Knowing the Will of God Clear Springs Bible Conference 2015

so appreciate that uh our topic this afternoon uh charlie if you would pass those out i appreciate your help our topic this afternoon is the will of god this is a very popular topic within christendom for a number of reasons people want to be in the center of god's will they want to know how to make decisions in life so we have one handout that's coming around please take one what our goal is going to be this afternoon is to understand from the scriptures so not man's tradition or man's opinion but understand from the scriptures how to think about god's will and then how to make decisions on that basis so i'm going to give you a there are three big points i want to cover i'll tell you what those three points are which i'm not sure these will make sense at first so hopefully as i walk through them they'll make more sense to you but here's the three points i want to make point number one is there are two types of the will of god one is the revealed will of god the second is the unrevealed will of god we'll talk about what that means so there's two types of the will of god revealed and unrevealed point number two the focus of your life should be the revealed will of god we'll explain that and then point three scriptural decision making is not based on the unrevealed will of god but based upon a verse so those are the three big points we're going to cover let's start with point number one there are two types of the will of god the revealed will of god and the unrevealed will of god so let me just open us in prayer we'll get started lord thank you for your word we thank you that it's flawless that it's preserved for us we pray that we would be instructed by it it's in your name that we pray amen so you should all have a handout or you'll have one shortly the the header of this is differences between the revealed and unrevealed will of god you can see the column on the left is the revealed will of god the column on the right is the unrevealed will of god and we'll just walk through this as a way of trying to explain what we understand to be the difference so let's start with the revealed will of god and let's start with the definition that i've put there what the revealed will of god is is it's things explicitly stated to be the will of god in the scripture so that seems obvious enough the second thing that it is is things not explicitly stated to be the will of god but nonetheless commanded by the scriptures and thus god's will so let me give you an example of this first thessalonians 5 18 in everything give thanks for this is the will of god in christ jesus concerning you so is it god's will for you to give thanks in everything yes and i say that it's revealed because when you look at the words on the page god has said to you in everything give thanks for this is the will of god look at first timothy chapter 2 verse 3. for this is good and acceptable in the sight of god our savior who will so it doesn't say the will of god but it says god who will so i believe that's equivalent who will have all men to be saved and to come under the knowledge of the truth so god's will for your life we can say this without fear of contradiction as god wants you to be saved and then after you're saved what does he want you to do then to come to the knowledge of the truth he's revealed that to be his will first thessalonians 4 verse 3 for this is the will of god even your sanctification that ye should abstain from fornication now people say grace means you can live any old way you want is that right the will of god according to that verse is that you be sanctified isn't it god's revealed that to be the case now let's look at one more here philippians 4 4 rejoice in the lord alway and again i say rejoice now that verse doesn't contain the phrase the will of god but is that nonetheless the will of god for your life well it's something that god instructed you to do so should you do it yes it's god's will that you do it so the revealed will of god hopefully you can see this clearly is two things there are things where god explicitly says in the scripture it's my will that you do this in everything give thanks for this is the will of god so there's no question that's the will of god but then there's many times where god doesn't say this is the will of god but he nonetheless says do this in which case we obviously should do it so the revealed will of god is pretty clear let's talk now about the unrevealed will of god so start at the top if you would the definition of the unrevealed will of god is the following god's will as to what happens with regard to a particular event or circumstance in life and which is not contained in the scriptures so that the unrevealed will is about a particular circumstance a particular situation and it's not recorded in the scriptures so let me give you a couple examples of that romans 1 10 making requests if by any means now at length notice what it says i might have a prosperous journey by the will of god to come unto you now when paul says might is he saying that he knows for sure that he will or is he saying maybe yes maybe not right he's indicating some uncertainty it's not revealed in scripture whether paul is going to have a prosperous journey to rome or not at the time that he's writing it he hopes that by the will of god that he will that it hadn't been revealed and is it possible that he might not have a prosperous journey it's possible because he says mighty look at romans 15 verse 30 now i beseech you