Biblical Decision-Making (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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February 2, 2008

Biblical Decision-Making (part 2)

00:01: You know, dealing with biblical decision -making, this is part of, Mike asked me to address something in the book, from the book, for husbands, and one of the things,
00:11: I mean there's so many different topics, but one that I find that we have to do every day, hundreds of times a day, is making decisions.
00:21: We have to make them in the job, we need to make them in the home, if you're married, if you're a parent, it's just constant decision -making, and some of the decisions have great weight, and they can take us down a path that is very difficult to recover, and you reap what you sow.
00:41: And so, when I was a young believer, I didn't know, I didn't know how
00:47: God was going to communicate to me what he wanted me to do. I would read passages, like in 1
00:54: Samuel, chapter 23, you don't need to turn there, but this is David, and you know, you're reading through the
01:02: Bible, and this is what I need, and he's going to fight, it says here, they told
01:08: David, he was in the city of Kilah, behold, the Philistines are fighting against Kilah, and are robbing the threshing floors, and so David, it says, inquired of the
01:18: Lord, shall I go and attack these Philistines? And the
01:24: Lord said to David, go, and attack the Philistines, and save Kilah, but David's men said to him, behold, we're afraid here in Judah, how much more than if we go to Kilah against the armies of the
01:34: Philistines? Then David inquired of the Lord again, and the Lord answered him, arise, go down to Kilah, and I will give the
01:40: Philistines into your hand. I mean, wouldn't you like that? I mean, wouldn't you like that, just to say, okay,
01:45: Lord, I don't know whether to take that job or this job, you know, take that job, okay, and I mean, you know,
01:53: I mean, if we had that kind of direct communication, wow, that'd be great, but Hebrews 1 tells us that in times past,
02:04: God spoke like that, in person, would show up at times in the
02:09: Old Testament, showed up in person as Jesus incarnate, and He spoke through dreams and visions and various things, but now it says in Hebrews 1, now that's past, now
02:22: He speaks through His Son, and you take that, this is how He speaks today, through His Word, and when you get into decision -making, it's such a broad topic,
02:36: I'm going to try to do a brief overview of decision -making in it, and again, it's taking a couple of paragraphs in chapter 10, and I'm going to expand on it a bit, because we always need to be stirred up to remembrance of things we already know, just how are we doing on this area of making decisions?
02:57: An outline that I'm proposing here, and it's in your notes, is first of all, the importance of it, of making decisions that please the
03:09: Lord, and that should be our goal and aim every day, key definitions when you talk about the will of God, some presuppositions that we operate off of, and should, accurately interpreting
03:24: God's revealed will, because once you open up the pages of Scripture, people go everywhere, pulling text out, and they do not mean what they are saying they mean, so how to interpret
03:39: God's Word correctly, then methods and motives to be cautious of, and I have used all of these motives and methods that I'm going to talk about tonight, most all of them, and I just want to show you some of the danger in making decisions according to those, then how do we make decisions, biblically, on a daily basis, we won't have time, well, maybe have time for one short case study, and then there's some further resources, which
04:10: I think are in your notes, I believe, if you want to do some extra reading, yes, they are on page four, numerous books have come out, quality books, so the importance, when
04:28: I was a new believer, just brand new in the Lord, and I grew up in a home where my parents, my dad preached for several years, he was a pastor, then he went in and was a professor for 26 years,
04:39: I heard the gospel ever since I can remember, and I made numerous decisions for Jesus, and every camp meeting,
04:48: I was there on Friday night at the bonfire, asking Jesus in my heart, Billy Graham's on TV, I'm walking forward to the
04:56: TV, I was responding in all my emotions, but a week or two after,
05:02: I was living for me, nothing lasted in my life, and in my teen years, it became more and more real that I was not a
05:16: Christian, didn't want the light, Christ, and I didn't want to be around my parents, and in God's providence, our family moved to South Carolina, and they gave me an option, stay at home my senior year of high school, or go to a private boarding school, a
05:35: Christian boarding school up in Asheville, North Carolina, and I said, get away from home, I'll do it, and I went there, and God, and again, it is just providence, placed me with an 18 -year -old guy, a missionary kid from Argentina, who's now living in Providence, Rhode Island, which
05:55: I'm going to go stay with them, it's really neat to think what God has done over the years, and he lived for Christ, I was watching his life, hearing chapel messages, we were studying the book of Colossians in a
06:09: Bible class, and God quickened my heart, he gave me the grace to repent and the faith to believe when
06:17: I was 18, trusted in Christ, and since then, by God's grace, have been persevering, and I just praise
06:24: God for that, but as soon as God saved me, I was 18 years old, I had all kinds of questions, what am
06:31: I supposed to do with my life, what vocation, do I go into ministry, where do I go, what do I do, what college do
06:37: I go to, do I go to college, do I get married, marry who, I had numerous decisions, and so the importance is every day we're making decisions, some of them are quite weighty, and what you decide to do, so I started reading, and people were giving me, here, this is how you make decisions, this is how you make decisions, let me just read a few of the ways that people make decisions, that I've been collecting these over the years, but I'll just read a few of them, this one really happened out at Grace Community Church, an associate pastor, a couple came in that were having all kinds of marital problems ever since they married, and the associate pastor at the time asked them, whatever made you determined to marry in the first place, and this is recorded in Dick Mayhew's book on how to interpret the
07:32: Bible for yourself, the husband recounted how he had gone to his pastor at another church, seeking to know the will of God for himself and his girlfriend, who is now his wife, that pastor at the other church reminded the young man of how
07:47: Joshua and the Jews had marched around Jericho several times, and how the walls collapsed, then the pastor suggested that the boyfriend literally walk around his girlfriend several times, and if the walls of her heart collapsed, then he could be sure
08:00: God wanted him to take her for his wife, so he obeyed, he circled the girl several times, and popped the question, have the walls of your heart tumbled, she responded by saying she felt strange inside, that was the clue, get up and run, or blow the horn, or something, and they both concluded that her heart had fallen in love, and so they married each other.
