more than a club. Some churches have many social activities – church suppers, church banquets, mutual comfort, and fellowship, and there is nothing necessarily wrong with these things – but what a tragedy if the church has no impact on its community, no outreach, no work among the young. It is just existing for its own benefits, and yet it may revel in truth and doctrine.
If God wills that you should live a righteous life and you then depart from that and swerve aside, are you saying that God’s will can be frustrated? No, that is impossible. God’s will is not frustrated, because if I depart from that strong inclination he has given me and turn aside, then it becomes God's will that I should fall and suffer the consequences, and lose his blessing for a time. He will allow this in order to teach me some important lesson, and then he will bring me back to my senses again. So God's will is never frustrated, but we may in a sense frustrate that inclination that he has put within us.