How To Know The Will Of God For Your Life (Part 2): Four Ways God Guides
Stanley Bruce Anstey
Table of Contents
Four Ways God Guides
(Lassen Pines, CA — July 2, 2004)
Yesterday, we looked at seven passages of Scripture in the New Testament that outline what the will of God is for our lives in a general way. In the face of those verses none of us can really say that we don’t know what God’s will is for us—it’s clearly laid out in the Word of God!
Tonight, we want to talk about the will of God in a more specific way, but it would be pointless for us to talk about the details of being guided by the Lord in His will if we were not doing those things that He has clearly marked out in His Word. That’s why I took up those things first last night. We can’t expect the Lord to guide us in certain specific things in our lives when we haven’t regarded the general or basic things that we know He wants us to do. It would hypocritical. The Lord said to the Pharisees, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone” (Matt. 23:23).
The Necessary Prerequisite — A Good State of Soul
So, having spoken on those general things to do with God’s will, I would now like to look at four main ways in which the Lord guides us in the smaller details of His will. Now when we speak of the subject of being guided by the Lord, it is impossible, really, to speak of it without implicating a proper state of soul in the believer to be guided.
With that in mind, I want to first look at some verses that would address the state of our souls. Let’s look at John 7:17, “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself.” This verse lays down a great principle to do with knowing the will of God. In this case, it was to do with knowing a certain doctrine, but the principle is broad enough to apply to all matters in our life. The principle is this: there must be a pre-disposition of our wills to want to DO the will of God, cost whatever it may! Notice that the verse does not say, “If any man wants to know His will he shall know;” it says “If any man will do His will, he shall know...” There needs to be a commitment in our hearts to the doing of His will, regardless of what it may cost us. When there is that kind of commitment, the Lord is surely going to show us His will.
Let’s look at another verse, Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Here we have another point with regard to knowing the will of God, and that is the importance of being separated from the world! The reason for this is that the world affects our minds and causes us to lose discernment. If we have any kind of worldly ambition or interest in our lives, it is sure to hinder us in learning the will of God for our lives. Therefore, it is important to not be conformed to the world and its ways.
Now let’s look at Ephesians 5:14-17, “Wherefore He saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from [among] the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.” Here is another great prerequisite regarding being in a proper state of soul to discern the will of God; and that is, the exercise of heart. We need to be exercised about being guided in the path. If we take the posture of being careless or indifferent about the path—which sleeping speaks of—how can we expect to have the Lord’s leading? This verse says that we must first “arise,” then the Lord will give us “light” for the path! There is a moral order here. J. N. Darby said, “The Lord does not give light to a sleepy Christian.” We read in Psalm 36:9, “In Thy light shall we see light.” The apathetic and careless Christian is not going to get light from the Lord for his path.
I’ve probably told you this story before; but anyway a schoolteacher was a little upset over the apathetic state of his students. One day he walked into the classroom and with a piece of chalk wrote on the blackboard A-P-A-T-H-Y. As he was writing this in big letters, one kid looked at it and read AA-PA-THY; then turning to the kid next to him said, “What’s apathy?” And the other kid said with distain, “Who cares!” Now that’s exactly what apathy means! Now if we take that kind of an attitude in regard to the knowing the will of God for our lives, He is not going to teach us His way. He wants exercised hearts. We need to seek the Lord with all our hearts and minds; and He will surely lead us in the path, and we will know His will.
Now one last verse to complete our introduction, let’s turn to Matthew 6:22-23, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Here’s another important thing in regard to having a proper state to discern God’s mind and will, and that is to have a single eye. In the Lord’s ministry here on the mount, He gives a lesson based on our natural eyes and applies it to our spiritual eyes. Now we know that our natural eyes are used to bring light into our body: the eye draws light into the body, and the mind translates it into an image so that we are able to understand what we are looking at. But that only happens when our eyes are healthy! The eye must be “single” or sound, so that the light coming into the body would not be hindered in any way. The Lord uses that to show us that it’s just the same with our spiritual eyes; we need to have healthy or sound spiritual eyes so that our spiritual apprehension is not impaired. Sound spiritual eyes are like having a healthy state of soul. Therefore, if we are going to get spiritual light for our path, we must have a proper state of soul so that we can discern the mind of the Lord.