08:33: Now here's a lady, J. Heddon Robinson talks about this lady in his church at the time, she couldn't decide whether to go to California and visit some relatives, and she said that one morning she went to her room, prayed for God's direction, while she was on her knees, she glanced up at her digital clock, and it read 747, and she knew that was a type of aircraft, and that she was sure
08:59: God had told her through the numbers on the face of the digital clock to go to California. J.
09:05: Heddon Robinson says, I must confess, I wasn't convinced, I would have been more impressed if the clock had read 767, or DC -10, or he said such an occurrence would have been truly amazing, maybe even miraculous, but to turn to a rather run -of -the -mill coincidence of divine guidance is dangerous.
09:30: And then he says, realizing I was not overly impressed by her sign, the woman asked me, don't you think
09:37: God can speak to Christians that way? And J. Heddon Robinson says, of course
09:42: God can do that, he can even speak through a jackass, and according to his word he did just that in Numbers 22, but that doesn't mean
09:49: I go down to the barnyard in order to get guidance. This is a book written by believers on how to diet, and this is a prayer you're supposed to pray, it's in chapter 3, and it says,
10:07: Father, in the name of Jesus, I need specific guidance and direction in my life right now regarding my eating habits. You see,
10:14: I need help in losing the extra pounds on my body. Show me your will. Please speak to me and show me how much weight you want me to lose.
10:23: Now, if you look at the digital clock, you could really be in trouble, or how much you want me to weigh, and how many calories
10:33: I need to eat each day. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. What is supposed to happen there?
10:41: Are there supposed to be a voice, impressions? You said, well, maybe it's impressions.
10:46: Okay, well, here's a book, it's entitled Impressions, from God or Satan and How to Know the
10:54: Difference. And in God's providence, it's out of print. This is what it says.
11:02: You can detect the devil by one of two things. The devil always talks loud. Jesus always talks low and tender.
11:12: When a spirit makes an impression on my mind, that impression can be made in a loud, boisterous sort of way, or the conviction can come quietly, gently, and sweetly.
11:21: So now, is that a loud impression or a soft impression? And it's misusing a text in 1
11:28: Kings 19, when the Lord spoke to Elijah. But what about the rest of Scripture when
11:34: God speaks? I mean, when Jesus taught the 5 ,000, he didn't have a microphone.
11:40: And I guarantee you, he wasn't whispering when he was talking to that multitude. One of the things
11:47: I have to deal with on a reoccurring basis are those who have been exposed to experiencing
11:52: God, the book, and the whole movement. And this is what he says,
11:58: Henry Blackaby, in the end of chapter 10, God has always been speaking to his people.
12:05: Today, he speaks by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will use the Bible, comma, prayer, circumstances, other believers to speak to you.
12:13: Then he said this, the method, however, is not the key to knowing God's voice. You learn to know the voice of God through an intimate love relationship.
12:22: God may choose to speak to you in a way that's just unique to you. Now, that just opens up a door you don't want to go through.
12:34: And then his new book that he came out with, he and his son, is Hearing God's Voice. It's a whole big book now on how to hear the voice of God outside of scripture.
12:47: Of course, what I deal with is a lot of counseling issues. And over and over again, there are key people in the
12:57: Christian counseling movement who are mystical. They're just mystics.
13:03: They believe God is going to speak to them outside of scripture. And one is
13:09: Larry Crabb. He says, this is in his book, When the Pressure's Off. He said, a few months ago, I was brushing my teeth at three in the afternoon.
13:17: Why then? I'm not sure. That's not my habit. Now, I could just stop there and say, if you're brushing your teeth at three in the afternoon and you don't know why you're doing that, it's probably time to just go back to bed.
13:30: Right? But he goes on and he said, in my deepest heart where the inaudible is clear,
13:36: I heard the Spirit, this is capital S, Holy Spirit. I heard the Spirit say, and these are the exact words.
13:43: That's what he says here. And these are the exact words. Quote. Now we're in special revelation here.
13:51: And he hears this, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you what you've been wanting to know. And he says, it lasted for about 15 seconds.
13:59: And then he wants more. And so there's another few pages of this, of quote, the
14:04: Spirit telling him, Larry, you've been doing it all wrong. For the past five decades, you've been doing it all wrong.
14:13: There's a new way. And so he started a new ways ministry. He has a new ways ministry now based on this three o 'clock afternoon experience.
14:23: And I thought a real test would have been if I was prolific as he was and is, and I wrote all those books during the five, the decades there that were all wrong, according to the
14:37: Spirit. The Spirit told me, Stuart, you've written all these books and really you've been doing it all wrong.
14:44: I think I would try to use the money I had and purchase all of them and burn them. But that hasn't happened.
14:53: Here is a, this is probably the classic of all classics.
15:02: You know what a promise box is or promise calendar? It's where people take verses out of the
15:08: Bible, just cut them out, put them in a, looks like a loaf of bread. It's like an evangelical fortune cookie on your table.
15:15: You just pull it out. What's the promise of the day? It's, they're misused. They're not, many of them, most of them are not even promises.