brethren for the lord jesus christ sake and for the love of the spirit that ye strive together with me in your prayers to god for me verse 31 that i may be delivered from them that do not believe in judea and that my service which i have for jerusalem may be accepted of the saints that i may come unto you with joy by the will of god and may with you be refreshed now when paul writes those verses is he sure how that's going to turn out or does he have some uncertainty he has some uncertainty doesn't he yes have you ever heard people on tv say god told me to go to this location and god was going to do this and god was going to do that right that's not how the apostle paul talks you see that well he said when he says there that i may be delivered from them that uh that do not believe in judea isn't it the case that what happens with saints is sometimes they're delivered from folks who don't believe and sometimes they're not right we don't always the people that get on tv and say god wants you happy and healthy and wise do you know what's going on in the world there are lots of times where what happens to saints or things that god does not want to happen right and just that's the reality of it but notice romans 15 32 paul still says this is by the will of god so i call this the unrevealed will of god because when paul's writing that scripture he doesn't know for sure what's going to happen because god hasn't revealed it to him that's why he says may look at first peter 3 17 for it is better than what's the next word if well you know what if means maybe right it indicates uncertainty there if the will of god be so that you suffer for well doing then for evil doing notice first corinthians 16 verse 7 for i will not see you now by the way but i trust to tarry a wild with you if the lord permit well when it says if the lord permit is god is paul certain that the lord's going to permit him or does he not know he clearly doesn't know so you can see the difference here everything under the revealed will of god is something where god explicitly recorded in scripture this is what i want you to do and everything on the left-hand side is something that paul's writing about is the will of god but he's not certain how that particular circumstance will play out will he be delivered from them that believe in judea maybe yes maybe no will he have a chance to tarry with them in corinth well if the lord permits he will but if the lord doesn't permit then he won't there's a difference between the two so look at the next row revealed in scripture is the revealed will of god revealed in scripture the answer is yes it's specifically recorded is the unrevealed will of god revealed in scripture no it's not you can look at all those verses on the right hand side and it doesn't say how it's going to turn out the next row god intended to be known i just noticed something about this if god recorded something in his word he did it because he intended for you to know i mean the basic reason you have the bible is god affirmatively decided i want to reveal this to man so he can know it so does god intend for you to know the revealed will of god yes of course absolutely but as to the unrevealed will of god where you know think about romans 1 10 romans 15 30 paul thereby inspiration of the holy spirit is writing the scriptures so he's actually the holy ghost is informing him of information and deciding not to give him information right right i mean that's what's literally going on in those verses he's writing about his travels and he's saying i may do this but i don't know this may happen but it may not the holy spirit there is affirmatively choosing not to tell paul certain information about the circumstances of life that seems obvious so flip the page over if you would so do you have the ability to know each of these well you have the ability to know the revealed will of god because what can you do you can point to a verse and say should i rejoice yes rejoice in the lord alway and again i say rejoice you can know for sure and you can know in advance that that's what you should be doing but notice something about the unrevealed will of god it is impossible to prove and know in advance all the verses about paul where i pray that i may be delivered from them that do not believe in judea he doesn't know for sure and notice this the unrevealed will of god cannot be known with certainty even after the fact a number of years ago richard uh visited us and taught a whole series on the book of philemon and it was it was tremendous and what i would say is my favorite verse from philemon is verse 15 because i think it's i think it really makes clear how grace works so let me quickly give you the context what happens in the book of philemon is philemon is a master and he has a servant the servant is named henissimus anissimus runs away from his master now the philemon is someone that was that paul knew that was saved under paul's ministry so he knew paul enissimus runs away from his master and he runs all the way to rome he bumps into paul and gets saved paul wants anissimus to stay with him and to do the work of the ministry but what paul does is rather than just keeping him there or rather than writing a letter to philemon and saying hey philemon i bump into anissimus he's going to stay here and do the work of the ministry with me i'm sure you won't mind where he sort of forces him into agreeing to it he sends enismus back so that philemon has the free will he has the opportunity to choose if he wants to give onisimus for