Lesson 2: Avoiding Popular Pitfalls, Part 1

Lesson Aim:

To expose the problems of some common methods for determining God’s will.

Objectives: The teens will...

Be challenged by the example of Job

Experience the subjectivity of inner impressions/feelings

Recognize the importance of interpreting God’s Word accurately

Texts: Job 23:1–10; Jeremiah 17:9; Revelation 22:18–19

God’s Will

When the preacher’s car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone. After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar.“What happened to you, Frank?” asked the good reverend. “You used to be rich.”

Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall. “Go home,” the preacher said. “Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page, and there will be God’s answer.”

Sometime later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch, and had just stepped out of a Mercedes. “Frank.” said the preacher, “I am glad to see things really turned around for you.”“Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you,” said Frank. “I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer—Chapter 11.”

Unfortunately this story illustrates how some teens try to determine God’s will. There is a whole lot mystical and very little spiritual in their decisions.

In order to understand how we can make decisions that honor God, we first need to eliminate poor methods for determining God’s will. That’s what we will look at in the next two lessons.

In Job, we see an Old Testament saint that was questioning God’s will. He didn’t see how his present difficulties could be part of God’s plan. While Job had no peace, we know that he was in God’s will.

Jeremiah teaches us the truth that our hearts are deceitful—we cannot trust them. Using our hearts to make a decision leaves us open to the possibility that we are deceived.

Revelation teaches us that God’s Word is not silly putty. We cannot make it mean whatever we want it to. It has an inherent meaning that is the same for everyone.

What’s Your Opinion Survey:

Getting counsel from others is a good way to make a decision.

Using a “fleece” (as Gideon did) is helpful.

Determining whether the circumstances are favorable is necessary.

Sometimes God confirms His will through a specific verse He gives me.

God expects me to use principles from His Word to make wise decisions.

Whether I have the peace of God about the decision is important.

Whether this violates biblical principles is important to find out.

The inner leading of the Holy Spirit is helpful in making decisions.

Determining whether this helps me carry out my responsibilities at home and church is important.

Asking God to provide specific circumstances gives me an answer.

Bridge:

We face decisions in life for which we must know God’s’ will. Because of that urgency, and the accompanying uncertainty, some Christians have used speculative means to determine God’s will.

When we try to find God’s will for our personal decisions, we often use false notions of how to do this.

Question:

What are some ways that you’ve heard people can use to find God’s will?

Question:

Rob, an immature Christian, tells you that God has told him to buy a brand-new Lexus. He knows it is God’s will.

However, he and his wife have some past-due bills that they cannot pay, and his wife is about to give birth to a new baby. What do you say to him?

1. The Mystical Approach

Some people try to find God’s will by determining whether they have “peace” about a decision.

Often they will say that the Holy Spirit has led them in a certain direction or that they have an “inner impression.”

This is called the mystical approach because it is very subjective.

There are a few problems with this approach.

A. The Example Of Job (Job 23:1–10)

Job 23:1–10 KJV 1900

1 Then Job answered and said, 2 Even to day is my complaint bitter: My stroke is heavier than my groaning. 3 Oh that I knew where I might find him! That I might come even to his seat! 4 I would order my cause before him, And fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would know the words which he would answer me, And understand what he would say unto me. 6 Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. 7 There the righteous might dispute with him; So should I be delivered for ever from my judge. 8 Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; And backward, but I cannot perceive him: 9 On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: 10 But he knoweth the way that I take: When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

If we look at Job, we see a man who was in God’s will, yet he had no peace.

Job wanted to find God, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have peace or an inner impression that told him his suffering was God’s will.

In fact, he kept wondering why this was happening. We can read the Book of Job and know immediately that Job was in the center of God’s will.

Job didn’t know that; he just had the confidence that God would only do him good.

Job 23:10

10 But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

B. The Condition Of The Heart (Jeremiah 17:9)

Jeremiah 17:9

9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

When we depend on a feeling of peace in our hearts or an inner impression, we are depending upon something that cannot be trusted. If we can’t know our heart, it’s hard to take what we feel as proof of God’s will. It’s possible that we could be deceived.