Now the Lord speaks about two states; one is the eye being “single” (or sound), and the other the eye being “evil.” To have an evil eye is to be in a state of soul where we have ulterior motives. Something is hindering or blocking the light from coming into the eye so that there is not a clear picture in the soul as to the path. We all know how a very little thing can hinder our eyes from seeing things clearly. A little speck of dust can do it! How careful we have to be in regard to spiritual things. So, if we are having difficulty seeing things, it’s because there is a moral hindrance in our souls. There’s a fellow we know back home that when we bring before him some certain truth or principle from the Word of God, he often says, “I just can’t see it! I just can’t see it!” And if we refer to another principle, he often says the same thing— “I just can’t see it!” He means it too! But why, may we ask, can’t he see it? There’s some hindrance that he has — perhaps some ulterior motive that blocks the light of that truth from his spiritual view. It shows us that reading the Scriptures and praying is not necessarily enough to get God’s mind on a particular thing—there needs to be a corresponding state of soul to discern it. The Bible says, “He that is spiritual discerneth all things” (1 Cor. 2:15 — marginal reading).
There are many Christians right now that are reading their Bibles and are on their faces seeking God’s mind about assembly matters (and they are sincere), but they are all in a fog over what, to others, seems so simple. They are having difficulty in getting light and discerning the Lord’s mind in the matter, and I believe that it’s because there is some moral hindrance—some unchecked ulterior motive that is in the way. It just shows us how careful we have to be to maintain a good state of soul.
Let’s look now at these ways in which the Lord guides us.
1) Through Having a Sense of the Lord’s Presence With Us — Communion
Let’s turn, first of all, to Exodus 33:13-15, “Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in Thy sight, shew me now Thy way, that I may know Thee, that I may find grace in Thy sight: and consider that this nation is Thy people. And He said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto Him, If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” This is the first great way in which the Lord guides His people – and that is by having a sense of His presence. Perhaps we could say it is the highest and purest way to be led.
Moses was seeking guidance from the Lord as to getting the children of Israel across the wilderness to the land of Canaan. The Lord said, “My presence shall go with thee.” The Lord’s presence would lead them. It would be manifest in the Shekinah glory cloud that abode on the tabernacle. When it moved, they were to break up the camp and move with it. When it stopped, they were to stop and set up camp there. It was really very simple for them to have the Lord’s guidance. All they had to do was keep their eye on the cloud, and seek to stay under it. It was a shield for them from the hot sun by day, and a pillar of fire providing light for them by night. It’s a beautiful picture of being led by having a sense of the Lord’s presence.
When Moses said, “If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence,” he was really saying, “Lord, if we can’t have Thy presence with us, we don’t want to go!” That’s the way it should be with us. We shouldn’t want to go anywhere in this world if we can’t have the sense of the presence of the Lord with us. What I’m talking about here is a sense of peace that every Christian should have in their lives that naturally comes from walking with the Lord. Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” That’s the normal Christian state because we are in fellowship with the Lord. We should never let anything come into our lives that would disturb that peace.
I remember a brother wanted me to go with him to Malaysia to visit the brethren there. I had a desire for that, and so I said, “Sure, I’ll go.” We made the itinerary, and as the day drew closer and it was time to buy our tickets for the departure, I began to get uneasy. I began to lose my peace. After a while I couldn’t sleep, thinking about it, until I finally called the brother and told him that I wasn’t going to go. And as soon as I did that my peace returned, and I slept like a baby that night! What had happened was that I had given my consent to go in a way in which I didn’t have peace.
The normal Christian state is to walk in fellowship with the Lord; if this is a habitual thing, when we take a wrong step we’ll feel something is out of order—in other words, we’ll lose our peace. It’s then that we must retrace our steps, and seek to stay in the path of doing the will of God. In this way, the Lord guides us by having a sense of His presence. But if you normally don’t walk in fellowship with the Lord in your life, you wouldn’t know what it is to lose the sense of that which you are accustomed to not having. But that’s a sad thing.
Let’s turn to another verse to illustrate this point of being guided by a sense of the Lord’s presence—Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye.” You have to be pretty close to a person to be guided by his or her eye. This has the idea of nearness, and implies being in communion. If I were to look at my wife from where I’m standing here, I don’t think I could see the movement of her eyes, but if I were to go closer to her I would. And this is really what communion is—the nearness of heart and thought to the Lord. It is what I covet in my life.