15:23: They're just verses. Well, this was a promise calendar someone gave me and I cut it out because you probably wouldn't believe if you didn't see this thing.
15:32: I ripped it out, stuck it in here. This is the promise of the day, Luke 4, 7.
15:38: So if you worship me, it will all be yours. The promise of the day from Luke 4, 7, if you worship me, it will all be yours.
15:48: That happens to be Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness.
15:57: And he said, if you worship me, it will all be yours. And this is the kind of thing that if you're not careful, you know, well, is that biblical?
16:05: Well, yeah, but that's, anyway, the importance is vital.
16:16: Every day we make decisions. I'd like you to turn to Colossians chapter 1 and I want to just see, let you see how important this is from a biblical standpoint of knowing
16:29: God's revealed will and walking according to it. Colossians 1, this is one of the prayers of the
16:38: Apostle Paul for the new believers in Colossae. It's not hard to remember this.
16:46: It's one petition that he prays over and over and over again. Repeatedly, he prays this one petition for the
16:52: Colossian believers. He says in verse 9, and so from the day we heard, he and Timothy, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking, and here's the petition, that you may be filled with the complete or the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
17:14: That's the petition. That's it. He just prayed that they would be, the word is to be under the dominating influence of the will of God.
17:26: That word, same thing, be filled with the spirit. It's just be under the complete dominating control of the revealed will of God, the will of God that we are to know and live by.
17:38: And the purpose comes next, so that as to walk in a manner worthy of the
17:48: Lord, fully pleasing to him. When people say, I want to know the will of God, why? Why do you want to know what
17:54: God's will is? It ought to be so that you can walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. And what does that look like?
18:04: Well, he uses numerous expressions here of the he paints it like a portrait, several key things of what your life will look like if you are under the influence of God's revealed will and walking that way on a daily basis.
18:21: He says, first, you will be bearing fruit in every good work. Secondly, you'll be increasing in the knowledge of God.
18:31: Third, you'll be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might.
18:39: And in two ways, you'll be strengthened. You'll be strengthened and very difficult trials.
18:46: That would be the endurance and patience. That's usually with people. So you'll grow stronger and stronger and you'll do all of that with joy.
18:57: And you will be giving thanks. You're going to be much more thankful person to the father who is qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
19:06: And this really gets to the gospel here. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness, has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son and whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
19:18: And then it goes into a whole treatise on the preeminence of Christ. That was
19:26: Paul's prayer. And it wasn't just Paul. If you have your you're right there in Colossians, look at chapter four and you'll see one of the members of the
19:35: Colossi, the Colossi church, Epaphras in chapter four, verse 12.
19:43: It says, Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greet you.
19:49: He's always struggling on your behalf in his prayers. Now, what's he praying? He's praying that you may stand mature and fully assured in what?
19:59: All the will of God. You know, Ephesians five tells us that we are not to be foolish, but understand what the will of God is.
20:10: We go through the importance of the topic in our daily lives. It is just all day long.
20:16: We're making decisions. And within scripture, very important that we walk according to his word.
20:23: And you even find the apostle Paul and others, Timothy, Epaphras. They're praying that God's people would walk according to his revealed will.
20:34: Now, some key definitions. A lot of you know this. This is not an in -depth lesson here on the decreed will of God or his preceptive will.
20:49: When you get into his decreed of will, you are talking about his will of purpose or sometimes known as his sovereign will or his secret plan that he has predetermined.
21:01: He works everything according to it in Ephesians 111. This is his sovereign secret plan.
21:10: The only way you know his decreed of will is by looking backwards. Everything that's happened is has been his sovereign decreed will.
21:19: You cannot know this ahead of time unless it's revealed in scripture in the form of prophecy. You just don't know what
21:26: God's decreed will is a minute from now in your life. You don't know. You don't know if the
21:32: Lord is going to return. He's going to take you home. You do not know what the next minute holds.
21:41: That's secret. It belongs to God. This is the Deuteronomy 29 .29.
21:46: The secret things belong to the Lord. And where you find him carrying this out is in his providence.
21:54: His providence is a secret unfolding out of his sovereign will. You may say,
22:01: I think I know what the Lord's up to. Probably not. I mean, how many times have you tried to read what
22:07: God is up to and you were wrong? And the only way you know his providence is look backwards and just see how he orchestrated everything that occurred.
22:17: It's interesting. I know God's decreed will for your life right now that you're here in this church.
22:25: And I know providentially he brought you here because you're here. I don't know the future.
22:32: But I can look backward and just be in awe of his sovereign decreed plan in all of our lives.
22:42: That's the will he is responsible for. He takes care of that. It runs perfectly.
22:51: Then you move into another aspect of his will called his preceptive will, sometimes known as his moral will, sometimes known as his revealed will.
23:01: It's the Bible. This is what God holds us responsible for.
23:08: This is either going to come to us through direct commands or through principles.
23:15: That's how he's going to guide us. That is what he wants us to know. He wants us to know his commands and his principles.
23:25: They will be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
23:34: God's preceptive will, biblical principles. You also get involved in the area of wisdom, which is knowledge, the knowledge of God applied to your life for the glory of God.
23:47: That's wisdom. It's not just knowledge. It's knowledge applied to your life for the glory of God.
23:56: That's when you pray for wisdom. You shouldn't sit there. You should be reading and thinking of God's word.
24:03: Lord, now help me to know how to apply your word to my life for your glory.
24:10: You think of that in James 1 when you're in trials. It's not mystical.