the work of the ministry or not now here's what's amazing about verse 15. today people all the time look at circumstances in life and if they like the circumstance god did it so if you like your job god gave you your job right and if you don't like your job it's because of satanic attack and the way people think about the will of god and what god's doing today is if you like it then god did it and if you don't like it then satan did it right and it's that sort of simplistic self-centered sort of thinking but what's fascinating about verse 15 and philemon is notice what it says for perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou should have received him forever see if there's any fact circumstance that looks like god's will i submit to you philemon looks like it and the reason why is this you have someone that runs away from their master their laws they bump into the apostle the gentiles get saved and want to do the work of the ministry does that look like the hand of god i mean in just a natural human sense it looks like something god would rejoice in right he rejoices in people being saved he rejoices in them doing the work of the ministry you would think that that would be something where hey this is clearly the hand of god doing it but what paul says in verse 15 is perhaps and what happens all the time today with the will of god is people look at circumstances and make pronouncements as to whether god is doing something when the scriptures themselves don't do it because the scripture there is saying perhaps even after the fact you can't know look at the next row varies by circumstance the revealed will of god does not vary by circumstance so when we were in first thessalonians 5 18 and it said in everything give thanks for this is the will of god you know what that means doesn't matter whole you are doesn't matter where you are on the earth it doesn't matter your education doesn't matter your finances it doesn't matter your health it doesn't matter any of those things in all of them in every one of them what should you do give thanks right it doesn't vary by circumstance at all because wherever you find yourself in life should you give thanks yes wherever you find yourself on the earth should you rejoice yes you should but if you remember all the things we looked at on the right hand side of the page about being delivered from them that are in judea and if the lord permits paul to terry there and so on all that stuff varies by circumstance right i mean it's situational look at the next row is the revealed will of god relevant to decision making yes because if god says that he wants you to do something should you do it absolutely but the unrevealed will of god is totally irrelevant the first reason it's irrelevant is you can't know it so you shouldn't make any decision on that basis but the second reason look at daniel 3. now this is when shadrach meshach and abednego are about to be cast into the fiery furnace and what's being asked for them is look if you just fall down and worship this idol then i won't throw you in well notice the response it be so if you throw us in our god whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand o king but if not so do they know for sure what's going to happen they don't do that but if not be it known unto thee o king that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou has set up see what they're saying there is we don't know for sure how this is going to turn out we're hopeful god will deliver us but even if he doesn't we're not going to serve your idol and so is how this is going to play out does that determine their action don't determine their action because what they say the king is if we don't care what happens we're not going to bow down with that so the unrevealed will of god however that circumstance was going to turn out was it relevant to their decision no because they weren't going to serve the idol either way you see that so the unrevealed will of god is not something you should look at to make a decision you should look at the revealed will of god what he's told us to do and then the last row there is percent of will of god verses so here's what i did you know this is fascinating to me when you sit down and study the will of god if you just take the phrase the will of god it's only in 23 verses that's it so all the books men write and all the stuff that is taught on it you can read all the verses in less than a half hour well here's the here's my count and you should check this for yourself of the 23 verses that contain that phrase 19 of them are about the revealed will of god and four of them are about the unrevealed will of god the reason i make that point is where should your focus be well the focus of the word of god is on the revealed will of god it's not on the unrevealed okay so let's move on to the the next point so that that was point one that there's two different types of the will of god there's the revealed and there's the unrevealed so now let's look at point two the focus of your life should be the revealed will of god so i'm gonna say something that's that's obvious but let me just make the point god's unrevealed will is unrevealed therefore scripture says very little about it because it's not revealed right i mean that's sort of the state in the obvious but the point is does god's word view the unrevealed will of god as something significant and the answer is no it spends most of its time focusing on what god has clearly revealed and let me just give you this example i'm getting