This reminds me of a story I heard of a man who was in England, or perhaps Scotland, where they do a lot of fox and rabbit hunting. They have their hounds to chase down these rabbits in an organized way, and then they shoot them! The man asked one of those hound trainers, “How do you know when those hounds are trained?” The man said, “That’s very simple; when we are out on a hunt, and a rabbit runs across our path, and the hound turns and looks at me before going after the rabbit, I know he’s trained.” The dog knows very well it should chase the rabbit, but it still looks to the master before moving! That’s exactly what the Lord is looking for in us. It may be very obvious where we should go, but we still need to look to Him. That’s dependence—and the Lord will guide the dependent soul. Let’s not take ONE STEP in our lives if it means that we’ll lose the sense of the Lord’s presence.
2) Through Principles in the Word of God
Let’s turn to a second way God guides; Psalm 17:4, “By the Word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.” And then Psalm 119:105, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Move on a little further to verse 130, “The entrance of Thy Words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” Here we have another way in which the Lord guides—by the principles of His Word. We should be very thankful to have this way in which the Lord leads and guides, as well as the sense of the Lord’s presence. Because having a sense of the Lord’s presence in our souls is rather subjective—it’s an inward impression. And since our hearts are so deceptive (as it says in Jeremiah 17:9 “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”) we might get so wrapped up in something that we want to do, that we might be deceived into thinking that we have the Lord’s presence with us when we really don’t. It’s just our soulish emotions at work. It’s very possible to get emotionally attached to something and believe that we are being led of the Lord, but it’s only our own desires.
So it’s wonderful that God has given us other ways in which to guide us—namely His Word. This helps to check and balance things. We can ask ourselves concerning a particular step that we are about to make, “Does it coincide with the Word of God? Is there a principle in the Word of God that would support this?” We have just read three or four verses that tell us that His Word guides us. God’s Word outlines a safe and happy path for us through this world. As we learn and gather Scriptural principles, and put them in our treasury, we will be able to call upon them in a time of need, and be guided.
Let’s look at James 1:21; “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls.” Now this goes beyond just learning the principles of the Word of God intellectually. It addresses the need for the Word of God taking root in the very fiber of our being, and becoming part of us. You’ve probably heard the brethren say, “You’ve got to make the truth your own.” Well, that is what they mean. The principles from the Word of God have to become an integral part of our person, so that we live that truth out practically in our lives. It’s not just head knowledge. That’s what James is speaking about here when he says “the engrafted Word.” That same idea is in 1 John 2:14, where it says of the young men, “The Word of God abideth in you.” A young brother came to Mr. Darby and asked him how he could get a good grasp of the Word of God as Mr. Darby. He said words to the effect that it was not so much his grasp of the Word of God, as it was the Word of God’s grasp of him! The Word of God should take hold of us, and affect our being, which will be evidenced in our lives.
Now this is going to take time. We have to learn and gather those Scriptural principles for the path as we read and study the Word of God. As young believers we all start out with little—perhaps what we have received from our parents, if we have been raised in Christian homes – but now it’s our responsibility and privilege to gather things as we grow older. Therefore, you need to begin right away in your Christian life to gather principles for the path. I’m not talking now about doctrine, important as it is; I’m talking about practical principles for the path that are so very needful.
So what James is saying here is that if we are going to get a hold of these divine principles from the Word—or should I say, the principles of the Word get a hold of us—we’re going to have to lay aside all filthiness and naughtiness. This implies self-judgment on our part, so that it truly becomes part of us. The result will be that we’ll have divine knowledge as to the path, and know what the Lord would have us to do.
Let’s put it this way; suppose someone comes to you and offers you a job in the Yukon (up in the Arctic Circle) and it’s an easy job that pays well, but is not near an assembly. Should you take it? Can the Word of God guide you in regard to that? I believe that it would. A verse from the Bible throws light on that decision. Scripture tells us that we should forsake not “the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Heb. 10:25). If you were to take that job you wouldn’t be able to attend meetings where saints are gathered to the Lord’s Name, and where there is fellowship and sound ministry. You ought to gather from that Scripture that the Lord is telling you not to take that job. While you might gain monetarily, you would lose in your soul. You would want to be sure to have an assembly to which you could go for worship and ministry, before you would move to such a location. Even then, you still need to have the Lord’s direction. Now you might say, “But there are Christians up there that I could have fellowship with.” That may be true, but are they Christians that are walking in the light of the full revelation of Christian truth? Are they walking in the light of the truth of the assembly? If they were some denominational group we know that they wouldn’t. For a young person to take such a step, I believe that you would be making a compromise, and the enemy could make use of it to take you away from the divine ground of gathering. We’ve seen it happen too often!