24:17: I came across an excellent work by R .B.
24:25: Kuyper. R .B. Kuyper, I think he taught at Princeton back in the old days.
24:33: And he calls mysticism, he says the essence of mysticism is to separate the operation of the
24:42: Holy Spirit from God's objective word. Now think about this.
24:49: The essence of mysticism is to separate the Holy Spirit from his objective word.
25:00: This permeates churches in America. People say, well, you know, the
25:05: Lord told me. What passage? Oh, I'm not talking about the Bible.
25:13: Oh, it's the Blackabee approach. It's more and more,
25:19: I mean, I'm finding it in all kinds of authors, very popular speakers are all talking that way, that God's talking with them on an ongoing basis like back in the
25:31: Old Testament. And they're separating the operation of the
25:36: Holy Spirit from God's objective word. And I think, well, not just me, it is very dangerous.
25:46: And two things to remember. There is no way to prove it was God. That's number one.
25:53: Once you leave the scriptures, there's no way to prove it was God. So it was definitely God. There's no way to prove it.
26:00: What was that still small voice? That doesn't prove anything. So you can't prove it that it was
26:08: God once you leave the pages of scripture. Number two, there is no safeguard from error once you leave the pages of scripture.
26:15: There's no safeguard. Once you leave scripture, I mean, you are in a minefield.
26:22: Before long, I think God told me this. And I think God, you know, wants you all to take, you know, several offerings today.
26:29: I mean, you watch these TV people and the things they tell them, and they violate scripture.
26:37: And then they say, well, God told me, you know, a guy's marriage is in shambles. A well -known person down in Atlanta, his marriage is in shambles.
26:47: And they they said, you know, you really should step down out of leadership. And he comes back the next week and says, you know,
26:53: God told me that I should stay here as a pastor. And they went, oh, OK. Violating the objective word.
27:03: For some experience. The apostle Peter said we saw Jesus transfigured, we touched him, we walk with him, and then he says down and at the end there in verses 20 and 21, he said, but we have something more sure.
27:18: More sure than our experiences up there. And that is the prophetic word of God.
27:24: It's more sure than any experience you've ever had. Our confidence must be in the word.
27:31: So be careful of this. Keep with the word of God. Some presuppositions.
27:38: You don't need to write all of these down. I just want to run through them very quickly. Some things you probably already there, but we don't need to know
27:49: God's decreed will. That's up to God. God is going to take care of that. He probably providentially will bring it all to pass.
27:57: His plan, he starts it, he'll finish it. He declares the end from the beginning in Isaiah 46.
28:05: The Holy Spirit's role is to convict, teach and conform us all into Christ's likeness through the vehicle of the word of God.
28:14: Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. You can abbreviate some of these if you like, or I can just leave these slides.
28:32: God only guides or leads his people today by providence or by scripture. Providence, that's his decreed will.
28:44: Scripture, that is our responsibility to study it carefully and obey it. So you see, okay, he's responsible for his decreed will and his providence.
28:56: I'm responsible for his revealed will and to obey it by the help of the Spirit. God is a very gracious God who has provided everything we need in order to do what he wants us to do.
29:13: Everything provided for salvation and sanctification through the knowledge of his son
29:20: Jesus Christ. And God, through Christ, has given us everything we need.
29:27: God holds us fully responsible to search out and follow his preceptive will in all of life.
29:33: We'll be judged by that. It won't be, well, you didn't hear me speak to you softly?
29:39: You missed that at three o 'clock in the afternoon when you were brushing your teeth? I mean, you missed this?
29:45: You missed that? No. You know, when I think of the Lord and here are his children, us, who say,
29:53: Lord, I really want to please you today. What would it be like if my son at the time,
30:00: I mean, now he's 21, but let's say he was 10 and he comes in and he says, hey, Dad, I'd really like to please you today.
30:09: And I said, what if I said, well, do something, guess what it is?
30:16: Guess what I would like for you to do today? Well, Dad, do you want me to do this? Just guess, just try it.
30:26: So he goes out, maybe mows the yard, comes in, missed it. Dad, you want me to sweep the garage?
30:38: I don't know. Just see if you can find out what it is. He cleans out the garage.
30:45: Nope, that wasn't it. What kind of parent would that be?
30:51: And yet we think of God that way. You know, people go, wow, I really want to know what you want, but you don't speak, you know, and I'm here guessing.
31:00: The Lord says, no, no. That's why I like Dr. MacArthur's little book, you know, Found God's Will. It's not lost.
31:06: You don't have to discover it. Read it. You know, it's right here. You don't have to go find it. Just read it.
31:12: Study it. Obey it. And God holds us fully responsible to do that. If we make decisions based on biblical commands and principles, which is called faith, by the way, walking by faith, we can fully trust that we are pleasing
31:29: God in our decision and fully trust that He will providentially, by circumstances out of our control, He'll just change our choice.
31:37: He'll change our steps. Proverbs 16, 9, a man's heart plans his way, but God redirects his steps.
31:45: God is sovereign. And I didn't read on in that passage. In 1
31:50: Samuel 23, when David, Saul was going after David. And I don't know if you remember this, but they were on both sides of the mountain.
31:58: David and his soldiers were on one side. Saul and his soldiers were on the other. And Saul was catching up.
32:04: And I mean, they were coming to the place where Saul was going to attack him. And in God's providence, oh, the
32:12: Philistines, someone comes, a messenger, and says, oh, the Philistines are attacking. And Saul, right there, ready to pounce on David, had to uproot and go back up and fight the
32:24: Philistines. God will protect. He will oversee. We need to be responsible with the word.
