Crucial Questions About the Will of God — Warren Wiersbe

The Counsel of the Lord and the Meaning of His Will

This evening we begin a series of four messages on crucial questions about the will of God. And there's going to be a verse that's going to become a theme verse for us. It's one I wish every believer would memorize.

Psalm 33 and verse 11. Psalm 33 verse 11, the counsel of the Lord standeth forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations. Now when you mention the phrase the will of God, you'll get different responses from different people.

Unfortunately there are some Christians who are bored with it. And these are usually people who when they were little boys or girls went to a camp some place and someone frightened them about the will of God and told them to put their faggot on the fire.

Or they are perhaps students who have heard so much about knowing the will of God and doing the will of God they've gotten bored with it. I hope this is not true of anybody here tonight. I hope that as we study the word of God together as the Lord enables us these four Sunday evenings we'll not get very bored and tired and ho-hum about the whole thing.

The second response, there are some who are confused about it. Maybe they've tried some formula for discovering God's will and it didn't work. Or they did what they thought was God's will and the thing fell apart around them.

Or they've watched other Christians who apparently are out of the will of God and things seem to be going smoothly for them. They're confused. You mentioned the phrase the will of God and some people will be frightened by it.

These are the people who know they are not in the will of God. Somewhere along the line they've stepped on a detour. And so if you mention God's will they'll get a little bit defensive. I'm always happy to meet people who when you mention the will of God get excited about it.

They realize that the will of God is the expression of the love of God. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations. And so God has a will for my life because God has a love for me.

And that excites me. It excites me to know that I'm an individual in the family of God and God is not going to hand me a blueprint that he printed for two other people. If you'll excuse the comparison the will of God is not a Robert Hall.

The will of God is tailor-made. And you don't wear somebody else's clothes. Now there are four approaches to the will of God that I'd like to discuss tonight. Three of which I disagree with. I don't disagree because I am omniscient.

I am not infallible. I disagree with them because I believe they are contrary to the word of God. And yet sad to say many people are involved in these three approaches to the will of God. The first approach to the will of God that I think is wrong is what I call the mystical approach.

The Mystical Approach and the Renewal of the Inner Person

The mystical approach to the will of God. Now there is a true mysticism. I once heard a very famous preacher say mystics are mistakes. I think I know what he meant by that. He meant people who are impractical, who don't have their feet on the ground, who think strange thoughts.

But in the Bible there is a true mysticism. If you believe, as I do, that there is a spiritual world behind the physical world, then you're a mystic. If you believe that there is something more than just trees and atoms and bridges and buildings, then you're a mystic.

The Apostle Paul was a mystic. Paul said the outward man is perishing but the inward man is being renewed day by day. That's mysticism. It's Christian mysticism. Paul said the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal.

That's mysticism. He's saying one of these days everything you can touch and see and feel is not going to be here. But the spiritual realities are going to last forever. There is a true mysticism. Many of the Psalms are mystical writings.

The Psalmist looked at the storm and he saw God. Jesus looked at a lily and he saw his Father. He saw the sparrow fall and he thought of his Father. So there is a true mysticism. But there's also a false mysticism.

Let me describe it to you. The false mysticism says this, When you are determining the will of God, let your mind go blank. Now for some folks that's not very difficult. Let your mind go blank. And just close your eyes and relax.

And you'll begin to feel what the will of God is. You'll have a spiritual feeling. An intuition. Now don't think about what you have to do. Don't examine it. We're talking about an internal, mystical, emotional experience that shows you the will of God.

Now I think I know where some people get this from. They get this from a wrong interpretation of Scripture. You see, they have the idea that when a Christian is seeking to determine God's will, he should not be intelligent.

To be intelligent means to be unspiritual. And of course this is contrary to God's will. And God's word. They get this from a twisting of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. They say to me, Pastor, the word of God says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, And lean not unto thine own understanding.

And that means don't depend on your thinking. Well if you don't depend on your thinking, all that's left is your feeling. All you have is a mind to think with, And emotions to feel with, And a will to act with.

And your will is going to be determined by your emotions or your intellect, or both. And so if I cancel my intellect, all that's left is my emotions, And therefore you become very mystical. That's not what Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says to us.