Let’s take another illustration; suppose a person comes to me wanting to go into partnership in business, but this person is not the Lord’s. Should I do it? What is the will of God for me? Do I have any principle in Scripture that would guide me? I should be able to draw upon the practical principles that I have learned from the Word of God concerning the path to guide me. When God makes known His mind in His Word, I do not need to pray about what He would have me to do—because He has shown me! I’m not saying that we shouldn’t pray; we should pray that the Lord would give us grace to do what His Word says. It would be ridiculous for me to enter into a business relationship with that person when the Word of God tells me “be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14).
What about a relationship that someone might be considering getting into, and the other person is not walking in the path as marked out in the Word? Is there a Scripture that would guide you? Yes, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3) There are other Scriptures that we could turn to that would provide light for that situation. In fact, God can use any Scripture to speak to us. I know of a sister that was going with a brother named Mark. As the relationship progressed along nicely, she wanted a confirmation from the Lord that he was the right one, and that she was in the will of God. One day she was reading in the Psalms, and came across the words, “Mark the perfect man!” (Psa. 37:37) She thought, “That’s it; the Lord has answered my prayer!” And she ended up marrying him!
I know another sister that was going with a brother that had a temper. She was concerned, and went to the Lord about it, hoping that he’d grow in grace, and would judge it. One day she was reading in Proverbs 22:24, which says, “Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go.” She thought to herself, “Oh dear, that’s me; I’m going with an angry man, and it says with such a man ‘thou shalt not go!’” The Lord used that to lead her to break that relationship off; and it turned out that he had other problems that would have been disastrous had she gone on with that relationship. This just shows us that the Lord can use His Word to guide us in a very practical way.
It is the same in matters having to do with the assembly. If you turn to Acts 1 you’ll see there that there was a decision facing the brethren as to whether someone should take Judas’ place among the apostles. They besought the Lord and He gave them an answer from His Word. Peter remembered the Scripture that said, “His bishoprick let another take” (Acts 1:20, Psa. 109:8). They learned from that, that someone should be appointed to his vacant place. It was the Word of God that gave them light as to what to do in that situation. Then they went and cast lots, and the Lord indicated His mind by the lot that fell on Matthias. Now I’m not suggesting that we should cast lots or draw straws to get the Lord’s mind. That was done before the Spirit of God came to earth to dwell in the church. After the Spirit was sent we never find the apostles doing that; it was strictly an Old Testament thing, and they were really still on Old Testament ground in Acts 1.
I remember a young man who wanted to move to a certain city, and agonized about it before the Lord, but couldn’t get the Lord’s mind as to whether he should go or not. So he decided he would draw straws to get the Lord’s mind. He took some straws and wrote on one a town or city where he wanted to go, and wrote another city on another one where he would also like to go; he wrote on another one, “Stay where you are.” Then he had a couple other options—I can’t remember what they were. Finally he was left with one straw, and he didn’t know what to write on it. Then he got an idea that he would write, “Don’t draw straws!” So he mixed them all up, and he prayed before he drew one—and guess which straw he drew? It was, “Don’t draw straws!” I don’t know if he ever moved or not, but he didn’t draw straws anymore!
Acts 15 would be another example of being guided by the Word of God. This was a very serious matter that was before the brethren; there were some among them that were teaching that a person had to be circumcised before he could be saved. They were mixing law with grace. The brethren came together to discuss this matter—things went back and forth, but how they got the mind of the Lord was by going to the Word of God. James brought forth a principle from the Word of God that gave them light as to what they should do.
How wonderful that we have the Word of God for every circumstance in life! I’m not saying that we will necessarily have a chapter and verse for everything, but I believe we will find somewhere in the Word a principle upon which we can act that will guide us. But, you know, those principles won’t do you much good if you don’t know them. The only way you’re going to learn these precious principles from the Word of God is by reading your Bible. I would intreat you to get into the Scriptures and learn those valuable principles for your lives. It says in Matthew 13:52, that “every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” The only way he could take things new and old out of his treasury for the application to the needs of the house was that he had to have first spent time putting things into his treasury. And it’s just the same with us. We are to gather principles from the Word and store them in our hearts for a time of need—when we can apply them to the situations of life. Each one of us has a treasury and its our privilege and responsibility to spend time putting things into it.