32:33: We need to help those who are married, help our wives with this as well. I don't want to be careful how
32:45: I say this, that it comes out right. Many men, many men, good,
32:52: I mean, just solid men, even in church history, when you find them sometimes veer off to the right or to the left, if you study close enough, you'll usually find their wife getting into something and pulls her husband with her.
33:15: You can almost look down and see different people and say, they're so solid here. Why are they going in that?
33:22: Get to know their wife, and probably that's the reason. Women tend to be more feeling oriented, and the emotions will lead them, and they tend to be, this is a general sweep here, not so concerned about doctrine, and it behooves us as men.
33:47: And I'm not saying all women are like that. You're probably saying, well, you don't know my wife. She is just as solid, great, praise
33:54: God for that. Well, across the board, you look at a lot of the women's books, and they are as, they're an inch deep and a mile wide.
34:06: And as men, this is an area we need to lead them, we need to excel in this, grow in doctrine, and teach our wives.
34:16: My wife and I, we have the best talks, because she's so doctrine oriented, that she can't even sing certain songs because, you know, it's not theologically correct, and she won't sing it.
34:31: I'm going, now that's someone who's thinking. Praise God for that. So this is a time to rightly interpret and apply the
34:40: Word of God. We must use a prayerful, literal, historical, contextual grammatical method. That's a long thing, but you're used to hearing that.
34:48: A careful way of studying God's Word, not this yank out
34:53: Luke 4, 7 and claim it for the day. No one is ever outside of God's decreed plan.
35:02: There's no catastrophe or anything that takes the Lord by surprise. Always the remote cause.
35:10: Every believer, I think, needs pastoral oversight, needs people in their lives to try to help them, especially on the more weightier decisions, that they just don't lean on their own understanding or say,
35:23: I think this is right. The weightier the decision, the more we ought to seek some brotherly counsel, principles, what principles in Scripture would help us.
35:38: The insistence of Jesus and the Old Testament writers was never on the importance of discovering the will of God.
35:44: They weren't trying to discover it. It was always upon the necessity of doing it. It was if they took for granted that we would know what we were supposed to do.
35:55: The battle for us seems to be in the diligent study of it, the application of it, and with proper motivation.
36:04: I just want to say that I find many people are just slothful. They're just lazy. They don't want to do the hard work of looking at biblical commands and principles on decisions they have to make.
36:17: J .C. Ryle, a pastor in the 1800s in England, writes, the
36:23: Bible must be our standard. Whenever we are confronted with a question about Christian practice, we must apply the teaching of the
36:29: Bible. Sometimes the Bible will deal with it directly. I would just insert there, think of a road map that will tell you where to turn right and left.
36:38: Road map. Sometimes the Lord's Word is very specific on what to do. A brother sins.
36:44: What are you supposed to do? Go to him. What if he doesn't listen? Take someone else with you. Very specific. Then it says here, often though, the
36:52: Bible will not deal with it directly, and then we must look for general principles. Think of a compass. It'll give you a direction to go in.
37:03: He says, it does not matter what other people think. Their behavior is not our standard. The Bible is a standard for us.
37:10: It's by the Bible we must live. Well, I'm looking at the time.
37:17: I want to get through how not to make decisions, and then we'll take a break. Don't make any decisions during the break.
37:24: Just, uh, but these are principles you all are familiar with.
37:35: Again, taken out of Dr. MacArthur's book,
37:41: How to Get the Most of God's Word. Very common in the area of what's called hermeneutics, just Bible study methods.
37:48: Take it as literally where you can, and then you look at the different genres of Scripture.
37:53: But the literal principle, the historical principle, what was going on back then as best as we know, do some
38:02: Bible study on that. The grammatical principle, now you're getting into the words and their meaning and how they're put together.
38:09: Then the correlational or synthesis principle. Don't just take something out of one portion when other portions seem to contradict it.
38:17: So whatever you think is being taught there, it has to correlate since there's only one divine author, and he doesn't contradict himself, and he doesn't stutter.
38:28: So when he speaks, it all correlates. It's synthesis principle. And then the practical principle.
38:34: So what? The Bible isn't just for knowledge, it's for knowledge applied. So it has to be, how do
38:43: I, all theology is practical, so how do I live this out? These are different areas taken from,
38:56: Rick Holland has done some work on this, on trying to look at the different structures and be careful when you're in.
39:05: Some points to consider. Try to understand each section of Scripture when you're pulling verses out and counseling from it.
39:15: Be sure the linguistic, studying the grammar, syntax. There's some really good helpful tools out there, and I think of one particular one
39:25: I came across. It was a prophet at the Master's Seminary, Dr.
39:30: James Roskopp, who wrote this pamphlet on the dangers of word studies. I mean, people will take a look at a word and they'll make it mean all kinds of things.
39:43: The amplified Bible version type. They'll see, oh, this word could mean six things.
39:50: I like that. I like that meaning. That really goes with what I want for this passage. Well, you're going to be more careful than that.
39:58: What was it, how was it used at that particular time? Maybe by the same author in the same context.
40:04: So context, context, context. The whole Bible, there's another point of biblical history in that the whole
40:11: Bible is for us, but the whole Bible is not to us. And so it's important to look, who are they talking to?
40:19: And is that universally applied through all of time for God's children? And each type of scripture has its own set of rules, especially when you're getting into prophecy.
40:30: I mean, wherever you can take it literally, take it literally, but Song of Solomon. I mean, you're going to have to say that.