What he's saying is, Don't lean on your own unaided intellect. You need something more than just the intellect. Don't abandon the intellect. Don't put your brains on the shelf. Rather, don't lean upon human thinking alone.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. The mystical approach. Now, the mystical approach to me is very dangerous. It's dangerous because first of all, feelings can be treacherous. We have the authority of Jeremiah for that.

The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked who can know it. That word wicked means sick. The heart is desperately sick. Now, the last time you were sick, Nothing tasted right, Nothing looked right, Nothing sounded right, Nothing smelled right, Nothing felt right.

I recall a time when I preached a sermon on healing. And I went home after church. My wife had to take me by the hand and lead me out of the building. This was in my first pastorate. And I went home, and in the middle of the night, I woke up and I sat up in bed because somebody was coming through the back door.

And my wife just reached over and felt my forehead, and I was sick. I was seeing things that weren't there. I was hearing things that weren't there. Embarrassingly enough, after preaching a sermon on healing.

And for the next two weeks, I was a very sick person. You see, when the heart is sick, you've got to be very cautious about the way you interpret feelings. You say, but pastor, I'm very sincere. God's given me a new nature.

I'm trying to walk with the Lord. I appreciate that. There is a place for the emotions in determining the will of God. But feelings can be very treacherous. Secondly, Satan can counterfeit feelings. Many people who think they are filled with the Spirit are fooled by the Spirits.

And there are demonic forces that would enjoy counterfeiting feelings. Ah, but you say, I had that feeling once before and everything worked out. Sure. Let me tell you a story about Evan Roberts, the great Welsh revival leader.

He went to preach at a meeting, and he went behind the platform to pray. And as he was praying, a light moved into the room. And he saw this bright light, and he felt an intensity of power. And when he preached, many came to know Christ.

He went to the next meeting. And as he prayed behind the platform, a darkness moved in. He felt himself enveloped by a darkness. And when he tried to preach the Word of God, nothing really came out, and nothing much happened.

And he said, I must be out of the will of God. Then he began to examine the situation, and he found out it was Satan. Satan's an angel of light, you know. Satan had granted to him this great experience, and he thought he'd have it again.

And so he prepared himself for a great experience, and the darkness moved in. I want to warn you, there are times when Satan himself would move in and give us what appears to be guidance and blessing, only to trap us the next time.

The mystical approach to the finding of the will of God is dangerous because it leaves out the mind. And I say it without any fear of contradiction from the Word of God. You cannot determine the will of God if you don't use your mind.

You see, you couldn't even have gotten saved apart from that. Your mind is involved in salvation. And we can't understand the Word of God apart from the mind. Romans 12 too tells me that I should not be conformed to this world.

I should be transformed by the renewing of my mind. Why? That I may prove by experience the will of God. And so God leads me, and God leads you, by speaking to the mind. I would advise you to read through the epistles of Paul and discover how much he has to say about the mind, the enlightening of the mind, the teaching of the mind, the renewing of the mind.

The mystical approach to me is very dangerous. It emphasizes the emotions. Now there's a second approach that I think is dangerous, and I call this the mechanical approach. There are two aspects to this that I want to share with you.

The Mechanical Approach and Formulaic Guidance

The mechanical approach. First, the people who follow this approach tell me I live in a closed system, that the will of God is a machine. It's like a computer or an automobile or perhaps a typewriter.

It's a machine, and you're a part of that machine. And if one part of that machine goes wrong, you're done for. I've had saints of God come to me and say, Oh, pastor, you know, God can't use me. That's interesting.

He uses some strange people. Oh, he can't use me. What? Oh, ten years ago I did this. And they tell me something that they did. I said, That means God can't use you. Oh, I'm out of the will of God. I'm done for.

That's the mechanical approach. Now, along with this is the idea that since the will of God is a machine, you can easily determine the will of God by dropping in a quarter, pushing the right buttons, and out comes the will of God.

A mechanical approach to God's will. I had a phone call several years ago from a frantic young woman. I don't even know who she was. I think that somebody here tonight does know who she was. And she was frantic.