3) Through Providence
Let’s turn now to Proverbs 16:9, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.” And also in Jeremiah 10:23, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Here we have two verses that bring before us another way in which God guides—and that is through His providence. You may ask, “What is providence?” It is the ways of God working behind the scene in the lives of men. Since the Lord has all power in heaven and earth at His disposal, He can, and does, work in all the scenes of everyday life. Nothing happens by chance. It says in Lamentations 3:37, “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?” Nothing can happen without Him appointing it. We heard at the Walla Walla conference that Christ is “Head over all things to the church” (Eph. 1:22). Everything that would touch the lives of those that would compose the church, He is over it. He allows nothing but what He wants to touch us. This is His divine providence. He guides us by certain things that He allows to come into our life, whereby we discern the will of God.
Now we have to be careful when being guided by circumstances, because we could be deceived. The danger is in trying to interpret circumstances when we are not in communion. Really, in every one of these things we have to be in communion with the Lord to discern His mind.
If we’re not, we’ll think we have a sense of His presence when we don’t; we’ll also misinterpret the Scriptures, and we’ll misinterpret the various circumstances in our lives.
Let’s turn to Acts 16:9-11 for an example of being guided by circumstances. “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night [J. N. Darby Translation calls it a “dream”]; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis.” This is where the gospel entered Europe for the first time. At Troas Luke met up with Paul, Silas, and Timothy; and they became an entourage of four missionaries. Paul gathered from this vision—a circumstance that God providentially brought to pass in his life—that the Lord was calling them to go into Macedonia, which is northern Greece. This is an example of how God can use circumstances to guide us in the path of His will. It’s not that we’re going to have a vision exactly, but He will guide us through some unmistakable circumstance that comes to pass.
The providence of God is seen again in the next verse, where it says that they got across the water in two days. (They got to Samothracia, which is an island about half way across the Aegean Sea, in one day. Then the next day they reached Neapolis in Macedonia.) This is very interesting to me. The wind helped them to have a quick journey across that water. You could say that the Lord was opening the way. Look a few chapters farther on in this book, to Acts 20:6, when Paul had gotten an idea to go to Jerusalem, but the Spirit of God was directing him to go the other way. He had to cross that same body of water, only in reverse; but it says there, “And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days.” Notice the journey took five days! When the Lord was calling them to go west to Macedonia, it took only two days to make the journey, but when they were going the other way, where Paul didn’t have the leading of the Spirit (Acts 20:22-23, 21:4, 10-14), it took five days! The winds were blowing against the ship as it made its way back to Troas. What can we learn from that? Circumstances were indicating that he was not moving according to the perfect will of God. We have to be near to the Lord to discern His mind in such circumstances. This, as we’ve said, requires communion.
God may use little things, but if we are close enough to Him, we’ll discern it. Perhaps there’s something about someone that irks you, and you want to tell him or her what you think that they need to hear. You want to “get it off your chest” as they say, so you pick up the phone, but the line is busy! So you call again, but it’s still busy. Perhaps you try several times. In a situation like this, it might be that the Lord is telling you to not do it! You’ll probably say something that you might regret afterwards, and the Lord is trying to save you from it. Maybe it’s just the flesh in you that wants to let this person have it. The Lord has allowed that busy signal to happen over and over again for a reason—perhaps He’s telling you that you’re going against His will.
Let’s turn to an Old Testament illustration of the Lord guiding by circumstances—Genesis 24. This was to do with Abraham sending his servant to find a “help meet” (a wife) for His son, Isaac. I suspect that there are not a few young people here tonight that have this desire to find their God-appointed mate for life, and that’s good. Abraham used his servant, who is a type of the Holy Spirit—and I hope that you’ll let the Spirit guide you in this important matter in your life.
We find that this man prayed about it; and put out before the Lord something that if it came to pass, he could take it from the Lord that he had met the right girl. He prayed that when he asked the girl for some water to drink that she would be willing to give him a drink, but more than that, she would volunteer to give his camels a drink too. And that’s exactly what happened! So you see it was a circumstance that guided him.
Genesis 24:27 says, “And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of my master Abraham, Who hath not left destitute my master of His mercy and His truth: I being in the way, the LORD led me to the house of my master’s brethren.” He blessed God, and thanked Him for bringing to pass circumstances that guided him to the right one. And when he had talked to her, and found out whose daughter she was, it was exactly the person he was looking for, for his master Abraham had told him to get someone from the same family lineage.
You know, you can get a lot of lessons from this chapter in regard to this very important decision in your life. Isn’t it interesting how they were brought together?
