When God Says "No”!

Illus: This reminds us of the young male clerk who was working at a department store's fabric counter. A very pretty girl said to the young male clerk, "I want to buy this material for a new dress. How much will this fabric cost?"

He smilingly said, "Only a kiss a yard!”

"That's fine," replied the girl. "I'll take ten yards."

With expectation and anticipation showing all over his face, the young clerk hurriedly measured out ten yards and wrapped the fabric up, then held it out and puckered up for ten big kisses.

The beautiful girl took the package, smiled a big smile at him and then pointed to an old man with tobacco juice running out of the side of his mouth, and said, "Grandpa will pay the bill! Goodbye!"

Not only will words get us in trouble, sometimes people use them to avoid doing something they do not want to do.

Illus: Did you hear about the little girl, Peggy Ann McKay? She said, "I cannot go to Sunday School today:

I have the mumps

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry

I'm going blind in my right eye

I’ve got the measles, I am covered with sores

I've counted sixteen. And there's one more - that's seventeen

And don't you think my face looks green

My leg is cut, my eyes are blue

I'm sure that my left leg is broke

My hip hurts when I move my chin

My belly button’s caving in

My back is sprained and pains each time it rains

My nose is cold, my toes are numb

I have a pain in my thumb

My neck is stiff, my spine is weak

I hardly whisper when I speak

My tongue is filling up my mouth

I think my hair is falling out

My elbow's bent - my spine ain't straight

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear

There is a hole inside my ear

And my heart is-

...WHAT?

What's that? What's that you say?

You say today is...Saturday? I thought it was Sunday,

I'm going out to play!"

Someone said that the most difficult word for us to understand seems to be the small word “No”. It certainly is a word our children have a hard time understanding.

Someone else said that by the time we are five years of age, we have heard the word “No” 40,000 times. But not only do children have a hard time understanding this little word, so do we adults.

It is a very important word in our vocabulary.

• We teach our pets the meaning of the word “No”.

• We quickly learned its meaning as toddlers when we reached for mom or dad's car keys.

• First Lady Nancy Reagan used the word “No” to build and entire national anti-drug campaign.

It has become a very important word in our vocabulary. Even though it is a two letter word, we need to learn how to use it regularly:

• We need to learn to use the word “No” when the boss man tries to make us work on Sunday, and squeeze God out of our lives.

• Young ladies need to learn how to say “No” when a boy gets out of line on a date.

• We need to learn to use the word “No” when Satan tries to tempt us to do evil.

The word “No” is not only a word we use, but it is often a word that God uses in dealing with His children.

There are times when God tell Christians “Yes,” and we certainly like it when He does. But it does not take us long to get bent out of shape when God says, “No” to something we want to do!

But before you are too hard on yourself for being like this, we find that even that great servant David was in a similar situation. David wanted to do something great for God, but God said "No!"

Let’s look at this passage of Scripture in our text. One of the things that we see is David’s -

I. GREAT AWARENESS

Look at verses 1-2, we read, “And it came to pass, when the king sat in his house, and the LORD had given him rest round about from all his enemies; That the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.”

David’s attitude toward the things of God show that he was a man that really loved the Lord. He lived in a nice cedar house, and it bothered him that the house of God was in temporary quarters, in no more than a tent.

He had fought many wars, but it was a peaceful time among God’s people, and he felt it would be a good time to build a temple for the God He loved.