In fact, she was contemplating suicide. And we tried to calm her down, and she kept saying this, It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. I said, Pardon me, what doesn't work? She said, I did everything He told me to do.

And she was talking about a man who had given her spiritual counsel. I did everything He told me to do, and it didn't work. Now, when you make cornbread, you have a certain recipe and a certain way you do it.

When my wife makes cornbread, she has a certain way of doing it. And maybe both ways work. But I have no right to say you've got to follow my recipe. I want to be carefully understood about this. The mechanical approach to the will of God has a tendency to replace a relationship with a recipe.

If you do this, this, this, and this, this will come out. And I dare say there are people here tonight who have followed all of the steps that the spiritual leaders have given, and it hasn't quite worked that way.

I remember several years ago, at a certain point in my ministry, I was greatly concerned for the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. And so I did two things. Number one, I read in the book of Acts and in the epistles and marked where it talked about the Holy Spirit and how He would work in my life.

Secondly, I gathered together the finest books I could find by the most spiritual leaders on the Holy Spirit. You know what I discovered? Contradictions. Here's one man who says, here are four steps toward receiving the Holy Spirit.

Another godly man whose preaching I appreciated said, here are six steps toward the filling of the Holy Spirit. One man had 13 steps. Were they all wrong? No. Were they all right? No. The dangerous thing in this mechanical view of things is to turn out cookie-cutter Christians.

We all wear the same label on the back of our coat. We all have the same vocabulary. We are wound up every morning by the Holy Spirit and we walk like little tin soldiers. Now that's not what Christianity is, my friend.

Why do we have this mechanical view of the will of God? That if I disobey, the whole machine falls apart and I'm done for, there's no chance for me, and the only way to find the will of God is in a mechanical way, a formula, a recipe.

I think one reason we have this attitude is because we live in that kind of a world. If you want some chewing gum, you put 15 cents in the slot and you pull out the thing and out comes the gum, or your money.

We live in a mechanical world. We are accustomed to pushing the middle valve down and the music goes round and round and comes out here. But you know, the spiritual life is not like that. The spiritual life is not a machine, it is a living body.

It is a living relationship. My relationship to God is not the relationship of an ignition key to an automobile. My relationship to God is the relationship of a living member to a body. Let's go a little deeper, it's the relationship of a bride to a bridegroom, of a child to a father.

It is a living, loving relationship. And if your relationship to God is mechanical, I feel sorry for you. Because God never made you to be a robot. And God certainly isn't a machine. We live in a mechanical world.

Old Testament Signs and the Maturity of New Covenant Faith

I think another reason why we have this mechanical view of the will of God is that we have misinterpreted Old Testament Scripture. You see, in the Old Testament, God, in a mechanical way, led his people.

He had a cloud by day, he had fire by night. The priest wore a very special garment called the ephod, and they were able to look into the ephod and determine the will of God. God spoke to people. Now, we don't have that today.

Oh, but you say, we ought to. No, we ought not. Now, before you burn me for Harrison, let me explain why. If you'll read Galatians chapter 4, you'll discover that the Old Testament era was the kindergarten stage of God's revelation.

They were little children that he was leading. And little children need mechanical rules and regulations. Little children need visual aids to teach them. But when you get a little bit older in the things of the Lord, you don't need those things.

We don't go from faith to sight. We go from faith to faith to faith to faith. I think another reason why we have fallen into the trap of this mechanical view of the will of God is this. We are in an era of quote, made easy, unquote.

Rejecting “Made Easy” Christianity

Soul winning made easy. Child raising made easy. Embalming made easy. And I don't read this in my Bible. Prayer made easy. Man, you start praying and you find out how hard it is. Now, if you want to be a salesman instead of a soul winner, sure, it's made easy.

Memorize a few verses and you got it made. Ah, but Jesus didn't use the same approach with everybody. We're in this made easy era. The will of God made easy. I don't know about you, but when I read the psalmist, I find times he didn't know the will of God.

He's crying out saying, God, where are you? You were here yesterday. I prayed and I read my daily bread. It was so wonderful. Where are you? Jeremiah had this problem. Even Paul. Second Corinthians chapter one.

