Pilgrim No.3 The Problem of Guidance

Psalm 32. Here the psalmist is telling us of his own experience and we are grateful to the Lord that the psalmist very honestly at times bears his heart before God and we have a record of God's dealings with a man in his pilgrimage through this earth. Well this is what the psalmist has to say on a specific occasion as he reminds himself of the salvation that he's received from God and of his utter dependence upon God to guide him through all the changing scene of life.

Psalm 32. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile.

When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid.

I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as a 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.

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart. Amen.

So let me direct you to this passage in Psalm 32 which speaks specifically of guidance, though it is not my purpose just to expound two verses from this psalm, but rather to take this as my starting point and to bring to your attention other passages of Scripture that give some instruction about this vexed question of guidance or of knowing God's will in our lives. Let me read you the eighth verse and the ninth verse again of Psalm 32, reading the ninth by way of contrast because that tells us what God does not want us to be, whereas verse eight tells us of what is God's wish for us. I will instruct thee in the way and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go.

I will guide thee with mine eye. Be ye not as a horse or as a mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. I came across some while ago a little booklet that has been distributed in universities and colleges in the States as well as in this country that has the title, God loves you and has a plan for your life.

And the gist of what was in that booklet I found myself in complete agreement with. God does love His people and God most certainly has a plan for them. But it's one thing to state one's belief in this and to be quite emphatic about it.

It's another thing to work out that proposition in terms of day-by-day living. And yet to repeat what I often say from the pulpit or the pulpits in the tabernacle, if we can't apply our theology, if we can't live it out every day of the week and not just on a Sunday, then really Christianity amounts to little more than a philosophy. And yet it's not a philosophy, it's a theology, it's a way of life.

And God does say that He will guide us, but sometimes we have to say that in response we find the whole question of guidance a problem. And that's the reason why in this series on the pilgrim's problems I felt that it is necessary to devote one whole Thursday evening to considering this aspect of Christian living together. And obviously one cannot deal with it in full, one can but skate on the surface and indicate certain directions along which maybe we should travel or along which we should continue our own meditation and scripture from the Word of God.

The Bible tells us that the Lord shall guide us continually, and that we want to believe. And yet sometimes, as I say, it's not always easy to work out in a given situation what is God's will for us. We're told by the hymn writer that the Bible, the Word of God, is our chart and our compass.

It is from this book containing the inspired scriptures that a Christian is to find direction, is to discover the voice of God directing him in his life. But even reading the Word of God and studying it carefully at a specific time does not always give to us clearly the guidance that we require. Now why is this? We've got many means of grace available to us, the Word, the prayer, the ministry of God's Word, the exposition of the scriptures, and yet from time to time we have to admit we're still perplexed about the subject of guidance in our own lives.

Well, I put it to you that before a sailor can use the equipment on board his ship and before he can guide his ship across the seas and into harbor, he has to know full well how to use the compass, how to use the sextant, how to read the maps. And maybe it's in this area that we have problems. It's not the equipment that God gives to us for His equipment is good quality, but it's our knowledge of how to use that equipment that is defective.

And that's the reason why sometimes to retain my maritime analogy, we run on the rocks and we feel that we're shipwrecked and we just can't sail across the seas of life and know specifically what particular direction we are to go in. Well, on saying this, let's now look together at these means of grace, at God's promises. Let's honestly before the Lord this evening examine our own lives, our own attitude towards Christian things, and see if together we can glean certain teachings that will be of help to us from this time onwards, so that we shall know overall what is God's purpose in our lives and discover what is God's best for us.

Let me approach this subject as I've approached all the other problems that we've been looking at in the Christians pilgrimage, by putting certain observations to you and trying to think them through. And let me apologize once again for making personal reference from time to time. I think that this is perchance in this series of studies the best way for me to illustrate what I'm getting at, because some of these principles that have come my way have been forged out, not by studying in an academic fashion at my desk, but I have come to these conclusions as I have known the hammer of experience rain down upon me as I've laid on the anvil of life.

And one of the leading remarks that I want to make, one of the main propositions that I want to put to you this evening is this, and I'm almost going back to the first thing that I had to say a few moments ago, and it is that God is interested in your life and in my life. It's easy to say that and not realizing that within that statement there is a phenomenal claim. God is interested in my life.

