Do I Need to ‘Hear from God’ Before I Make a Decision?

00:00:00.000 | Well, do we need to hear from God before we make a decision?

00:00:08.540 | And what if we have a friend who claims to have heard God's voice on something, but

00:00:12.180 | we think they're mistaken in that decision?

00:00:14.780 | How do we question that decision without undermining their faith?

00:00:19.060 | This is a really sharp question from a listener named Matt.

00:00:21.420 | Pastor John, thank you for your ministry and all that you do for the glory of God through

00:00:24.660 | the world.

00:00:25.660 | I have a question about addressing issues with people who have prayed about a certain

00:00:29.140 | decision and feel that God spoke to them.

00:00:31.700 | Is there a way to lovingly push back when it seems like what they apparently heard from

00:00:35.380 | God seems like a poor choice?

00:00:37.900 | How do you critique their choice without shaking their faith and making them doubt their ability

00:00:42.280 | to ever hear from God?

00:00:44.620 | Well, I would attempt five steps with them, perhaps.

00:00:49.540 | And this may be over time rather than in the moment.

00:00:53.540 | These are things you need to establish with a person in order to help them see rightly

00:00:59.360 | about this.

00:01:00.560 | So the first thing I want to establish is that Scripture trumps spiritual gifts.

00:01:08.660 | And the principle is found in 1 Corinthians 14, 37, and 38, where Paul says this, "If

00:01:14.820 | anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am

00:01:22.580 | writing to you are a command of the Lord.

00:01:27.140 | If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized."

00:01:32.580 | Now remember, he's saying that to prophets, "If anyone thinks he's a prophet."

00:01:37.340 | So this is a person who claims because he's spiritual or because he has a close tie-in

00:01:43.540 | with God and a spiritual gift, he has a word from God about something he should do or say.

00:01:50.580 | And Paul is saying, "Now wait a minute.

00:01:52.520 | If I say something that preempts what you just said, you need to submit to what I say

00:01:59.700 | because I'm writing Scripture as an authorized apostle."

00:02:03.860 | Now, the implication of that for us is we have the New Testament as the apostolic deposit,

00:02:11.300 | and that therefore today is the criterion for assessing whether someone has discerned

00:02:19.580 | truly the will of God.

00:02:22.060 | And if you perceive that a person is about to do something because they think they have

00:02:26.540 | a hotline to heaven or a word of prophecy or word of knowledge or some kind of dream

00:02:33.060 | or vision, and yet it is unwise on Scriptural grounds, then on this principle you can ask

00:02:42.580 | them to reconsider, not because you don't think God can speak today but because you

00:02:48.540 | have been told by God how to discern what is true and wise and what's not.

00:02:55.460 | Number two, the normal Christian pattern of discerning God's will is by a transformed

00:03:02.140 | mind that assesses things with the instincts of God by the Spirit through the Word.

00:03:10.420 | Let me show you what I mean.

00:03:11.980 | Romans 12, 1 and 2, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies

00:03:17.280 | a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

00:03:22.700 | Do not be conformed to this world but be—" here it comes—"be transformed by the renewing

00:03:29.860 | of your mind."

00:03:31.460 | Why?

00:03:32.460 | "So that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable

00:03:41.980 | and perfect."

00:03:43.200 | So I'm arguing that there is, in verse 2 of Romans 12, an implicit normative pattern

00:03:51.280 | for discerning the will of God, and that implicit normative pattern is "be transformed in

00:04:00.180 | the renewing of your mind."

00:04:02.140 | And you can study out how that happens by the Spirit through the Word in the writings

00:04:06.960 | of Paul, but that's different than a sudden breaking in of a Word from outside.

00:04:15.360 | So I would try to encourage somebody to develop this as their normal pattern of discernment.

00:04:23.580 | And here it is again in Philippians 1, 9 to 11, Paul's prayer, "It is my prayer that

00:04:28.480 | your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment."

00:04:32.320 | Now why would you want your love to abound with knowledge and all discernment?

00:04:35.920 | "So that," verse 10, "you may approve."

00:04:40.520 | That's the same word as back in Romans 12, "approve what is excellent."

00:04:45.400 | So how do you know what the excellent path is?

00:04:48.120 | There's a fork in the road, and one path is to be chosen over the other.

00:04:52.860 | How do you discern the excellent path?

00:04:55.240 | "That you may discern what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

00:05:00.040 | filled with fruits of righteousness."

00:05:02.520 | That's what we want.

00:05:03.520 | We want our lives to have been marked by making righteous choices and bearing righteous fruit.

00:05:10.840 | And this text says it comes by your love being supplemented with or informed by knowledge

00:05:17.760 | and discernment so that you can test and approve what is excellent out there.