Paul’s Difficult Guidance Through Closed Doors

Acts chapter 16. Paul tries to go here. God closes the door. So he tries to go there. God closes the door. Tries to go someplace else. God closes the door. If Paul knew as much about the will of God as we do, he would never have done that.

But apparently Paul didn't have a cut and dried formula for knowing what route to take. Now, I'm not minimizing certain principles. In my own life, I have followed the principle that God speaks to me through his word.

God speaks to me through circumstances. And God speaks to me in my own heart by the Holy Spirit. And when these three line up, usually we have the will of God. I was reading back in Genesis. And this was true of Jacob.

Jacob had been with his father-in-law all these many years. And Jacob's heart longed to go back home. And so in his heart, Jacob said, I want to go home. And then he looked around and saw that his relatives weren't treating him like they used to.

They were kind of getting bitter against him. So he had the feeling in his heart and he had the circumstances around him. But he didn't move until one night God said, go, get out of here. And so he had the word of God and the inward feelings and the outward circumstances and he left.

Now, I'm not against that. All I'm saying is we don't trust a formula to find the will of God. We trust God. It is a living, loving relationship. Beware of the mechanical approach. Now that I am in hot water sufficiently, we'll move to the third approach.

The Dictatorial Approach and Human Agency

The third approach I call the dictatorial approach. Unless someone thinks I am criticizing a popular teaching, I will tell you that I first heard this approach when I was a little kid in vacation Bible school.

I remember sitting there in that little frame building on Grand Boulevard and watching the teacher. She had her flannel graph board. Now, you students are amazed that back in my childhood they did have flannel graph boards.

They were made of clay tablets, but we had them. And she was on the flannel graph board and she was showing us how to be surrendered. Now, she had a throne. There's a throne right there in the middle of the board.

And a man was sitting on the throne. And that man was I. You just see an I, the letter I. And she said, now when you are living your own life, I is on the throne and Jesus is off the throne. But you get off of the throne and put Jesus on the throne and then He will guide your life and you will be surrendered.

Now, I wasn't smart enough back then to know this, but if I had had that experience today, I would have raised my hand and said, if I am a teacher, then what happens to I? Now, this is what I call the dictatorial approach.

You get off the throne, Jesus gets on the throne, and He runs your life. Don't you believe that for one minute. Now, I know what they're saying. They're saying that I can't run my own life. And I agree with that.

I've got the scars to prove that and the Scriptures. Turn to Romans chapter 5, would you please? I think the greatest verse that deals with this is Romans 5 .17. This comes at the end of a beautiful discussion Paul has of our relationship in Adam and in Christ.

Romans chapter 5, verse 17. For if by one man's offense, that's Adam, death reigned by one, much more they, that's Christians, who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, they shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

When I was an unsaved person, death reigned in my life. The wages of sin is death. When I became a Christian, life came in. Now, Romans 5 .17 does not say Jesus reigns instead of me. Nor does it say Jesus reigns in spite of me.

You know what it says? I reign through Jesus Christ. Here's the way it works. Arrogantly, I'm sitting on the throne of my life saying I can run my own life. I make a mess of it. Jesus comes along and says, you know, the two of us together could do a much better job than you're doing.

Now get off. Alright, Lord. So I get off the throne. He gets on the throne. Then you know what he says? Come up here and sit with me. I want you to reign through me and I am going to reign through you.

Now this philosophy, I gets off the throne and becomes nothing, is not even psychologically sound. If I cease to be myself, what am I? A blob? A parenthesis? A zero? What am I? I cannot get off the throne of my life.

God does not work in spite of me or instead of me. He works in me and through me. Now we sang together George Matheson's beautiful song, Make Me a Captive Lord. And he hit the nail on the head. He knew nothing about get off the throne and stay off.

My will is not my own till thou hast made it thine. If it would reach the monarch's throne, it must the crown resign. That's the whole idea. You say, Lord, I'm handing you the crown, the scepter, the throne, the whole thing.

It's yours. And then he says, now you come up here and we shall reign together. That's what Paul meant when he said, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. He doesn't say Christ does it instead of me.

He does it in spite of me. He does it in me and through me. You see, if all of us got off the throne and ceased to be individuals, we'd all be alike. And in the Bible, Christians were not all alike. And in the church, they're not all alike.

