Knowing God's Will, part 3; 1 Cor. 16:5-11
We hear people talk about the "still small voice" which comes out of the episode with Elijah, but that is under the category of special revelation. The term "special revelation" is a term that refers to God objectively communicating to a believer, and we believe that special revelation ceased at two different times in history. It ceased in about the fifth century BC when God quit communicating to the prophets of Israel and there was a period of silence from approximately about 420-430 BC up until the birth of Jesus Christ—no special revelation, no appearance of angels, no prophecy, no communication. Then, again, with the close of the canon of Scripture in approximately 95 AD God is silent again. And when there is no special revelation the issue is making decisions based on the doctrine that is in the believer's soul, not based on God particularly giving some sort of insight, some sort of special sign as to what you should do, what you should not do. In evangelicalism there are usually two different approaches to the will of God. One emphasizes the fact that God has a specific plan and purpose for every decision in life. The other position is, yes indeed, God does have a plan and purpose for your life but that is under the guise of God's sovereign will and He is going to guide and direct us, but He does it primarily through His Word and then through secondary sources. But when it comes to knowing what God wants us to do in a particular decision, e.g. buying a house, a career opportunity, marriage, etc., frankly if you just start getting concerned about the will of God when you hit the major decisions you have pretty much failed the test. The issue is making those decisions on a day-to-day basis. The emphasis is on the little decisions. If we take some time to reflect on our own lives we may well be able to look back and see that the momentous events in our life actually turned on what may have been very minor and what appeared to be very insignificant decisions. We have to focus on not only what appear to us to be the major consequential decisions but the day-to-day decisions of life. So the overriding issue is, are we in fellowship? Are we applying the doctrine that we know, that is in our soul? Is our motivation to serve God and to glorify Him? Those are the top three questions. If we can answer yes to each of those questions then we will be operating within the will of God.
The issue really is sticking with the Word and applying the Word, the doctrine from your own soul, and this approach to decision-making is generally termed the wisdom approach. It is learning how to make decisions from the framework of divine viewpoint in your soul. You have to have divine viewpoint in your soul and you have to go through a growth process of maturity by making decisions based on the doctrine you have in your soul. Because when the serious decisions come along, when the important decisions come along, if you do not have a track record and a habit pattern which includes prayer, application of doctrine, walking by means of the Spirit, then you are just generally thrown on your own resources and you probably are going to end up making a decision based on the flesh, justifying it by some sort of doctrinal rationale, and end up making a screwy decision from a position of weakness.
The doctrine of the will of God (cont.)
9) Scriptural examples of decision making. Most of these examples of decision making and knowing the will of God are examples where God is giving objective revelation. The first two examples have to do with avoiding the will of God. Gideon and Jonah both knew the will of God objectively, and instead of applying and obeying instantly the mandate of God they tried to avoid the implications of God's mandates. So these are not examples of how to know God's will, they are really examples of how to avoid God's will. Judges 6 is a situation of where Israel was going through a cycle of disobedience and then God would bring a foreign power in that would conquer them and they would be under the oppression of that foreign power for a while. Finally the people would repent, change their mind, and turn back to God who would raise up a deliverer. Judges 6:7 NASB "Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the LORD on account of Midian, [8] that the LORD sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, "It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery. [9] I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land, [10] and I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed Me"." The problem in Israel is that they are outside of the will of God in the sense that they are walking in carnality. [11] "Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save {it} from the Midianites." The angel of the Lord here is the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. Then we see Gideon hiding out in the winepress. [12] "The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, 'The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior'." The last thing we see here is that he is a mighty man of valour. It is likely that the angel of the Lord is talking in terms of potential here and not what is actually taking place. [13] "Then Gideon said to him, 'O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian'." [14] "The LORD looked at him and said, 'Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?'" Notice it doesn't say the angel of the Lord turned to him. This tells us that the angel of the Lord is the Lord. [15] "He said to Him, 'O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house'." Then the Lord tells him he would be with him and that he would defeat the Midianites. Gideon doesn't say, "Lord, what is your will for my life?" God has already told him to go and deliver the nation. Gideon knows what God's will is for his life but he is not sure that he really wants to do this and he decides that he may have misunderstood the situation. This is really tough to go up against the armies of the mighty Midianites and so he wants to "clarify" things. Actually, he just wants to avoid it. The fleece test reveals that he has a limited view of God's omnipotence, so he is not a man of great faith. He is listed in Hebrews 11 but God doesn't put men there who don't have flaws.
The same thing happens with Jonah. Jonah 1:1 NASB "The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, [2] 'Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.' [3] But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD." Jonah also had some flaws. He had racial prejudice because he did not want to see the ancient enemy of the Jews, the Assyrians, saved. Yet God is demonstrating through Jonah that His grace is for both Jews and gentile and that there was no place for racial prejudice. Jonah is given direct revelation. What is God's will for Jonah's life? God's will for Jonah's life is now to go to Nineveh. Jonah decided not to obey God.
Even though Jonah is operating in disobedience, if we as believers are filled with the Spirit, are applying doctrine, and we decide to go to place A instead of location B that God will gently prevent us from ever getting into location A and we will get to location B. He will make it clear. God guides and directs, we can't avoid His will. If He has a specific place for us, a specific time to do certain things, then we will be there. So we shouldn't worry about it. We are not to get into this subjectivity of thinking that somehow we missed the will of God. The key issue is our underlying attitude.