The Young Wheelman

The Young Wheelman

A confident young man walked into the captain's cabin of a Mississippi riverboat, and asked for a job as a wheelman.

"What experience have you had on the river?" asked the captain. "Five years, sir."

"Do you know the location of all the shoals and snags?"

"No, sir, but I know where there ain't any, and that's where I calculate to steer." He got the job.

In the Christian life the path of safety in Christian living is not in knowing all the nature of sin, or the path of wickedness, but in knowing the will of the Lord and in being willing to stay in it. The obedience of the saints in Rome at the time Paul wrote to them had become famed throughout the Christian world. Paul complimented them: ". . . I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil" (ROMANS 16:19). We must steer where sin is not.

1. How does one know the will of God?
2. Is the will of God the same for all people?
3. How does our sinfulness affect our understanding the will of God?