The twelve apostles were not all alike. I maintain it's psychologically impossible for a person to cease to be himself. You are asking for mental problems. You're asking for emotional problems. You're saying, I want to die to self.

To die to self does not mean to cease to be. To die to self means, Lord, here's my will. And then he moves in through his Holy Spirit and you experience Philippians 2 .13. It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

I'm deathly afraid of this dictatorial approach and I'll tell you why. You can blame an awful lot on the Lord. Well, he's on the throne. He told me to do it. You see, we Christians don't put bumper stickers on our car, the devil made me do it.

We put the bumper sticker on, the Lord made me do it. More things are blamed on the Lord. Now, let's take the fourth approach, which I feel is the Christian approach, the biblical approach. And the secret of the biblical approach is found in one word.

The Whole-Person Biblical Approach to God’s Will

Whole. W-H-O-L-E. Whole. You see, the problem with the mystical approach and the mechanical approach and the dictatorial approach is that they are fragmented. Follow me closely now. I'm reasoning with you tonight and I want you to use your spiritual minds to get a hold of this.

I wish God would have had someone tell me this 25 years ago. It would have saved me a lot of heartache. The mystical approach emphasizes the emotions. Oh, I feel God wants me to do this. The mechanical approach emphasizes the intellect.

The dictatorial approach emphasizes the will. And you're fragmenting yourself. Now, the true Christian approach is that God has my emotions, He has my intellect, He has my will. All of this is involved in determining the will of God.

Let me explain. Let's begin with the intellect. If you and I are not feeding our minds the truth of the Word of God, God cannot guide us. He guides us through His Word. We don't have ephods, we don't have high priests, we don't have pillars of fire, we don't have clouds, we don't hear voices, we have the Word.

This is God's guiding instrument. And if we're not spending time daily saturating our minds with the Word of God, God cannot guide us. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Secondly, God needs our emotions.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about a loving relationship between me and God. If I'm not spending time every day with my heart beating with His heart, so that there is a personal relationship between us, He can't guide me.

God doesn't do what my boss used to do when I was working for Rockwell, issue a memo. Jesus said, I'm not going to call you slaves. A slave doesn't know what his master is doing. I'm going to call you friends.

Now my friends sit down and talk to me. We talk together. We even disagree. And unless I am spending time daily feeding my mind the truth of God's Word and feeding my heart this loving relationship, this loving experience of worship and adoration and prayer, God can't guide me.

Thirdly, my will. Jesus said in John 7, 17, If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. F .W. Robertson, that great preacher of a bygone era, said, Obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge.

How do we determine the will of God? By obeying. Do the next thing God's told you to do and you'll know the next thing. And so unless the whole of me is in fellowship with the whole of him, he's not going to guide me.

The will of God is the product of a walk with God. The will of God is the result of a relationship with God. So that my mind receives the truth of the Word, I learn. My heart is in fellowship with him, I love.

My will is obedient to him, I live the way he wants me to live. Now the simplest illustration of this is marriage. Here are two people who are friends. Friendship develops into love. In a Christian, this is a beautiful thing.

Love becomes engagement and then marriage and then love begins to deepen. When two people love each other and live together, they don't have to write long letters to each other to explain how they feel.

They can tell. When two people love each other and talk together and share together and walk together and weep together, there develops an inner guidance and you just about read each other's minds. This is what happens in the will of God.

The whole man must be yielded to God. Now there's a second factor involved in this wholeness. Not only must the whole person be yielded to God, but it must involve the whole of life. You see, many people want to know God's will for their job, but not for their money.

God's will for their wife. Who am I supposed to marry, Lord, but not for their vocation. God is not running a cafeteria. You don't pick up a tray with a cross on it and say, I want this, I don't want that, I want this, I don't like that.

My friend, when you come to sit at God's table, when he prepares the table before you, it's not a cafeteria, it's not a la carte. You get the whole meal. You get the sweet as well as the bitter. The familiar as well as the unfamiliar.

The trouble with some Christians is there's an area in their lives that they will not turn over to God. Now God wants to run my time. If God's going to guide me, he has the right to run my time. This bothers some people when I say, no, I can't be there.