daniel 12. i don't know if you've ever noticed this but [Music] well just look at daniel 12 with me daniel chapter 12 verse 4. daniel 12 4 but dallo daniel shut up the words and seal the book even to the time of the end many shall run to and fro and now knowledge shall be increased one of the things that i've found is that christendom is extremely fascinated with prophecy right i see it all the time and one of the things you should consider is the fact that scripture explicitly says that there are some certain things that god has sealed meaning there are some things about it that you're not going to be able to know look with me at 2 thessalonians 2. so man loves prophecy we know that i what i would say one of the things that man loves the most is to speculate as to who the antichrist is i don't know if you've found this here's a simple definition for who the antichrist is the antichrist is whatever politician you don't like at that particular moment right i mean i've seen in things you know kissinger sadat i've seen hillary clinton i mean there's no end of the list of sodom hussein of who the the antichrist can be well look at second thessalonians 2 verse 7. for the mystery of iniquity doth already work only he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way so there's a mystery of iniquity that already works people disagree about what's holding it back but there's something holding it back until it's taken out of the way and then notice verse 8 and then shall that wicked be revealed so here's what's going on this is just incredible to me what second thessalonians says plainly in two verses is there's something holding back the man of sin until it's taken out of the way it won't be until then that he's revealed so anytime you spend before it's taken out of the way is absolutely worthless because he hasn't even been revealed i mean isn't that what it's saying yeah so all the countless hours and books and efforts devoted to identify the antichrist it hasn't even been revealed yet man spends countless hours trying to know what he cannot know and ignores knowing what he should it's just absolutely backwards let me give you another example get colossians 2. colossians chapter 2. i noticed this same thing perhaps you do as well with angels so don't we live in a time where people are fascinated by angels there's tv shows about angels i don't know if any of you have ever read the frank peretti books there's all these books about spiritual warfare right and the books are christian fiction and people are going through their lives and the car doesn't start because there's an angel with an invisible sword through the hood of the car the car won't start until a good angel comes and washes upside the head with his own spiritual sword and it's all this sensationalism then folks have experiences where they talk about i was visited by an angel and the angel did this the angel did that look at colossians 2 18 let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels now notice what this says intruding into those things which he hath not seen so irrespective of what anyone says they have not seen those things right and by the way so i'm just going to vent for a moment forgive me there are modern versions that change that verse so that it says that they have seen them in other words they take out the knot do you ask what happens when you take a sentence and you take out the word not it's not entirely anything exactly it's backwards they're making it simpler though i mean it's just absolutely ludicrous so now read the last part of the verse intruding into those things which he hath not seen because he is deeply spiritual vainly mentally worthlessly what puffed up has an arrogance problem by what his fleshly mind so you know the bible corrects man's thinking but the obvious point of that is the modern fascination with angels is it's based upon a fleshly mind it's vain thinking and there's a bunch of arrogance involved and it's also intruding into things which they have not seen contrast that with ephesians 3. ephesians chapter 3 verse 9. now one of the things that we often do as dispensationalists is we'll quote ephesians 3 9 and i think we sometimes ignore verse 10. verse 9 and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery that is certainly our responsibility which from the beginning of the world have been hitting god who created all things by jesus christ notice it's not a period to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of god as a saved person today you have an obligation to come under the knowledge of the truth you have an obligation to make all men see the fellowship of the mystery but you are doing that not simply for man's own good but for what because you're making known under the principalities powers in the heavenly places the manifold what wisdom of god so let me take colossians 2 in ephesians and put them together man is obsessed with angels which he cannot see he's looking at that when the reality is angels are observing what the body of christ does it's not us watching them it's there watching us and we ought to be mindful of what we're doing because our responsibility today is to make note unto them frankly the victory of the lord jesus christ what ephesians 3 10 is about is what god did and you know this first corinthians 2 he kept a secret he kept a mystery satan crucified the lord of glory he imagines it's a win and of course what it's not a win and in the middle of the book of acts satan says and i quote oops right because he realizes wait a minute