40:36: And there's some allegorical, there's some figurative, I should say, speech here.
40:43: I can't just take that literally, what's going on in the Song of Solomon. I mean, there are other things that are going on here. So in the proper genre, use the proper rules of interpretation.
40:52: Now I'm going to go through some ways to not be very cautious of these. Some of them just don't do them.
40:58: Other ways, be very cautious of these. I think they're listed in your notes. Misusing the
41:04: Bible. Luke 4, 7. Do I need to say any more? Don't just hunt and peck and open up the
41:12: Bible and just point your finger and look for some sort of guidance that way.
41:21: Oh, that happens so often. Probably the most common error. Personal advice.
41:28: Advice can be helpful, but one of Jesus' closest men advised him and advised him wrongly.
41:35: Peter, right? You're not going up to Jerusalem. And then the thing you don't want to ever hear or see is see
41:43: Jesus look at you and say, get thee behind me, Satan. Personal advice is as good as it's biblical.
41:53: You can have a lot of godly people counsel wrongly or advise wrongly. If I went,
42:01: I mean, I'm thinking back years ago when our kids were real tiny. If I went to my parents and said, mom and dad,
42:07: I'm thinking we're maybe going overseas, you know, maybe over in South Africa.
42:15: I might hear something like this. Well, Stuart, that's great.
42:23: God be with you. But leave your kids here with us. Right? Grandkids.
42:29: You go. Leave the kids here with us. People will counsel out of what they want and what they don't want in your life, and they'll advise you that way.
42:39: You have to be very cautious. Better to ask them what biblical principles come to your mind that could help us in our decision.
42:48: Circumstances and results. This is where you get involved in trying to let circumstances make your decisions.
42:58: And you're just kind of going with the flow. Well, that doesn't seem to work out, so I guess we'll do this.
43:05: And you're being guided by circumstances. And even if results happen, all this must be of God.
43:12: God will use circumstances, but you're not to make your decisions by them.
43:20: J. Adams writes, he says, when God uses circumstances, he's oftentimes moving you to a place where you now have to make a biblically informed decision.
43:32: But don't go with the flow. It's a passive approach rather than being active and responsible.
43:41: Setting up conditions. This is the Gideon approach. Don't do this. Where you're saying, well,
43:47: Lord, I'm going to put you to the test here. I'll put my home up for sale and see if it will sell.
43:55: If it sells within a day, then I know that's what you want. Then I'm going to put this test up, and then
44:01: I'm going to put this test up. That's presumption. And you're putting God to the test. And people do this all the time.
44:09: They set up conditions. If this happens, and this person... I had a roommate like this. We played basketball together.
44:16: He was six foot eight, huge guy, the center. And this was senior panic time.
44:23: This is in the spring, senior year. And he says, Stuart, today's the day.
44:30: Today's the day that God will reveal who I'm to marry. And I thought, what's he been smoking?
44:38: What is this? He goes, no, I'm serious. This is what he said. I prayed that the
44:46: Lord would show me today. And so the first girl that comes around the corner of the building, educational building, she's the one.
44:58: Now, after I figured out, he's serious. I went and told everyone on my hall, you got to come before classes.
45:09: So all of us on the whole floor here, we're sitting off in the grassy area.
45:18: And here's big John standing here. First girl comes around the corner.
45:24: She was married. We knew that was not going to work. The next girl that comes around, bless her heart, she's a sister in the
45:33: Lord, but I could never see John in a million years ask her out.
45:39: I mean, it was just not John's taste. And here she is, walked around the corner and we're just dying.
45:48: We're we are laughing so hard. He looks at her, looks over at us and he knows he's caught.
46:00: He goes, I think I have the wrong building. That's the way it is.
46:10: You flip a coin and you go, oh, I flip it again. You keep flipping until that's what happens. And you put
46:15: God to the test and it really is presumption. Open, closed doors.
46:21: Very popular phrase that's used in decision making. I'm praying for open doors. Well, that phrase is used four times by the
46:28: Apostle Paul. It's always in relationship to opportunities to preach the gospel and preach
46:35: Christ. That's it. He doesn't pray for open doors on whether or not to rent this chariot or buy this mule or that's not used at all in the
46:46: New Testament. It's always in relationship. He's praying for opportunities, open doors, to be evangelistic.
46:55: If you use it that way, that's fine. Lord, I pray for opportunities when when I'm flying back home tomorrow,
47:00: I'd be able to talk about Jesus to somebody. And there are times that there was an open opportunity and Paul didn't decide to go that direction.
47:09: He went another direction. And in the text there, in Acts, there was no problem with that. God wasn't angry with Paul.
47:15: That was just always on Paul's mind. I just want to preach Christ and let other people know.
47:21: What we tend to use this for is looking at circumstances and saying, well, there's a there's an open door.
47:28: I'm going to go through that one. One writer says open doors can lead to elevator shafts.
47:39: How you interpret open doors, someone next to you will say that's not an open door.
47:44: What you might say is a closed door. Maybe someone next to you would say, well, that's not closed. So much subjective interpretation when it comes to reading circumstances.
47:56: It's better just to use the principles and take every issue and weigh it through biblically and make a decision.
48:04: Ideas, inner feelings, desires and impressions. Gary Friesen, in his book on decision making, he says your feelings and desires and impressions could be produced by any number of sources.
48:17: And he goes, it could be an upset stomach. It could be a hormonal. I mean, it could be a numerous things of why you feel the way you feel.
48:28: And you don't want to put weight of your decisions upon that, on inner impressions.
