Wise Counsel
This is the 3rd section of knowing God's will where we study the importance of wise counsel.
Review of Last Week
Because God’s revealed will usually contains his commands or “precepts” for our moral conduct, God’s revealed will is sometimes also called God’s will of precept or will of command. This revealed will of God is God’s declared will concerning what we should do or what God commands us to do.
On the other hand, God’s secret will usually includes his hidden decrees by which he governs the universe and determines everything that will happen.
The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains everything we need God to tell us for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.
This definition emphasizes that it is in Scripture alone that we are to search for God’s words to us. It also reminds us that God considers what he has told us in the Bible to be enough for us, and that we should rejoice in the great revelation that he has given us and be content with it.
What is autonomy?
To be autonomous (truly) there must exist perfect government
Where there is perfect government (self-government), there exists a “god”
When there is “god”, do we see the God of the Scriptures?
Therefore, if we as believers, believe in the triune God that is revealed to us through the Old & New Testament (Holy Scriptures), then we see (and cannot help but see) that autonomy is reserved for God and God alone.
Lloyd-Jones vs. William Wilberforce
Story of William Wilberforce
Story of Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Role of the Church
Nurture
2. Ministry to Believers: Nurture. According to Scripture, the church has an obligation to nurture those who are already believers and build them up to maturity in the faith. Paul said that his own goal was not simply to bring people to initial saving faith but to “present every man mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). And he told the church at Ephesus that God gave the church gifted persons “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12–13). It is clearly contrary to the New Testament pattern to think that our only goal with people is to bring them to initial saving faith. Our goal as a church must be to present to God every Christian “mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).
Discipline
the primary purpose of church discipline is to pursue the twofold goal of restoration (of the offender to right behavior) and reconciliation (between believers, and with God).
if church members were actively involved in giving private words of gentle admonition and in praying for one another when the first clear evidence of sinful conduct is seen, very little formal church discipline would have to be carried out, because the process would begin and end with a conversation between two people that never becomes known to anyone else.
Scripture
12:15 The fool thinks he knows better than others. The wise person is humble enough to learn from the experience of others and has the ability to discern good counsel (v. 1).
The sum of the whole is, that the servants of God must endeavour utterly to abhor the life of ungodly men.
The prophet, therefore, begins with counsel, by which term I understand the wickedness which does not as yet show itself openly. Then he speaks of the way, which is to be understood of the customary mode or manner of living. And he places at the top of the climax the seat, by which metaphorical expression he designates the obduracy produced by the habit of a sinful life.
The context indicates that the valley is arid but transformed by the presence of the joyful pilgrims.
They will go from strength to strength; implying, that the saints are continually acquiring fresh strength for going up to mount Zion, and continue to prosecute their journey without weariness or fatigue, until they reach the wished-for place, and behold the countenance of God.