The Leading of the Holy Spirit

So we want to talk about the leading of the Holy Spirit. How do we follow, and how do we know, but how do we follow the leading of the

Holy Spirit? A few things. If you go online and listen to sermons about the leading of the

Holy Spirit, if you listen to 10 sermons, you're probably gonna get 11 different explanations of what that means and how to do it.

I was listening to one Pentecostal preacher on the radio, and she said that the leading of the

Holy Spirit in the New Testament, the way the Spirit works, is you just follow your heart.

Being led by the Spirit means you follow your heart. Well, this might surprise you.

Well, leading of the

Spirit, follow your heart. It might surprise you. I actually think there is some legitimacy to that advice in that believers have been given a new heart.

Psalm 37, verse four says, "'Delight yourself also in the Lord, "'and He shall give you the desires of your heart.'"

It is God who puts the desires in there. However, on the other hand, the

Bible does say, "'The heart is deceitful above all things, "'and desperately wicked. "'Who can know it?' Jeremiah 17, verse nine.

So you have both statements. So we have the new nature, the new heart, that can, yeah, follow your heart.

But then that old nature, this is why going back a month or so, the two natures of the believer, that's why we need to know that.

So there's still that old nature that's there where following your heart can get you into a lot of trouble.

So the first thing might surprise you, this isn't gonna surprise you when I say we always have to go back to the

Word of God. We always have to test it through the Word. So the cloud above the tabernacle, yes, the

Israelites could see it. It was either stationary and they remained there, or it would move and they would move.

But they really didn't know that unless they had the Word of God to instruct them. Okay, we can see this cloud, it's staying here, or there's the cloud, we can see it, it's moving.

They didn't know what that meant except that the Word of God instructed them, here's what you do, right?

So they still had to go back to the Word of God. So follow your heart, have a new heart, and it can be led by, test it against the

Bible, make sure, so we always have to go back to God's Word. I mean, this is kind of basic if you don't know that.

All right, any comments so far? The leading of the Holy Spirit. This is kind of a difficult subject in some ways.

Marcus? Well, just that verse, delight yourself in the Lord. That's where you start.

If you're delighting yourself in the Lord, well, then your heart is gonna be in the right place sometimes to thrive.

So let me just give you my thoughts on the leading of the Holy Spirit. Christians might wonder, should

I take this job or should I take this job? Should I marry this person or should

I marry that person? Should I move to this city or what should I do? God is not going to give you specifics.

God is not gonna speak from heaven and say, marry Jamie, that's not what he's gonna do.

There's no Bible verse, thou shalt move to Baltimore, speaking directly to you. That's not gonna happen.

So how do you know? Well, you look to principles in God's Word first, we already said that, and then like the

Israelites, we act or move when we see

God. Move in. What do I mean by that? This is my understanding of it.

I believe God leads us in his will when we are confronted with situations that are beyond our control.

If they were situations within our control, we wouldn't know if it's God opening the door or me opening the door.

So we need to follow what God is doing and we need to watch and we need to do a lot of waiting.

What's the longest period of time that the Israelites stayed camped? I don't know, but there were some times where they were there a long time.

They had to wait on God. Sometimes you always think, well, I need to be doing something. Well, sure, but sometimes you need to wait on the

Lord. So we have to be active and faithful with what God has entrusted to us, but we need to be patiently waiting for God to open up that door.

If that seems too subjective, I would say this.

As long as there is no clear command in scripture, if you're delighting yourself in the

Lord, you can do what you want. That might not sound spiritual to you, but if there's no clear command in the scripture one way or the other, you can do what you want to do, what you feel is best, what seems wise, and God seems to be doing this, and yes, that's what

I'm going to do. Obviously, pray about it, consider what is wise, what is best.