On Sunday nights I have been walking through Psalm 119, and it has been an incredible blessing to see what the Word says about… the Word! I have shared several times that the way to find the Will of God is through His Word - not through my hunch, or through my dreams, or through what I feel. These are extremely dangerous approaches to discerning God’s will today and I believe the reason these approaches are desired and even preferred is because they are easy! Why search Scripture when I can go to sleep? Why search the Word of God when I can wait for a hunch? The truth is, God does speak today - and He speaks practically, personally and clearly. But He does this through the written Word of God, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Chuck Swindoll says it best in The Mystery Of God’s Will:
“…this kind of extra-biblical revelation is not only spurious, it’s downright dangerous. It invariably leads you astray, away from the truth of God. Your curiosity and your fascination will take over, eclipsing the authority of the Scriptures.”
Now let me be clear… God CAN do anything He wants, but the real question would be, does He? The problem is when you get into idea of God speaking through dreams, through “just a peace”, through “I just felt God” or “God Bumps”, or whatever else you want to call the experiences, good sincere people get confused - they are looking to extra-biblical truth instead of the Word Of God! We could look at MANY passages but let’s just consider Jn. 16:12-15
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.”
In short the result of the Spirit’s ministry in the apostles was that God revealed “all truth” that He wanted us to know. I put in bold the section above because this is not prophecy being spoken of, this is the revelation of truth given through the Apostles in the Word Of God. These kinds of statements are riddled throughout John 16-17. The point being made is that the Spirit of God used the Apostles to give us all the truth we will ever need. The real question a believer needs to ask is… ”Is the Word of God sufficient for everything or not?” Read Eph. 2:20 it says “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.” The words of these men are Scripture, because our chief builder knows what He is doing, notice the past tense “built” it is not still being built, we have all we need. So where do I find the will of God? In the Bible! The Word of God tells us that Christ directs the steps of a righteous man, He gives us the desires of our heart (meaning our desires will conform to His desires). Trying to figure out the Will of God doesn’t take a class and it is not for a secret society. I must be in the Word, walking in righteousness, praying, seeking godly counsel… and then do all for His glory. I will spend the next few blogs walking through this thought process. In the mean time, I would highly recommend the book “Just Do Something” by Kevin DeYoung. Start reading and stay tuned!