He was looking for a girl that was of the same kindred. Why should he be so concerned about that? Well it’s very important that we find someone, a soul mate if you want to call it that—a companion, among those who have like precious faith as you. It always bothers me when I see someone going out and looking for a wife or husband in other Christian fellowships—or maybe even in the world, because I know that it’s going to be difficult in the area of compatibility.
Be careful that you look, so to speak, within your own tribe. That’s an expression taken from Numbers 36, where the children of Israel were told to marry within their own tribe. Applying that to ourselves typically, as Christians, it would be to marry within our own fellowship—in other words, among those gathered to the Lord’s Name.
It’s interesting that with the five daughters of Zelophehad, when it came to inheriting the land, they each received a portion, which was quite unusual. Normally, the inheritance in Israel was divided among the boys in the family, and the girls were expected to marry someone who would have their own portion from their father. But since these girls didn’t have any brothers, the inheritance of their father came to them. That meant that the boys who married them got a double portion! Those boys would have their portion from their father, and these girls would also have a portion. This made them very marriageable girls! Even though one of them was named “Hoglah!” I’m not sure what she looked like, but the boy that married her got a double portion. You can read about it in Joshua 17. There were “ten portions” that fell to Manasseh because of the daughters of Zelophehad.
Talking to the young brothers now; if you take up with the girls that are from the meeting who are spiritual and are seeking to go on with the Lord, you are going to get a double portion! They are going to bring into the marriage something that they have learned from their experience in walking with the Lord, and that’s going to be valuable. Don’t miss out on that. If you have taken some of the inheritance yourself, and the girl you marry has a portion too, what a wonderful marriage that will be! Look to the Lord—He’ll guide you in this important decision.
Notice he said, “I being in the way, the LORD led me.” He was moving in the way, which denotes the activity in faith, when the Lord led him. This shows us that God guides His people when they are going forward in faith. It’s something like the rudder on a ship. It guides the ship, but only when the ship is moving. If the ship is docked, the captain can move the rudder this way and that, but it won’t turn the ship. The ship has to be moving for it to work. And it’s the same with us. We must be moving forward in the exercise in faith. We need to put our foot forward and trust the Lord; He honors faith, and will open the way. Sometimes we expect the Lord to open the way while we just sit and wait for Him to move. But He wants us to be in exercise—to be moving—may He will honor that step of faith and direct us.
The Lord can make His mind known through negative circumstances too. It says in Psalm 32:9, “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto Thee.” Sometimes, if we are not in communion with Him, the Lord can still guide us. But it’s not very pleasant! He uses “the school of hard knocks,” so to speak. The horse being directed by the bit and bridle illustrates that. It can’t be very pleasant for a horse to have its mouth jerked from one side to the other.
You know, what characterizes a horse is that it bolts—often over little things. A person drops something on the ground that makes a rather loud sound, and the horse bolts—it takes off running. It speaks of impulsiveness. It answers to running when the Lord hasn’t called us to run—it’s taking a step when the Lord hasn’t directed us in that way. He’s saying here, “Don’t be like that.” Sometimes we move too fast in the decisions of life, and get ourselves into a difficulty. Scripture says, “He that hasteth with his feet maketh false steps” (Prov. 19:2). It also says, “He that believeth shall not make haste” (Isa. 28:16).
On the other hand, we can be like the mule. You know, a mule is characterized by stubbornness. My father used to tell us of a story that happened in the First World War (1914-18) when they used a lot of mules to carry loads, etc. He said they had a terrible time. As they went into battle, the poor animals would hear those explosions going off, and out fear, they would get stubborn, and just wouldn’t move. The captains and sergeants just had to take a gun and put it to its head, and shoot the animal, and bring another one in. We can be like that too. The Lord might have us to do something, and we won’t do it. He says, “Don’t be like the mule.”
I know of a young man who wanted to go somewhere that was questionable, but was uneasy, having a conscience about it. But he desperately wanted to go, and was really wrestling with it. Upstairs in his bedroom he had a daily calendar that had a verse on it for each day. It was not the usual calendar, you see; it was a box with a window in it, and a roll inside with verses on it. Each day you would turn the roll forward for a new verse. Now because he was uneasy about this thing he wanted to do, he thought that he’d go up to his roll calendar and turn up a fresh verse. Maybe, he thought, it would give him some light in his present situation. I’m sure he was probably hoping for a verse like Doug was reading to us, “Go ye!” (2 Ki. 6:2) When he turned the roll there came up in big black letters, “PLEASE TURN BACK!” He had come to the end of the roll, and it was time to wind the scroll back to the beginning! It wasn’t a verse of Scripture, but it sure spoke to him. The point here is that God can use anything to direct us in the path. And if we are in communion, we’ll discern His mind through it.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct [make plain] thy paths.” The Lord delights to guide us in the path; and one of the marks of His guiding is that He makes plain our path. If the way you’re contemplating going is a complicated thing, it doesn’t sound like it’s the Lord’s guiding. When He opens the way for us to go, it will be a simple and plain thing. We need to pray as the Psalmist, “Teach me Thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path” (Ps. 27:11).