You know, that's incredible. That almost takes me to the realm of the absurd. There's an early Christian by the name of Tertullian, lived in the third century, and in his Latin tongue he once said as he was studying the Word of God, credo quia absurdum est, I believe that which is unbelievable.

And really it is. You know, God has a concern, an interest in my life. God, this majestic being who threw the planets into orbit with the same ease as a farmer might take some seed and scatter it at springtime as he engages in sowing, this God who thrust out Jupiter and Neptune and all the others, this God of the Milky Way, this God of the universe, is interested in me.

And yet I'm just like a grain of sand on the seashore. There are so many people just like me, so many grains on the shore of mankind, and yet I dare to make this opening proposition, backed up by so many scriptures that to quote them all would keep me a long time on this particular proposition, that God has an interest in my life. A phenomenal thought.

Let me approach it another way and put it to you like this. I can demonstrate that God has an interest in my life because he has bought me out. He's taken over the management.

Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthians, you're not your own, you're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are his. You are not your own, you've been bought with a price.

Now when God engages in such a transaction as happened at Calvary, he does it thoughtfully, he does it carefully, because if we approach Calvary in the context of a metaphor from the business world, we must appreciate this, that the price paid for your salvation and mine was a fantastic one. You are bought with a price. What was the price? Listen to Paul spell it out to the elders of the church of Ephesus as he takes his leave from them on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

He says, the church of Jesus Christ has been purchased with his own blood. The blood of God's Son was the purchase price of your salvation and my salvation. And you know when God engages in this sort of transaction as took place at Calvary's cross, it almost goes without saying that he involves himself in this sort of thing after a great deal of thought.

God is not capricious. God does not move simply because a whim latches onto his mind. He's not like us in this respect.

God thinks things through carefully, and we're told in Scripture, and again this is a phenomenal thought, that your salvation and my salvation was in the mind of God before the very world was created. Now we really are trading in magnificent theology this evening, but is this not what Paul says to the Ephesians as he writes to them? I'm quoting from the second chapter. The Apostle says in the tenth verse, we are his workmanship, God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

And he uses the word before, he's linking up with certain things that he's had to say earlier on in the chapter when he speaks of God's activity before the world was. God had you in mind before the world, before the universe was created. God had it in mind to buy you, to purchase your salvation through the death, through the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So this underlines our opening proposition that God is interested in my life. He has a predetermined plan for me and for you. And what is more, this guidance that God says He will give to us, He dispenses it on a personal basis.

I will guide thee, I will guide you. We're all different. They tell me that every snowflake that falls is different, every thumbprint is different, every person in the church of Jesus Christ is different.

And again, to use one of my favorite phrases, let me underline this, that God doesn't deal with His children on the mass production principle. We're not on a conveyor belt that runs through this world and God does exactly the same to you and to me. No, He deals with you as an entity on your own.

This is a wonderful thing, I will guide thee. He may lead you differently from the way in which He leads me. Well that's fine, that shows that He's got a personal interest in your life as He has in mine.

Here's Peter on the day of Pentecost. He's used for the conversion of 3,000 people. Turn over the chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, and you find Stephen.

What happens to this man? Well unfortunately he does not say 3,000 people he receives. If you like 3,000 stones, he's done to death. But the salvation that attended the ministry of Peter and the martyrdom of Stephen was in the purpose of God for these men.

God deals with us on a personal basis. Remember how Jesus has to reprimand Peter. You find the incident in the last chapter of John's Gospel.

Jesus is telling Peter about His end, that is the fisherman's end, what ultimately will happen and Peter will give his life in the cause of Jesus Christ. And Peter doesn't argue against this fight, but he's rather concerned about his friend John. What about this man? What's gonna happen to him? Well this is our Lord in a loving fashion.

You know Peter that's really none of your business. What really matters to you is working out my plan in your life. I will guide thee.

God is interested in my life. He has a predetermined plan for me, and personally He deals with me. And what is more, the plan of God for my life is so wonderful that it will bring for me the greatest amount of satisfaction.

Outside of the will of God, you can never really enjoy living. I'm sure that that's true. A lot that passes for satisfaction in this world does not warrant that word to describe it.

All things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Think through that scripture, Romans, what is it, 828. Think it through.

All things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Logically from that statement you deduce this, that outside God's will, things don't work together for good. You don't know the greatest amount of happiness, and happiness is God-shaped, you know.

It's not what you've got in the bank. It's not your influence, not your authority over people. Happiness is being in the right relationship with God, knowing that you are in that place that God wants you to be at a specific time.