that i thought was a victory is my absolute utter defeat and what ephesians 3 10 is about is that as we as members of the body christ do our jobs we are proclaiming the wisdom the manifold wisdom of god to the prince of god's powers and heavenly places i give you those verses just to make the point that man does things exactly backwards they're focused on prophecy when most of prophecy they cannot know they're focused on angels when it is explicit that they can't see them and it is the exact same thing with the will of god because rather than focus on the revealed will of god which has all sorts of things that are hard like things like you should be sanctified and you should live the right way people instead want to focus on the things that god hasn't revealed so let's spend a little bit of time here and talk about some things that are explicitly the revealed will of god and paul's epistles so first of all get first corinthians 1 1. i mentioned earlier that there are 23 verses that have the will of god as a phrase first corinthians 1 1 paul called to be an apostle of jesus christ through the will of god of the 23 verses that is that reference the will of god five of them over twenty percent of them refer to the fact of paul's apostleship first corinthians 1 1 second corinthians 1 1 ephesians 1 1 colossians 1 1 2nd timothy 1 1. now here's my point people say you make too much of paul 20 of all of the verses in the word of god that talk about the will of god speak about the fact that paul is an apostle by god's will i i think it's hard to make too much of paul's apostleship because scripture thinks it's pretty important galatians 1 4 and somebody's i'm just going to read to you for the sake of time galatians 1 4 the lord jesus christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil world according to god's will romans 8 27 the lord jesus christ intercedes for the saints according to the will of god philippians 2 13 god works in the believer both to will and to do of his good pleasure so now that we turn your attention to this i want to focus on the things in paul's epistles that he expects us to do to be in the will of god so the first thing we looked at this earlier first timothy two three and four god's will is that you be saved and come into the knowledge of the truth then get romans 12. romans chapter 12 verse 2 and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of god god wants us to have the mindset from the scriptures so that we can identify his will colossians 4 verse 12. colossians 4 12. epaphrous who is one of you a servant of christ saluteth you always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of god so we should be perfect and complete in the will of god look at second corinthians eight second corinthians chapter eight verse 5 and this they did not as we hoped but first gave their own selves to the lord and unto us by the will of god so what the saints did is they gave themselves to the apostles according to the will of god look at ephesians 6. now this may sound similar something to that rick just said but here's a will of god verse that we don't like you ready ephesians 6 5 servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart as unto christ not with eye service as men pleasers but as servants of christ doing the will of god from the heart see if the will of god is about which path to take in life we like that but if the will of god is what i need to do is i need to serve my earthly boss as i would jesus christ you know we don't like that right because the boss is a jerk and he doesn't know this and he makes bad decisions and right there's a million reasons why and isn't one of the most popular subjects at work why the boss is wrong of course i mean come on you guys must work in really spiritual companies if that's not the case i mean you know that that's how life is but ephesians 6 says what's god's will for your life god's will is that you serve your your earthly master as you do jesus christ look with me at first we looked at first thessalonians 4 about sanctification and we looked at first thessalonians 5 about the believer giving thanks in everything now here's my point if you want to be in the center of god's will what you should do is all those verses where it says it's god's will to do this you should do that right get saved come to the knowledge of the truth give thanks serve your employers under christ uh come to a complete romans 12 2 be transformed by your mind all of those things all right point three scriptural decision making is not based upon the unrevealed will of god but based upon a verse so what do i mean by that possibly the greatest misconception about the will of god specifically the unrevealed will of god is that it's about decision making so let me be explicit about what i'm saying here people often think of life as a path so i go down this path and i've got a choice do i go to this school or do that school do i go to church here or do i go to church there am i called to the ministry am i not should i marry this person or that person in other words what happens is they come to a fork in the road and they have to make a decision and they say god show me your will and that's what they think the will of god is about it's about making the right decision at those forks in the road so you don't go down the wrong path that's how they think about it but as you saw earlier none of the verses on the unrevealed will of god on the situational will of god are about decision making not one of them is about that so let's