00:05:24.880 | So both of those texts, Romans 12 and Philippians 1, set a normal pattern of discerning the

00:05:30.680 | will of God by a transformed mind and a love informed by knowledge and discernment, rather

00:05:36.760 | than ordinarily receiving special words from God.

00:05:43.620 | Number three, the spiritual gift of prophecy, as the typical means by which one might receive

00:05:51.760 | a special word from God, the typical gift, the gift of prophecy, is fallible.

00:05:58.040 | If somebody thinks that the gift of prophecy results in people going around today speaking

00:06:03.920 | Scripture, adding to the Bible, they're going to bring down the wrath of God on them.

00:06:09.960 | First Thessalonians 5:20 says, "Don't despise prophecies."

00:06:13.280 | So I don't want to deny that there's such a gift as prophecy today.

00:06:17.960 | You can go to the Desiring God website and see the series of articles that John Bloom

00:06:22.440 | did a while back on the nature of biblical prophecy today, which I think are good.

00:06:28.720 | Do not despise prophecies.

00:06:31.560 | Test everything.

00:06:32.560 | Hold fast to what is good.

00:06:34.440 | I think that implies that the gift of prophecy should be weighed, discerned, not assumed

00:06:42.280 | to be Scripture-level infallible truth.

00:06:45.660 | And so you have a warrant then, a biblical warrant, for saying to your friend, "Remember,

00:06:53.020 | biblical gifts of prophecy and wisdom and knowledge coming through a fallible human

00:06:58.780 | mind, like yours and mine, is fallible.

00:07:01.840 | It must be tested by Scripture."

00:07:05.380 | Number four, Matt asks, "How do you critique their choice without shaking their faith and

00:07:12.940 | making them doubt their ability to ever hear from God?"

00:07:17.500 | And I would say that you encourage them to see, to feel, and to believe that it's a hundred

00:07:25.020 | times more precious and wonderful that we have a book like the Bible where we can count

00:07:34.340 | on every line of it properly understood being infallible.

00:07:39.740 | It's amazing that we have such a large, glorious revelation from God.

00:07:47.140 | And you suggest to them then that it's more likely that they will have a reliable gift

00:07:54.500 | of prophecy, a reliable gift of wisdom or word of knowledge, if they are submitted to

00:08:02.900 | the Scriptures and saturated with the Scriptures, because the Holy Spirit is always consistent.

00:08:09.860 | If you are immersed in the word of the Scripture, the word of the Spirit, it is much more likely

00:08:16.500 | that you will be able to discern the voice of the Spirit if he's leading you in some

00:08:22.860 | other way that will always be finally tested by the one infallible source we have, namely

00:08:30.580 | the Scripture.

00:08:32.260 | And the last thing, number five, that you might do or say is remind your friend that

00:08:40.020 | what God cares about most when it comes to doing his will—if a person is struggling

00:08:46.860 | with how do you find the will of God—what God values most is our holiness in every decision

00:08:57.180 | rather than whether the decision itself, like who do you marry or what house to buy or where

00:09:04.540 | to live or what job to take or whether to buy this shirt or that shirt.

00:09:10.900 | In every decision, if you are acting in a biblical, holy way, God is pleased.

00:09:19.420 | First Thessalonians 4:3, "This is the will of God, your sanctification."

00:09:26.300 | That's a wonderfully liberating thing.

00:09:29.420 | So those are the five strategies in the bigger picture that I would have to try to help a

00:09:35.980 | friend not elevate a word from outside the Bible about a decision which you, judging

00:09:43.860 | by the Bible, regard as a poor decision.

00:09:47.020 | Wow, that's a lot to ponder here, Pastor John, especially that idea that what God values

00:09:51.980 | most is our holiness in every decision rather than in the precise decision itself.

00:09:57.420 | That is really sharp insight worth a lot more consideration.

00:10:00.820 | Thank you.

00:10:01.820 | Thanks for listening to this podcast.

00:10:03.380 | Over at our online home, you can explore all of our episodes in our archive, about 1,300

00:10:07.620 | episodes to date.

00:10:08.620 | There you can see a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and submit questions

00:10:12.020 | that you might be wrestling with yourself like this very good one that we had today.

00:10:15.700 | For all that, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:20.580 | But also be sure to subscribe to us in your favorite podcast app while you're at it.

00:10:24.860 | I'm not sure what's up Friday, but we plan to return with something, one of your questions.

00:10:29.300 | I'm sure it'll be good.

00:10:30.300 | Until then, I'm your host Tony Ranke, and we'll see you then.

00:10:32.700 | [music]

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Do I Need to ‘Hear from God’ Before I Make a Decision?

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