What makes this even more difficult is the fact that sometimes our heart or conscience condemns or convicts us wrongly.

1 John 3:19–20

19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.

20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.

It is at this point that Someone greater than our heart can set us straight.

If our heart is deceitful, how do we know that what we think is peace or an inner impression from the Holy Spirit isn’t just good feelings?

It appears that the mystical approach bases decisions on feelings and not the Bible.

It is extremely subjective—how can you argue with someone who says that an inner impression from the Holy Spirit convinced them of God’s will?

You can’t.

Activity:

Blindfold someone and have them draw the American Flag on the Whiteboard.

Ask them if they can feel the flag and stars as they draw.

(Have them sit down.) It’s the same way with the mystical approach. You may be convinced something is God’s will because the “Holy Spirit told you” in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Look at our illustration of Rob who was convinced the Holy Spirit had told him to buy a Lexus.

It didn’t matter that by not paying his bills, he was stealing money Exodus 20:15

15 Thou shalt not steal.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t have enough to take care of a new baby 1 Timothy 5:8 8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

The Holy Spirit “told him to buy the Lexus.” He determined God’s will by an inner impression, and he was wrong.

If this is the primary means that you use for determining God’s will, it is weak.

You may have a good feeling about God’s will.

You may even believe the Holy Spirit has led you in your decision, and He may have.

However, God’s will needs to be confirmed by other means.

2. The Divination Approach (Revelation 22:18–19)

This approach looks at the Bible as a magical book. A Christian will read a passage and find a meaning for that verse that is specific to them.

For example, a missionary might explain why he knows he should go to an island nation based on Isaiah 42:12, “Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands.”

Christians who use this approach may find a special verse that confirms a decision for them even though the verse probably couldn’t mean that to anyone else.

For example, a Christian teenager in a band may read Psalm 2:3 (KJV) and think that God is telling him to break up his band.

Psalm 2:3

3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

Psalm 2:3 has nothing to do with breaking up a music band.

Illustration:

The other day I was praying and asking God to reveal His will for who will win the Super Bowl this year at Glendale. He showed me in Deuteronomy 1:15.

(Turn there and lets read the passage. Ask them to guess who will win the Super Bowl.)

Deuteronomy 1:15

15 So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.

Kind of silly, isn’t it?

Obviously, this passage wasn’t written 3,000 years ago so I would know who this year’s Super Bowl winner is going to be. But that’s exactly how some teens and adults look at God’s Word.

Question:

Didn’t God give us His Word to help us make decisions? Then why can’t we use it this way?

God told Israel to be very careful in what they did to God’s Word (Read Deuteronomy 4:2). They were not to add to or subtract from what His Word said.

This reminder was given to all Christians in Revelation 22:18–19. (Read it.)

Revelation 22:18–19

18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

God is concerned that His Word is interpreted correctly.

God’s Word has intrinsic or fundamental meaning separate from you or me.

In other words, when we try to make a passage mean something to us that it couldn’t mean to anyone else, we are saying that we determine what God’s Word means.

In that way, we are adding to God’s Word. That makes us the authority over God’s Word instead of the other way around.

When we interpret the Bible, we seek to find what it meant to the original audience.

When we have that meaning, we determine how it applies to us today.

Because the application is based on it, the original meaning is very important.

It can’t mean today, what it never meant then.

The application may be different today than it was in Bible times; however, it is not absolutely flexible—it is not silly putty. The application has to come from the meaning.

Question:

Determining the original meaning can be difficult because our situation is so different from those to whom the passage was originally written.

What are some differences between a 21st century Christian (you) and an Old Testament Saint?

We have different customs.

We live in a different place.

We don’t write like they did.

We speak a different language.

We live in a different century.

God doesn’t inspire us to write Scripture.

Too many Christians go to Scripture looking for the blessing of the day. They bypass the original meaning in their search for something that applies to them. When we give a personal meaning to a verse that no one else could get out of that verse, we essentially twist Scripture.

Closing:

If we are going to find God’s will and make decisions pleasing to Him, we cannot use the mystical approach of trusting our feelings or the divination approach of twisting Scripture.

Let’s pray that God would show us through these lessons how we can make good life decisions.