God is interested in my life. I say that's a phenomenal thought. And if I'm right in making this observation, then necessarily I must underline the priority that I am to give to attending to God's will and implementing it, cooperating with God the Holy Spirit, so that His will is put into practice in my life.

And I must be very humble about this. I must appreciate that in and of myself I have not the ability to guide my life aright. I drive my car by keeping my hands on the steering wheel and making adjustments to the direction in which the vehicle is traveling, as I see specific situations arise on the road.

But my life's guidance is not like the way that I drive my car. At least I don't approach it like this, because I realize that my hands are not safe on the steering wheel of my life. Therefore, I commit the wheel to the Lord.

Putting that scripturally, we find Jeremiah saying in Jeremiah 10 verse 23, it is not in man that walketh to guide his steps. Jeremiah had learned that lesson early on in his life in the village of Ananoth as a young theological student. It was not for Jeremiah to guide his life, for had Jeremiah done that, then he'd never have achieved what was God's plan for him.

No, he offers himself to the Lord, as I must offer the steering wheel of my life to the Lord, and realize it is God who takes the initiative. I will guide thee, I will guide thee with mine eye. Top priority, I say, is to be given to ensuring that I am cooperating with God in the bringing about of His plan for my life.

And Scripture and history abounds with illustrations of those who tried to bypass God's will with the net result that they went through years of barrenness. And the implications of bypassing God's will at one stage in the life of Abraham, the aftermath is still with us to this day. I haven't time to work that out for you, but I could on another occasion.

Abraham, who thinks with his wife on a specific incident in their lives that they must help God out. He's promised something, but he can't do it. Abraham and Sarah, you're going to have a child, but Sarah's beyond the age when a woman has a child, so what does she do? Well, she offers Abraham Hagar, and her servant girl by proxy will bear her child.

And great grief comes as a result of Sarah and Abraham interfering with the will of God, thinking, and the absurdity of it, that they mortal beings can help out this great God to achieve His plan for their lives. When you try to bypass God's will or modify it, tragedy always results. Think of the, think of the tragic careers of Saul and Solomon.

Great men in the Old Testament. Tremendous potential. Saul, the first king of Israel.

Solomon, the third king of Israel. Started off with so much, all was going for them, and yet the very thing that God wanted them to achieve, they didn't achieve because their own stubborn will was exercised. Pride came in.

They were deviated, deflected from the course along which God would have them to go, with the net result that Saul and Solomon are illustrations of tragedy in the pages of the Old Testament. One could pluck from the pages of the New men who likewise did not know God's best in their lives. Can you think of the, of the pathos, of the grief that there is in the, in the heart of the Apostle Paul as he's writing to the churches in Galatia? He's reviewed their, their development in the Christian way of life.

He was excited at the beginning. Who wouldn't be? There he'd been in Galatia and preached the gospel. Men had responded, and women had responded, and, and here were local churches growing, growing rapidly, and people were enthusiastic.

And then, to quote an expression, the rot set in, and Paul says, you did run well. What did hinder you? There you were with God's will set out in front of you, and you were pursuing after it. You were like an athlete.

You were straining to achieve God's best, and suddenly you're lethargic. Suddenly you're off course, missed out God's will. And so Paul writes them a letter and tries to put them back onto the course that God would have them travel.

So, I say that from Scripture and from history, the fact must be underlined that we are to give top priority to ensuring that we do God's will in our lives. But having brought and, at this point, and labored it before you for, for four or five minutes, let me make some sort of amendment. Not because I have engaged, at least I don't think I have, in incorrect exposition of Scripture on the subject of guidance, but because there are one or two qualifications that Scripture compels me to, to bring before you, and they are along these lines.

That though God tells us He will guide us with His eye, it does not mean to say that always we will be conscious of being guided, nor does it mean to say that always we shall understand the reason why He sends us along a particular course. We may not always be conscious of God's guidance, I say. The psalmist in Psalm 18 and verse 11 says this of the Lord, and it's rather a strange thing.

He's describing God in highly charged metaphorical language, and he says in the eleventh verse, God made darkness His secret place. His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies, and so he continues. Have you ever thought about that statement, God makes darkness His secret place? You know, I think I've experienced what the psalmist is talking about on several occasions in my life.