If you are praying about something, and no clear answer comes—no “plain path” opens up in that direction, it’s probably because the Lord is indicating that He would have you to remain where you are—at least for the time being.
One thing that is so important when being guided by circumstances is that we must be in communion to discern the Lord’s mind in the things that come to pass in our life. Otherwise, we could easily take the circumstances in a wrong way, and get misled. Jonah was in a bad state, and when he wanted to go to Tarshish, he went down to Joppa; and lo and behold, he found a ship going to that exact place! He could have said, “Oh, the circumstances are opening up for me; I’m justified in going this way.” But it was the exact opposite direction the Lord wanted him to go!
If we are bound and determined to go a particular direction, the Lord just may let us go that way so that we might taste the fruit of our own way. It says, in Psalm 106:15, “He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.” He will teach us in “the school of hard knocks” that following our own will is never good.
4) Through Prophets
Now for a fourth way the Lord guides, let’s turn to Proverbs 11:14, “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellers there is safety.” Then in chapter 12:15, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”
Here we have another way in which the Lord guides us—and that is through the mouth of prophets! You say, “Does God still use prophets today?” Indeed, He does. He will use your brethren as prophets or prophetesses to speak His mind. One of your brethren may come to you with the Word of God in his or her mouth, and give you some godly counsel—whether solicited or unsolicited. They are acting as a prophet or prophetess, and we need to hear them.
This being the case, I would urge you to listen to those that have a knowledge of God’s ways, who have walked with the Lord and have experience in the path. They can give you some good counsel in regards to the decisions of life. You have to be careful, of course, because there is a lot of free advice going around. If you listen to everyone you may pick up some bad advice. Remember, I said that in each of these four ways that God would lead us, we must be in the right state of soul to start with. Then if someone comes to you with bad advice, you should be able to discern it.
Let me give you an example. We are thinking about selling our house, and I have heard the counsel of a number of brethren; some advised that we sell, and others said, not to sell. What are we to do? I think Jim’s advice was the best; he said, “Wait on the Lord.” He didn’t commit himself in one way or the other, and I think that’s good. If someone asks your advice and you’re not sure what to say, it would be better to say so. There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I don’t know. I don’t want to mislead you.”
Now let’s turn to 2 Kings 6:8-12, “Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.”
Here we have an example of getting good advice. The king of Israel was under attack from the king of Syria; and we see Elisha speaking the Word of God to him. He told the king of Israel, “Don’t go to such and such a place because God has told me that your enemy is there, and is waiting to ambush you.” As long as the king listened to the prophet, he was safe. The tendency today is to slay the prophet, because we don’t like what he tells us. But the king here listened to the prophet and acted on it, and it says that he “saved himself there, not once nor twice.”
This is very instructive, because there are certain places in this world that a child of God ought not to go. Our enemy is surely there, and we will likely get slain if we go there. For you it might be some place different than for me. Whatever your habits or interests are, your enemy might set up camp there to attack you. Suppose it’s a particular sport that has captivated your interests and time—it’s a place where your enemy could seek to stumble you and draw you into it further and further. In such a situation, it would be best to go not to “such and such a place.”
We are our brother’s keeper, and we need to warn one another if we see that someone is getting into something that could be damaging to their spiritual life. A faithful brother or sister might see it in our lives and warn us of the dangers. In this way they are acting as a prophet or prophetess. We may not like it, but Scripture says, “Despise not prophesyings” (1 Thess. 5:20).
Earlier, we were speaking of Paul going to Jerusalem when the Spirit of God was leading elsewhere; and it said, “Finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:4). There we have the voice of brethren acting as prophets—which Paul would have done well to listen to. A little later in the chapter a prophet named Agabus said the same thing to Paul, and demonstrated it before him by taking his girdle and binding him with it. These are examples of brethren prophesying to us for our own good. Proverbs 25:12 Says, “As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.” May each of us have that listening ear.