No, I'm sorry I can't come. They think I'm a heretic or a hypocrite. God has to run my time. God has to run my money. God has to run our home. God has to run all of our lives. The will of God is the product of all of me and all of my life being turned over to him.

Now I don't mean by that you've got to pray about every little detail of life. Shall I walk up the stairs or take the elevator? Now we laugh at that, but I had a friend in seminary who ended up in a mental institution because he took that too seriously.

He would pray about what breakfast food he would eat. He would pray about what corner he would cross at. And he actually went mentally unstable. Now the word of God does say pray about everything. I think what he's talking about there is turn everything over to the Lord and use your God-given mentality.

Over in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul makes an interesting statement. He's talking about meet offered to idols. Now he says if one of your neighbors invites you to a feast and you're disposed to go, how about that?

He doesn't say if you're invited to a feast and after four hours of fasting and prayer you decide to go. He says if you're invited to a feast and you're disposed to go, there are some decisions of life that may not be very consequential.

We are guided as we walk with the Lord. Our radar is working and the Holy Spirit can talk to us without our having to spend 15 hours in prayer making a decision. Should I buy a ballpoint pen or a pencil?

The whole person, the whole of life, thirdly, the whole Bible. People who get out of the will of God have certain parts in the Bible they sit on. My friend, God wrote a whole book. A whole book. He didn't just write Psalm 23.

He wrote Psalm 25. He didn't just write John 14. He wrote Romans 14. And unless the believer is involved in the whole Bible, he will not have all of the counsel of God. Paul said to the Ephesians, I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.

Now if all I do is read Romans and occasionally Isaiah, I have no right to ask God for guidance. It amazes me how many Christians have never read straight through the Bible. Here is a whole book God's given to us.

Why, if I went to you and took your Bible and I ripped Habakkuk out of your Bible, you'd be mad. When was the last time you read Habakkuk? You say, read it? I've never even heard of it. God guides us through the whole of His Word.

The people in the Bible, the promises in the Bible, the precepts in the Bible, the principles in the Bible, all of this converges to lead us. I've had God lead me from 1 Chronicles. I've had God lead me from Jude.

I've had God give me guidance from Revelation. One of the greatest preachers that ever preached in America, whose name I will not mention, he's home with the Lord now, was going through a tremendous struggle at one point in his life, just overwhelming.

And while reading the book of Revelation, God said, here. And he got his answer. It saved him a great deal of heartache. The whole person, the whole of life, the whole of the Bible, and the result is a growing relationship with God.

So that we don't depend upon mystical experiences, we don't depend upon mechanical formulas, we don't depend upon dictatorial experiences. It's a relationship. It's a growing, glowing, marvelous relationship as we walk with the Lord.

Daily Fellowship, Scripture, and Spiritual Maturity

Now you knew I was going to end up here, so I'll get there quickly and release you. You know what this means? This means spending time every day with God. This means much more than picking up a devotional book and reading a poem, a prayer, and a verse, and a story.

That's pablum. It's about time we graduated from baby food and got into some meat, isn't it? You know what it means? It means disciplining ourselves to begin each day with God. Not ending our day with the Lord when we're tired, just our minds are so clogged.

Beginning our day with God and consistently reading His Word. Not just anywhere. You've heard me call this religious roulette. This is the way people do it, you know. Not just anywhere. Consistently read this book the way God put it together.

It means spending time with Him so that my mind and my heart and my will are at His disposal. We'll make mistakes. That's why I'm glad we don't live in the mechanical will of God. Abraham made a mistake.

The whole machine didn't fall apart. God forgave him and started him off again. Jonah, boy, if anybody turned his back on the machine, it was Jonah. And God gave Jonah another chance. Peter. I read Christian biography.

Every saint I've ever read after made mistakes and God picked them up and forgave them and started them off again. The will of God is not a machine. It's a living, vital relationship. Now, the will of God begins with getting saved.

Salvation as the Beginning of Knowing God’s Will

God is not willing that any should perish. God who will have all men to be saved. If tonight you're not saved, you haven't even enrolled in the school yet. Don't ask about whom you ought to marry or what job you ought to take.