When God has seemed to be beclouded, it seems as though darkness has been His residence. At least I've not been able to see Him. I haven't been able to appreciate just where He's been, as though He's gone on vacation and He's abandoned me.

He makes darkness His secret place, and I say that this experience comes to us. We identify ourselves with the language of the psalmist on occasions when things seem to be bizarre in our lives, and God is distant from us. He's beclouded.

He's not in view. Well, what happens in such instances as this? What do you do? Do you pack up? Do you hand in your resignation at your local church? Do you say, all right I'm through with Christianity? No, not if you're mature in the faith. Of course you won't.

You see your experience, as I try to work out in the notes that I've given you, is very much akin to that of a pilot who comes in, shall we say, to Heathrow or to Gatwick, and he finds that he no longer has the ability to bring his plane into land. Let's say there's a fault in communications, and I'm told, though I don't understand it, there's such a thing today as the automatic pilot, and the crew or the officials in the control tower can bring in a plane and they can cause it to land safely because of the miracle of modern technology. Now, it's one thing to say that.

It's another thing to be the pilot and to take your hands off the controls and let somebody that you can't see, hundreds of feet down there, bring in your airplane. Now, it takes discipline. It takes experience to be in that situation and to leave the control to the people in the control tower.

And I say it takes maturity in the Christian life to have that experience, to know those circumstances when God is in darkness, and not to give up on Him, not to panic, but rather to believe that somehow out there God is bringing you home safely. He's going to bring you into land. And there's no more thrilling experience than to come out of one of these foggy patches and suddenly to see God in all His glory standing there, as it were, if I can maintain my metaphor from the airport, to see Him standing there on the tarmac, and you realize that He is a loving Heavenly Father, and He was in control all the time bringing the plane down, bringing you through that situation.

And you praise Him that you didn't panic. Your experience of Him in times past forbade you to think, forbade you to think He'd leave you at last in trouble to sink. And this is the essence of Christian maturity, my friend, to go through what I call these bizarre experiences, not to fully understand at that moment why God has led you along that line, but to believe Him, to trust Him, to trust Him when you can't trace Him, to believe the promises of His Word, that He never really goes on holiday.

It's just that your eyes are a little bit short-sighted and you can't penetrate through the gloom, but He's there because He said that He would be. Now, we may not always be conscious of God's leading, but we have this promise that His hand is upon us. And what is more, we may not always appreciate at a given turn why God allows us to go down one certain pathway.

You remember what Jesus had to say to His disciples recorded in Mark's Gospel. The reference has gone from me at the moment. He's addressing His disciples and He says, What I do now thou knowest not, but thou shalt know.

Do you know I thank God those words in Scripture? Because there have been occasions in my life when I have not known why God has done what He has done at that point, but I praise Him that I've lived to see the day when His actions have been justified. When looking back upon a past event, I understood the reason why He led me in that specific, in that specific pathway. And there are many analogies one can draw from ordinary human experience, are there not, that illustrates the wisdom of God.

Think back to your own childhood. If you're anything like me, heaven help your mother and father if you were, but there were times when you didn't quite appreciate what they were telling you to do. You know, I remember the first time that I had a bicycle, a two-wheeler, and I reckoned that I could ride it immediately.

They reckoned I couldn't, and they were right. I couldn't. I fell off.

I had a nasty accident, and I was very stupid, and one came to realize that age just does bring with it experience. And although I didn't understand why they were being so niggling in their, the amount of use that they allowed me to have of this bicycle, I began to appreciate through my mistakes that there was a reason for why they were, they were adopting the attitude that was theirs. And similarly with God, there is a reason, though sometimes we may not understand why He allows these circumstances to develop.

You imagine going up to Joseph as he's there at the bottom of the muddy pit in which his brothers have, have thrown him. You imagine him going, imagine going up to Joseph and saying, you know, don't worry about being in that pit. I mean, God's got it all in control.

It's good for you to be down there, Joseph. Well, Joseph would have to be a far better believer than you or me to accept that this was God's will for him, but it was, you know. The years went by, and you remember the story how Joseph eventually met up with his brothers in Egypt, and they were amazed to find that he was the prime minister, the Harold Wilson of Egypt.

And he said to them as he reflected back upon his experience, you meant it to me for evil, this, this selling me off into, into slavery, the treatment of me in my teenage days. You meant evil, but God meant it to me for, for good. God justified His purposes in the experience of Joseph.