48:36: You say, well, what about desires? What if it's a good desire? It's got to be of God. I'm trying to think of the passage.
48:45: It's in maybe it's 1 Kings 7. It's where David, no, that's not it.
49:02: David wants to build the temple. So anyway, you find that passage.
49:09: David wants to build a temple. So he calls Nathan and says, Nathan, I'd like to build a temple. It's not right. I live in a cedar lined palace like this.
49:16: Nathan says to David, David, go do that. All that is in your heart. You know, good, good desire.
49:23: Go do it. And Nathan shows up at home that night and God speaks to Nathan.
49:30: And God says, Nathan, that's not the guy. And this isn't the time.
49:37: That was a good desire. David had had to be of God. Wrong guy, wrong time.
49:44: So even desires, good desires have to be thought through biblically. And those are things that you we tend to just pass off as, oh,
49:55: I'm sure God's OK with this. Need to think through now, let's let's look through the commands and principles and that'll be more clear after our break as we get into, so how do you do this?
50:10: Audible voice, when people say I heard a voice, that could mean numerous things.
50:15: Again, there's no way to prove it's God. Whatever Larry Crabb heard at three in the afternoon brushing his teeth and he wasn't even sure why he was doing that.
50:25: When you get into audible voices. It could be here are some possibilities.
50:33: You've went more than three days without sleep. Which people hallucinate and they hear things.
50:41: Proven fact. Some of the exams that people take during exam time look like they're hearing voices because they haven't slept for a week in finals time at school.
50:54: But audible voices, it could mean that there is some reaction with medication that they're on.
51:00: And now they're their whole brain is not they're having a reaction to something.
51:09: If they're an unbeliever, it could be demonic. So when you get into audible voices, you said, well, could it be
51:15: God? Well, there's no way to prove it. So don't make decisions based on it. Say, yeah, but he it was soft or I saw a glow or that stay with the word of God.
51:30: There's a day we're all going to be judged and we'll be judged according to the scriptures.
51:36: So just stay true to the word. Misusing prayer. People will pray all kinds of things where they will not pray biblically.
51:49: They're not thinking about God's glory. It's selfish. It's the James four.
51:55: They have not because they they don't ask right with right motives, inner peace.
52:06: So I just have to have a peace about it. That's how I make my decisions. I have peace about it. Peace is never used in scripture for decision making.
52:16: You know, if you don't have peace, it may be Romans five. You're not a believer. You don't have peace with God.
52:23: Or maybe you're a Christian and you're worrying Philippians chapter four. They don't have peace because they're they're anxious.
52:30: Maybe there's strife going on in the body and the peace of God is not ruling.
52:37: And Colossians chapter three, you won't find peace. People saying, well, would you like to teach
52:44: Sunday school class? You're able, you're capable. We have a need. Well, I don't have peace about it.
52:52: Well, what does that mean? You need to press people.
52:58: You mean that you have a gut feeling about it? We shouldn't go by our gut feelings. I said, well, my mind's troubled on it.
53:06: Now that's a little bit more biblical. What's troubling you? Well, I think I've maybe over committed already on certain things.
53:13: Oh, OK, well, there's some biblical principles of stewardship and faithfulness. But just to say
53:18: I don't have peace and you're looking around for peace is problematic. Be careful. Jonah had great peace.
53:26: He went to sleep at the bottom of the ship, going in the opposite direction of the will of God.
53:34: Devices. This is flipping coins, tossing dice, scissors, paper, rock, whatever, whatever method you use.
53:43: In times past, in biblical times, they used this. God would work through devices, the
53:49: Urim and Thummim, and casting lots. But you don't see that as time goes on through the epistles, as the church continues to grow.
53:58: You just see them go back. I pray that they'll be filled with the knowledge of God's will, that they'll be obedient to the will of God.
54:04: You just don't see this that times past, God spoke that way. But now he has spoken through his son.
54:11: I had a student come up out of Master's College and says, I'm really troubled by something you said that we shouldn't be using devices to be making our decisions by.
54:20: And every game out there, whether it's baseball or soccer, they're flipping coins to see which team goes first.
54:30: I'm thinking, well, if we were biblical about preferring one another, the game would never start. She didn't like my response.
54:41: But we're talking about moral decisions that are weighty, about what you're going to do and not do, not so which team goes first.
54:50: That's just saying, OK, one has to go here. We're not talking about making moral decisions about life.
55:00: Looking for signs, people try to read branches. Do I work in Atlanta, or do
55:07: I move out to San Francisco? And they'll look up into the tree and go, boy, that looks like an
55:13: S. San Francisco it is. They're looking for digital clock stuff, signs, things that, oh, look at that.
55:22: We were thinking about it, and look what happened. That kind of thing. A lady came up to my wife and I outside of Walmart and said, would you like a dog?
55:35: I don't wear any signs saying I'm looking for a dog. That's kind of a strange request. But she didn't know that we were thinking about getting a dog.
55:42: We had little children, and I like animals, and thought about that. I said, well, what kind of dog is it?
55:48: And it was a purebred Spitz, pure white. I said, well, what's wrong with the situation here?
55:57: Dying? No, no, the kids grow up. They don't play with it. It's a friendly dog.
56:03: I said, well, can we go see it? So we went over to her house. Beautiful dog called
56:10: Snowball, the dog from Hades. We knew something was up when she said, well, when there's thunderstorms, it kind of gets a little neurotic.
56:28: And I said, well, can we just try it out for a week? And if it doesn't work out, we can bring it back to you.