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Now in summary, I would say that what is essential in this matter of discerning the Lord’s will revolves around our state of soul. We need to have relinquished our wills in the matter—that is to have no will of our own in the thing. I realize that that’s not easy, but it’s those that have no will of their own in a matter that will discern God’s will. Psalm 25:9 says, “The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way.” A meek person is one who doesn’t assert his will. This doesn’t mean that we should be blasé about these things; we have already spoken about the need to be exercised about knowing His will, but if we are meek, the Lord promises that He will guide us.
A comforting thing, I should add, is that if we are acting in faith, the Lord will not let us make a mistake. Scripture says, “Them that honour Me I will honour” (1 Sam. 2:30). God honours faith; and if we happen to be making wrong steps in some matter, but are honestly seeking to do what we believe to be His will—trying to please Him, He will stop us from getting into something that would be a mistake. Isn’t that a comforting thought? What a good God we have!
There is an illustration of this point in Genesis 20. Abimelech tried to take Abraham’s wife (whom he thought was Abraham’s sister) to be his wife. He did it unawares —in the “integrity” of his heart and in the “innocency” of his hands. But God came to him in a dream and told him that she was another man’s wife. “God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against Me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her” (Gen. 20:6). Abimelech was not aware of the facts, but God protected him from making a big mistake. And I believe that He will protect us from making a mistake too, if we are pursuing something in faith that is not His will.
Now it’s true that if we need the discipline, He might, as mentioned earlier, give us the request, but send leanness to our soul (Ps. 106:15), but that would be to teach us something that we could not otherwise learn in the school of God—and it would only be on an account of the stubbornness of our heart. But that’s a different subject. Normally, if we are going on with a good conscience, and are acting in faith in a particular matter, the Lord will step in and prevent us from doing something that is not His will. This should be a tremendous comfort to us, and give us confidence to go forward in faith trusting Him.
The Perfect and Permissive Will of God
Now to round out this subject of the will of God, perhaps I could say a few words on the two aspects of God’s will. You can remember them by two “P’s” —each of these two aspects begins with the letter “P.”
There is His perfect will for us, which is the plan He has marked out for our lives that glorifies Him. Scripture says, “That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2). However, there may be things in our attitude and ways that do not please the Lord; and while He would have us to go in the way of His perfect will, He may allow us to go in the way of our own will. In these cases, He is in full control of all that He allows, but in the wisdom of His ways, He takes the very thing that we are bound and determined to have, and uses it as a discipline—for our correcting. This could be called His permissive will (1 Cor. 16:7, Acts 21:14).
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There will be many situations in life where we will not have a chapter and verse to direct us; for instance, whether or not you should go to the up-coming conference, or buy some particular product, etc. In such cases, you want to separate the desires of the flesh from what is truly God’s will in the matter. I realize that this is difficult because our hearts are deceptive (Jer. 17:9). Such being the case, I’ll give you some questions you can ask yourself that will help to this end.
Questions We Can Ask Ourselves That Will Help in Discerning Whether We Have the Lord’s Will or Not, When There Is No Definite Scripture
1. Is it for Christ? (Col. 3:17)
2. Will it bring glory to God? (1 Cor. 10:31)
3. What is the source of such a desire; is it the flesh or the Spirit? (Gal. 5:16-26)
4. Which nature does it feed? (Rom. 8:13)
5. Will it make Christ more precious to my soul? (1 Pet. 2:7)
6. Will it promote godliness in me? (1 Tim. 1:4)
7. Would I feel right to bring the Lord there, if He was physically with me? (Ex. 33:14-15)
8. Would the Lord have done it? (1 Pet. 2:21)
9. Would I like to be found doing it when the Lord comes? (Matt. 24:46)
10. Am I at peace about it, or am I uneasy? (2 Ki. 5:19)
11. Do I find myself justifying it before others? (Job 9:20)
12. If it involves the expenditure of money, could the money be better spent? (Prov. 3:9)
13. If it involves time, could the time be better spent? (Eph. 5:16)
14. What effect will my conduct in the thing have on others? (1 Cor. 8:9-13)
15. Does it have the appearance of evil (1 Thess. 5:22)
16. Is it captivating and enslaving? (1 Cor. 6:12)
17. Am I in a hurry about it? (Prov. 19:2)
18. Have I sought the counsel godly Christians about it? (Prov. 11:14)
B. Anstey
(Adapted)