As I say, God, sooner or later, and perhaps for some of us, it will not be until we, we enter into the mourn of, of it, of Emmanuel's land, but God will justify His, His, His dealings with us in our earthly, in our earthly pilgrimage. So, we recognize these qualifications. We may not always be conscious of His leading.

We may not always appreciate the reason why, but we have His guarantee that whatever happens to us in our lives, He is in control. He will instruct us and teach us in the way in which we shall go. He will guide us with His eye.

And, you know, to be guided by the Lord and to realize this teaching of guidance from Scripture brings with it tremendous responsibilities for the Christian. Now, I've never, I've never sought to hide from you that I accept to a large degree the teachings of, of, of John Calvin along the line of the sovereignty of God. But that doesn't mean to say that we are absolved from all responsibility in this matter of guidance.

As though there's nothing for us to do, there is always something for us to do, and those who criticize Calvin ought to read his Institutes a little more clearly, and they'd appreciate that this was his teaching. There are many things that the Christian has to do, many, many contributions that he makes in his service, living out his life before God on this earth. And in this matter of guidance, well, to ensure that you're guided by the Lord, there are certain duties to which you must attend, as there are certain things that, certain duties that must be performed on my car if it's to be kept going, if it's to serve me well during the, the months and the years that I am the owner of it.

Well, what are these duties? Well, let me suggest that in Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2, and in many other passages of the Bible, you can work out what are the responsibilities of believing people as they, as they approach the Lord and ask to be guided by Him in their lives. It's our responsibility by the aid of His Spirit to cultivate holiness. I am persuaded there is nothing sweeter to the taste of God than the holy life.

God in the Old Testament is, is, is called by Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel. When Jesus Christ becomes incarnate, He is called by Gabriel. Was it Gabriel? Certainly one of the people involved in the, in the stories of the Nativity, that holy thing within thee, speaking to Mary of, of Jesus, holy.

And the Spirit, how do we refer to the third person of the Spirit of the Trinity? The Holy Spirit. Holiness, I say, is sweet to God. It's part of His personality, part of His person.

And so, for those who would be guided by the Lord, well, cultivate holiness. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, in all thy ways, and He shall direct thy paths. And maybe one of the reasons why we're not so sure that we're being guided by the Lord is because of the latitude that we allow ourselves in our day-by-day living, certain things that God would not have us indulge in, that we, that we do, with the net result that we're not so sure about this matter of guidance.

And then I say that we need to cultivate not only the Spirit of holiness, but of dependence upon God. God expects us to come to Him each day, and to bring the, the potential of the each day to Him, and ask that it shall be exploited for His glory. The psalmist says, I have set the Lord always before me.

Now, do you do that? Honestly, do you set the Lord always before you? Almost like getting a statue, and sticking it up there in front of you, and, no, I'm not suggesting you engage in idolatry, don't, don't misunderstand me. But, but, but here is the Lord, and, and, and the Bible says that we, we, we can approach this whole subject of, of being in the will of God by consciously imagining, and realizing, not imagining, realizing His presence, setting Him before us. So important is that scripture, it's repeated twice, and I reckon any scripture that's repeated twice in the Bible obviously has great importance, because the Holy Spirit doesn't trade in, in, in wasting language, in wasting words.

I have set the Lord always before me. Do you do that in the morning? Do you do it during the day? Do you do it during the night? A little notice I saw outside a church once said, seven prayerless days makes one weak, and it's spelt, the word weak as I've spelt it in your notes, and it, that is not just a play in words. We are weak when we don't set the Lord before us, when we're not dependent upon Him.

And then this, this challenge of coming to the Bible, of, of coming around the table of the Lord, of listening to expository ministry, of fellowshipping with other Christians, these are all means of grace that will help us as people who will know God's will to appreciate what it is. Oh, that we shall more and more realize that God has made much provision for us, for our spiritual well-being. What about this matter of a surrendered will? Oh, you say, I want to know God's plan for my life, but do you really want to know what God's plan is? Is your will so surrendered that if what your desire is happens to conflict with the desire of God, you'll crucify your will because of His? This is what the Apostle Paul did, did he not? I die daily.

What does he mean? Not physically. I die daily as far as my will is concerned. I offer it up to the Lord.

I no longer live, but Christ lives within me. Do you surrender your will, or is your mind already made up as you come into God's presence in a given situation? You know what you want, and you're dead sure that's going to be God's will for you, or else you're going to have something to say. Well, when you approach God in that immature fashion, obviously the net result is difficulty, problems in your Christian life, a lack of assurance that you're walking with the Lord.

