Welcome to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries with Dr. Ken Smith. This is Carol Smith, Ken’s wife. Please enjoy.

The apostle Paul says, for the good that I will to do, I do not do it, but the evil I will not to do. That’s what I practice. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let me set the record straight right away. These last two weeks have been horrendous for me. It has been especially a difficult week that is behind me. Now, objectively I can say that I accomplished a great deal. However, emotionally, and psychologically, I paid a great price. And when I realized that the faster, I was running, the more I seemed to be behind. I don’t know if any of you have had a week like that. Perhaps this has been a week like that for you.

Let me just tell you a little bit about the week that I’ve just gone through. It started on Monday, a day when I was off and at breakfast looked at my three sons and noticed the spots of the leopard only to find that they were chicken pox. And all three of them came down with chicken pox within the same 24 hours. Now if you haven’t had chicken pox in your family then you can’t begin to appreciate what a bath means because that’s been the only relief that they have had. And so every hour and 15 minutes they line up for their bath. And that goes on all day long, all night long, all week long. And we are still in that process. Now on Monday the phone rang, it seemed all day long with well-intentioned and important calls.

Monday evening was a meeting in preparation for Tuesday. Tuesday, before I even entered the office, already had three appointments, came to the office, had a Bible study, then was to meet with a senator to be elected to spend some 2 hours talking about critical issues. And as I left the rain started to fall. And I had never been to Long Branch, New Jersey and so had to spend most of that time negotiating the roads and the water. And as we left 2 hours later only to return to another meeting on Tuesday evening. Wednesday, it seemed was ushering people in and out of the office. Meeting phone calls. That ever present pile of pink slips. Please return these phone calls. There was a note on my desk that said what will the information for the bulletin be this week?

And about a month ago I had already decided that I was going to talk on the subject of finding self control. So I already knew the topic, gave the hymns the preparations and sat down and began to think about an outline, but nothing came. And it was as though everything was on hold. But it was still Wednesday and lots of time to prepare. Thursday morning began very early with a men’s Bible study and back into the office. And it went on all through the day and into a good portion of the night. Friday seemed to be a duplicate of Thursday, and Saturday was the day which is the salvation for many a preacher.

The time that I was going to spend in deeper preparation, well, there was a meeting of presbytery which I had planned only to go for a portion, but as it turned out, they rearranged the schedule. And at five minutes after six, I was still in Locktown, New Jersey. I made a phone call home and said, I’m going straight to the office and I’ve got to spend a four or 5 hours at this point and do what I can in preparation for the message. I got to the office and there the answering machine said that there were twelve phone calls. And I made the critical mistake of seeing who had called and made a few phone calls. And I thought to myself, now I’ll be preaching on finding self control.

And so I called home and found out that Carol had more good news, that our first son now had a second infection of chicken pox. And if I could come home as soon as possible, that would be greatly appreciated. And so I did my best, and I got home and I still didn’t have an outline or even a thought as to what I was going to say to you about finding self control. Now, as I talked with Carol, and I said, here I am in a terrible dilemma. I am supposed to give a message on finding self control. And at this moment it seems that I have no self control at all. What am I going to say? So I went to sleep. It was a little after twelve. And do you know what happened?

Sure enough, Sunday came and they have a way of coming. And it was still 515. And I had promised my son that I would deliver his papers for him. And so at 06:00 I’m delivering his papers. You know, many a preacher has had this nightmare of falling asleep. And during his dream, imagining that he’s preaching. And I heard of one preacher who went to sleep and had this nightmare that he was preaching. And he woke up and he was. And as I stand before you, one of the things that comes crashing in on me is the reality that undoubtedly you have well intentioned weeks, just like I have well intentioned weeks, and that each of us is desiring to find a way to control ourselves to find that self control so that everything works as we have planned.

What do you do in times like this? Henry Ward Beecher looked back on his early years of ministry. He said, every Sunday night I had this splitting headache, and every Sunday evening I went to bed with one resolution, and that was that I was going to buy a farm and quit preaching. The thing that strikes me this week is the truth of the providence of God. I honestly believe that in the selection of that sermon title, that God was at work and that it was his desire that I would speak on the topic of self control. Now, perhaps the angle I would have taken would have been quite different than the one that I’m taking today, because it’s easy to say that self control will occur if you do these three things.

Perhaps these are five things, and you will begin to have self control. I could give a sermon 88 can be great with self control, and here are the five ways that will occur. But realistically, there are times when the five principles don’t work and God’s providence comes crashing in on our schedule, and the self control that we would like to exercise didn’t happen. And we look and we wonder, was it something that I did? Well, as I look upon my life, I consider myself quite self controlled. And yet, this week, in the providence of God, the circumstances, the requirements, the situation required to see that God’s providence would allow even this to turn into good. And I think I’ve come away this week believing something that I have always believed, but perhaps even with greater devotion, and that is the promise of Jesus.

Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age, I will never leave you or forsake you. That even when you seem to lack the self control, when you’ve tried all of the principles, and it just isn’t working the way you had planned the promise. Still, lo, I am with you always. Even in the midst of a schedule that has gone awry, even in the midst of your greatest attempt to have self control over a situation that you find. Do you remember in Pilgrim’s progress, John Bunyan’s great classic, that his Christian is making his way to the celestial city? He meets two people, obstinate and pliable. Obstinate asks, where are you going? To the celestial city. And obstinate becomes difficult, and he questions the motive, and he says, I’ll never go, and you’ll never make it.

And so he falls by the side, but pliable, says, I’ll join you on the way to the celestial city. And immediately they fall head over heel into the slough of despondency. And pliable looks to Christian as he is knee deep in mud. And he says, is this the promised celestial city? And Christian says, no, we must continue and go through even this swamp. And pliable looks ahead, and he sees no goal other than more mud. And he says, I’m not going any further. And having taken only a few steps into that slough of despondency, he turns around and returns to the city of Christian, continues across, and eventually finds his way to the celestial city. There are times when the things that we plan turn upside down.

Our intentions, the things that we will to do, we don’t do, and the things that we do not want to do, we’re doing those very things. And Paul says, o wretched man that I am, who will free me from this body? Thanks be for Jesus Christ that we always come back to our faithful friend and savior Jesus. Can we improve on our own self control over our own lives? Certainly. But if it doesn’t improve, does it mean that your life as a Christian has been a failure? Certainly nothing. One of my favorite writers and speakers is Ziglar. One of the joys of his life is playing golf. And he tells this story of wanting to have some partners that he could play golf with. He says, I came up with this great idea. I bought golf clubs for my wife and for my son.

Now, this was a great idea. Everybody thought so except my wife and my son. And after we had played just a few times, my wife said, I don’t want to be a partner anymore. Which left him with his son. And like a good son, he played a few rounds. And then he said, dad, I don’t like this game. I don’t want to continue. And a few months passed, and they were driving by a golfing range, and his son mysteriously said, hey, dad, the clubs are in the trunk. Let’s shoot a few. He said, fine. They took a few drivers out, and they whacked those balls. And suddenly there was a smile on his son’s face, the second brightest smile he’d ever seen as he hit one way out there.

And he looked at his dad and he looked at his son, and Zeigler says, I knew I had a golfing partner. Several months later, having played out on the course, they were out on the 8th hole, and his son took out his driver, and he shot that ball straight down the fairway. It was just like it’s supposed to be. And when they landed, he took out his five iron. He chipped it just like a pro. It went up on the apron, landed on the green and was 40ft from the cup. He was under par. And if he could sink this putt, he would be have a birdie on the hole, one under par. So his dad showed him how to line up the shot.

His son patiently lined up, looked at the cup, looked at the ball, stroked it, and it was one of those shots that at that very moment, you knew it was going in the cup. And he made his first birdie, and he hit the ground 5 seconds before his dad, who was just as thrilled to be there for the first birdie. But Zig. Ziglar had a problem. You see, he was on the green in two also, and he was 10ft from the cup, and he could also make a birdie. And he had to decide, am I going to sink this putt or am I going to miss? And he thought to himself, if I purposefully miss, then that’s a cheap win for my son. So he decided that he was going to do everything he could to sink that putt, including prey.

And he hit that ball so firm, just like a pro, and it went right in the cup. And his son said, dad, that was great. Zeigler said, son, were you really pulling for your dad? Did you really want me to sink that putt? And at eleven years old, his son said, dad, I always pull for you. What happens when your schedule goes awry? You didn’t have the self control to be on time, to keep the diet, to make that call that you promised to make. The Lord says, son, I’m always pulling for you. I’m always on your side, whether you’re pleased with your self control or not. Lo, I’m with you always, even till the end of the age. Paul said, I do the things that I don’t want to do. I don’t do the things that I want to.

Oh, wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body? Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, who loves us despite the degree of self control that you have in your life, and who will help you to establish even greater self control in your life. Let us pray. Our God and our father, we thank you that you are always with us. You are not a fair weathered friend who only is with us when we have our act together, but you are there even when it all falls apart. Thank you for loving us without looking at our merit, for we all know that we do not merit your love. We thank you that you are always with us, even till the end of the age. In Jesus name, we thank you. Amen.

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Thank you for listening to a firm foundation presented by Princeton Ministries. This programming is supported by you, the listener. You may go to our website, princetonministries.org, or send your donation to Princeton ministries, Post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. That’s Princeton Ministries, Post Office box 2171, Princeton, New Jersey 08543. The Lord bless you, and Doctor Smith looks forward to hearing from you.