talk for a minute about how to make decisions in life get jeremiah 17. jeremiah 17. i don't know if you've um heard this one of the things that people often say is i prayed about this decision and i had peace right right you've probably heard that and let me just suggest this to you emotions and a sense of peace are totally irrelevant to scriptural decision making just completely relevant jeremiah 17 verse 9 the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it you know what that means your heart lies to you you don't fully understand your own heart when you have a sense of peace about something when your heart is telling you something what you should consider is number one it's desperately wicked number two it's deceitful it lies about things and number three according to that verse you can't even know your own heart so should you make decisions on the basis of what you feel not according to that verse get jonah one jonah chapter 1. jonah chapter 1 verse 1. now the word of the lord came unto jonah the son of amitai saying arise go to nineveh that great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me but jonah rose up to flynn to tarshish from the presence of the lord and went down the joppa and he found a ship going to tarshish so he paid the fair thereof and went down into it to go with them unto tarshish from the presence of the lord so you know this but what happens is god calls jonah to go to nineveh and what jonah does is says you know number one i'm not going to nineveh number two i'm paying my own money to buy a ticket to go as far away as i can right so he's he's as scripture says there he is fleeing from the presence of the lord he's going the exact opposite direction verse 4 but the lord set out a great wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so the ship was like to be broken so now they're caught in us in a sea storm that is so bad the ship might go down and all lives would be lost verse 5 then the mariners were afraid so is this a serious storm this is a very serious storm and cried every man unto his god and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea to lighten it of them but jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship and he lane was fast asleep now you see what's going on there the ship is in peril of being lost you know it's starting to come apart the mariners are afraid they're calling out to their gods jonah's taking a nap right he has peace in the midst of chaos so is he in the will of god there he's not in the will of god he's going the exact wrong direction but he has peace because he's happy with his decision right so does having a sense of peace mean you're doing the right thing no because your heart is desperately wicked so so much for making decisions on the basis of emotion you you shouldn't do that your heart is just too deceitful it's too dishonest what it does is when you make decisions on that basis you're ignoring the reality of how wicked your heart is look at acts 9 so if you don't make decisions on the basis of your heart well then you know what you should do you should make decisions on the basis of that little voice that you hear you ever heard that one look at acts 9 verse 7. so in acts 9 paul's on the road to damascus the lord jesus christ appears unto him and speaks unto him notice verse 7 and the men which journeyed with him stood speechless notice what it says hearing a voice but seeing no man so in acts 9 when the lord jesus christ appears to paul is he actually speaking words that could be heard that make a sound yes he plainly is because the other folks that are there hear it right now here's what people do today when people talk about the will of god today they don't say that they're hearing voices because they'll think they're crazy what they say is well i had this inner voice you know this still small voice in my mind that told me this that and the other the silent voice in your mind is you it's not god it's you right i mean god's not responsible for all the evil thoughts that go through your mind right so my point is the inaudible voice is not a way to make decisions either get with me deuteronomy 22. so if we can't do it on the basis of emotion and we can't do on the basis of peace and we can't do it on the basis of the still small voice well then surely what we can do is we can do it on the basis of circumstance right no deuteronomy 22 verse 6. deuteronomy 22 verse 6 if a bird's nest what's the next word chance to be before thee in the way in any tree so did god predestinate the bird's nest to be there no or did it just happen it just happened in life chances of bible word get second samuel one ii samuel chapter 1 verse 6 and the young man that told him said as i happened by chance upon mount gilboa get luke 10. luke chapter 10 [Music] luke chapter 10 verse 31 this is the parable of the good samaritan and by chance there came down a certain priest that way so notice that the lord jesus christ himself believed in chance the creator of the universe didn't orchestrate all things there are things that just happened by chance by random occurrence ecclesiastes 9 11 please we're almost there ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 11. returned and saw unto the son that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong neither yet read to the wise nor yet riches to men of understanding nor yet favor to men of skill but time and chance happeneth to them all listen if you make a million dollars is it because of how brave you were maybe partially it is but you know