So I say there are these many challenges that come to us as Christians, many things that we can cultivate and ensure in so cultivating them that we shall know God's will for our lives. And finally, and I'm not going to spend much time in this because I've noted down on these on these sheets of paper for you, several practical considerations which I have found of help myself personally in the matter of guidance, and so I put them down here. Nothing unique, nothing novel.

Most of you knew them before and probably could improve upon them. But let us just run through this little list and appreciate these things that I think can be of practical value for us. Let's really believe that God will confirm His purpose in our lives.

Despite the qualification I made earlier that sometimes we may not at specific periods be conscious of God's immediate purpose for us, nonetheless overall this statement remains true. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness. There will be clarity.

God will give you an understanding of His overall purpose for you in your life, even if various patches happen to be a little bit murky and dark. Let's appreciate more and more the power of God's Spirit within our lives. There is that inner witness.

It's an irrational thing. You can't tell other people who are not Christians what the inner witness is, but you and I who are gods know it. I can't describe to a man who was born blind what sight is like.

It has to be appreciated by someone who equally has sight as I have sight. Well, there is this inner witness of God's Spirit that confirms His will in given situations. And as I say, the Bible is one of the means whereby God reveals His will to us, is it not? I'm not very happy about these people who shut their eyes and, you know, take out a pin, and when they put the pin in the Bible they look at the text, and that's God's will for them.

I'm not suggesting that sometimes remarkably God does not allow us to open His book, and there is a specific text that is applicable to our situation, but we're not to use the Bible as though it's a book of magic. We are to read the Bible through consistently, having a plan in our Bible study, believing that God will minister to us and direct us as we consider His Word together and individually. And let's remember as Christian people whose bodies are the Lord's that our minds are the Lord's too.

You are not your own. It's not just spoken of the body, it's spoken of the whole personality. And God can take over my mental faculties.

He can think through me. He can make His will known. Sanctified common sense is a word, a term that my mother often used, and I think that she was quite justified in impressing this upon my brother and myself.

Sanctified common sense. Here I am walking with the Lord. I've cultivated a right relationship with Him, and there's some decision that crops up.

Shall we say something that's not terribly important in my life? Nonetheless, a decision has to be made. What do I do? Well, I don't get all hung up about it. I apply sanctified common sense as to what I should do.

I'm walking with you, Lord. Lord, give me direction about this particular matter, and let me do what is Your will. Prevent me from doing anything that would bring dishonor to Your name.

Another practical consideration that I put down, and this obviously applies to something that's very important in one's life. When we come up to a critical period, when a decision has to be made upon which a lot hinges, well, it's good to sit down and take out a piece of paper and to jot down all the reasons why we should engage in this particular thing, or all the reasons why we should not. Why we should decide one way, or why we should decide the other way.

You know, George Muller did this, and he'd let a week or a fortnight go by, and then he'd come back to the piece of paper, and he'd read it through again, and he'd be in an attitude of prayer that God would show him, having set down all the things that were applicable to this particular situation, if God would show him whether to say yes or whether to say no in the decision that he had to make. Well, I suggest to you that George Muller's method has been demonstrated to be a good one by the remarkable work that George Muller was able to do amongst his orphans in Bristol. And then, helpful advice from other Christian friends, yes, I think that's good, provided that you don't go around from one to another, flitting around from flower to flower, trying to suck as from everyone guidance and wisdom.

No, it's good to have one person, or perhaps two people, who have your confidence, who are good Christian people, who can listen to you sympathetically, who know what type of person you are, who know what sort of things that you're capable of, who are aware of your background, and maybe they can seek out God's will with you. And as they give you advice, so it is our prayer that God's witness of His Spirit shall confirm the advice that they give within our hearts. Well, I come back to the statement that we were studying right at the beginning from the psalm, Psalm 32.

The Lord says, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye. Be not as a horse or as a mule which has no understanding.

Well, may it be that somewhere along our study this evening you've latched on to new principles that maybe you didn't see before, or they've been brought back to your mind, things that you'd learned from the Word of God in years gone by that will be of help to you at the present and in future days as you seek to know God's will for your life, and as you prove the proposition of the Apostle Paul that all things work together for good to the best advantage of those who love God and try to implement His will in their daily experience. Amen.