56:33: And she said, that's fine. It was back before a week. It did so much damage in our house. But people look for signs, you know, signs.
56:41: Oh, look at that. That's of the Lord. He wants us to have this dog. Not so. Dreams.
56:51: This has become quite popular these days. Dreams and interpreting dreams. I saw a book in Barnes and Noble on interpreting dreams.
56:58: And it's just very common stuff. Paul Meyer, Paul Meyer wrote a book on interpreting dreams.
57:06: Spurgeon said, your dream is nothing more than your imagination, morbidly active. You don't want to make decisions based on your dreams.
57:17: They're just bizarre, aren't they? I mean, mine are. They're just bizarre, strange things.
57:23: We got to the place where we thought, you know, it's better not even to talk about them. The more you talk about them, the more real they get.
57:31: So we decided we weren't going to do that with nightmares with our kids. They have a nightmare. Let's just talk about God and the wondrous
57:40: God that we have. I don't want to know all the details of your dream, which was your imagination morbidly active.
57:47: But the more you ask, what happened then? And then what happened? And then what happened? I mean, this is like at 11 o 'clock at night.
57:56: And then you say, OK, good night. The lights are going out. And you're by yourself.
58:03: And Mom and Dad, you know, we're going into another room. It's just better not even explore those.
58:10: It's better just to say, you know what? Whatever took place, you were not conscious.
58:16: So now you are conscious. Let's dwell on what we're supposed to dwell on when we're conscious.
58:21: And that's on things that are true, honest, right, pure, lovely, good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy kind of things.
58:30: Waiting on the Lord. Some people say, I'm waiting on the Lord. You know, is there anyone in your life,
58:37: I mean, you desire to be married? I'm kind of waiting on the Lord. You mean on a second return?
58:49: Waiting on the Lord. Well, you know, it says in the Old Testament, you know, wait, wait on the
58:54: Lord. I'm waiting on the Lord. Well, the word wait means to trust.
59:01: The Hebrew word, wait, it means to trust. It does not mean to sit still. It means to actively move forward, but trust
59:09: God. Those who are trusting God and moving forward will mount up with wings like eagles. They'll run and not grow weary.
59:15: It has nothing to do about being passively still. So watch that one.
59:21: A lot of people use that. I'm just waiting on the Lord. You know, your wife will say, well, have you made that decision yet?
59:27: Or whether we're going to, I'm just waiting on the Lord. Wait means trust as we're moving.
59:37: Conscience. Our conscience has been infected with sin. And your conscience,
59:43: Dr. MacArthur's book, I think is the best thing I've seen on the conscience, the vanishing conscience. Your conscience is your guard, not your guide.
59:52: Don't violate it, but inform it biblically. Your reason.
01:00:00: Well, I'll engage my reason. Well, it's good to engage your mind, but don't lean on your own understanding.
01:00:09: Proverbs chapter three. Don't rest on your reasoning. I've seen lists pros and cons.
01:00:17: You know, people say pros and cons and look at how many pros I have and look how many, how
01:00:22: I don't have many cons, so I must go ahead with it. You can stack the deck.
01:00:29: Your reason is fallible. You want to engage your mind with scripture so that you're resting on your decisions, not on your own reasoning, but on scripture.
01:00:41: Unbiblical faith, that's leaping out into the dark, leaping off the pages of scripture somewhere.
01:00:47: Walking by faith is taking God at his word and obeying it. Hebrews 11. Those people of faith,
01:00:54: God told them something and they obeyed it. The centurion said, Lord, you say the word and I'm on my way home to his sick and dying servant.
01:01:03: And the Lord said, I've not seen such great faith in all of Israel. Say the word and I'm going to obey.
01:01:10: Well, he's already spoken. So now we walk by faith, but not saying, I think I'm going to do this by faith.
01:01:16: I think I'm going to buy that building by faith. Don't have the money, but by faith. This goes on a lot.
01:01:24: And you know, this is, it's unbiblical faith. Fasting.
01:01:31: There's a place, I think, for fasting. But fasting is not a magic foot, you know, rabbit's foot.
01:01:40: I gave up a few meals and then made my decision so I know it's the will of God. I fasted.
01:01:45: I prayed and I fasted. Well, you may have prayed and now you're thin. It doesn't mean you made the right decision.
01:01:53: Fasting is not a formula. Pray, fast, and the decision you make is of God.
01:01:59: It has to be according to biblical principles. The call. Oh, and you get into this call.
01:02:09: You know, I've been called to ministry. I've been called to the mission field. I mean, this is popular stuff.
01:02:15: The call. I think the best treatment of that was Jim George in a chapter in the book on pastoral ministry, where he used that as an acronym about, let's be biblical with the call to ministry or call to missions or whatever the call might be, is confirmation by God and other people.
01:02:35: Other people, godly people in the church, do they look at your life and say, you ought to think about ministry?
01:02:42: How about your abilities for A? What about the desire, a longing after that?
01:02:50: Do you desire that, as it says about an elder in 1 Timothy 3? You desire after that office.
01:02:56: And then the last L is a lifestyle of integrity, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 kind of lifestyle.
01:03:03: Oh, so use biblical principles rather than I had this mystical event.
01:03:13: Small group, two people call you over and say, can you just pray with us? Because wherever two or three are gathered and we pray, whatever we ask, the
01:03:20: Lord will give it. That happens to be in church discipline, not in getting what you want.
01:03:28: Those are methods and motives to be weary of, cautious of.
01:03:34: Some of them just don't do. So what we'll do here is just take a break. I went over just a few minutes here, but how long,