Unbiblical Methods of Discerning God's Will

People come up with a lot of crazy ways to try to find out the will of God. Tonight we are going to take a survey of several of them listen in the Bible. I want to encourage you to follow along. We are going to mention some big words tonight, so I’ve given them to you on your handouts and you can just fill in what they mean.

1. False Prophets

Can be confused with true prophets

Some can even perform signs and wonders

False prophets served to test God’s people’s allegiance to God

Deuteronomy 13:1–3 ESV

1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

False prophets usually come out of the church and are still active today.

2 Timothy 4:3 ESV

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

Jude 3–19 ESV

3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. 8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 11 Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. 14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. 17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” 19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

2. Casting of Lots

There can be legitimate means of the casting of lots to discern the will of God

Haman

Esther 3:7 ESV

7 In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur (that is, they cast lots) before Haman day after day; and they cast it month after month till the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.

Esther 9:24 ESV

24 For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them.

Roman Soldiers

Matthew 27:35 ESV

35 And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.

Many scholars believe the process was similar to “pick-up sticks” or “choose the shortest straw”

3. Pagan Divination

Ezekiel 21:21 ESV

21 For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shakes the arrows; he consults the teraphim; he looks at the liver.

Rhabdomancy - use of arrows to determine the will of God

Teraphim - family tribal idols or household gods

Genesis 31:19 ESV

19 Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father’s household gods.

Hepatoscopy - studying the liver of a dead animal

Oneiromancy - interpretation of dreams

Deuteronomy 13:1–3 ESV

Hydromancy - use of water or another liquid such as wine or blood to determine the will of God

Example: Joseph’s Silver Cup (Gen. 44:1-5)

Necromancy - consulting the dead

Leviticus 19:31 ESV

31 “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.

Astrology - Consulting the heavenly bodies to discern the will of God

2 Kings 23:5 ESV

5 And he deposed the priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and the moon and the constellations and all the host of the heavens.

Discussion

What are some unbiblical methods that you have seen of people seeking the will of God?