what you know what is undoubtedly relevant chance right time and chance happeneth to all so your effort doesn't matter of course your effort matters but is chance a big part of your life and the answer is yes it is get first samuel 6. this is probably my favorite one first samuel six verse nine so the philistines capture the ark of the covenant and ever since they capture the arc of covenant they have all these bad things happen in them so then they decide what they need to do is they need to return the ark unto the lord gently and then see which way it goes look with me at first daniel six verse nine and see if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to bethsgrish then he hath done us this great evil but if not then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us it was a chance that happeneth to us the point is this there's there's such things in life as being in the right place at the right time sometimes things happen by the hand of god or they happen by chance you don't necessarily know the difference but here's the point since much of what happens on this earth is by chance it's not the hand of god making decisions on the basis of circumstance is foolhardy amen have you seen this have you seen when there is a natural disaster people say what was god trying to tell us yes thunderstorms cannot speak right that's right i mean why what drives me crazy um are horoscopes right so you read your horoscope but it says you're going to have a good day and you go break your leg well do you have a good day you have a bad day well you can say you had a bad day because you broke your leg but you had a good day because you didn't get worse and it was a car accident you could have been killed right so you could interpret it whatever way you want i once got an argument with someone about horoscopes i said look this is all nonsense i don't believe a word but she says of course not you're a leo i don't know but my point that that's a true that's completely true but my point is this you can't make decisions on the basis of circumstances because circumstances don't speak they don't tell you if it was god or if it was chance or resist or was that you should make a decision on the basis of what god has explicitly spoken so don't make a decision based upon circumstance get philippians 2 two more verses and we're done philippians 2 so how should you make decisions if we rule out all those other methods philippians 2 verse 23 him therefore i hope to send presently so soon as i shall see how it will go with me so what paul's doing is he's making decision whether to send someone or not and what he does is he waits to get information that he thinks is relevant to the decision so as you're making decisions in life the first thing i would encourage you to do is number one get the relevant information don't make i mean you've heard about the guy that gets up in the morning and what he does is says god speak to me show me your will and close his eyes then judas went out upon himself and he says no lord i'm earnest i want to know your will show me your will go thou and do likewise no god i mean it please show me your will what they'll do do is quickly that's all just superstitious nonsense because it's ignoring the context the rational thing to do would be number one to get information about the decision that needs to be made then get romans 10. romans chapter 10 verse 17. so you know this verse romans 10 17 so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of god on the authority of that verse there is no true faith apart from the word of god right that's right so when people get on tv and say what we did we stepped out in faith and we built this huge building that we don't have money to pay for but we stepped out in faith trusting god listen the bible says all sorts of things about debt right never does it say buy things that you can't pay for so you didn't do it by faith because there's no verse that says that you did it by your own will so my point simply about decision making is this whenever you face an important decision gather the facts as best you can but your ultimate decision should be based not upon anything you come up with but based upon a verse that makes you believe it's the right decision then it will be based in the word of god you'll still get some wrong because you'll misunderstand the word of god but at least then you are attempting to operate by faith amen all right so let me let me sum it up this way the will of god is not that tricky the problem is mankind focuses on knowing the unrevealed will of god which he cannot know and he ignores to do the revealed will of god which is specifically recorded for us and what we need to do simply is to go by the written word of god and when we come to a point in life where you need to make a decision don't look at circumstances don't look at emotion don't look at how you feel about it don't listen to the voice in your head read this book until you find a verse that gives you clarity and then act on the basis of that verse amen amen

Channel: Columbus Bible Church

Views: 538

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: grace, dispensation, dispensational, dispensationalism, rightdivide, rightlydivide, biblestudy, kingjames, kingjamesbible, apostlepaul, bible, rightdivision, midacts, paulinetruth, mid-acts, pauline, mystery, rightly divide, bible study, king james, king james bible, apostle paul, pauline truth

Id: Z_svrCMvfOU

Length: 45min 40sec (2740 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021