God's individual will - from where comes wisdom II

Well, let's see, we've spent twelve weeks talking about the will of God, and we started off with the things that are the sovereign will of God. And do you remember, what did we say about the sovereign will of God? I realize this is about three months back almost, but see what you can do. What did we say about the sovereign will of God?

That's pretty much in God's control. That's His will. We're not going to influence His will. That's right. That's right. That sounds like He's calling the shots and we don't get any choice in the matter. Is that a good thing? Yes. Yeah, isn't that good? Yeah. I mean, at the face of it, thinking from a purely human standpoint, that might sound like I'm losing something. God's making those choices and I don't even get to vote. It sounds almost un-American.

But the point being, these are things Sovereignly does, and it's a good thing, isn't it? Yeah. It is very much a good thing that God has Sovereignly willed the number of things that He has. And are we guessing as to what those things are? Yeah, isn't it interesting? Here is the Creator of the universe. Here is the One who controls things that we can't even hope to control or touch or even know.

And He says, Let me tell you the whole story. Isn't that neat? He says, I'll tell you what, there's some things that I've determined that are absolutely going to be, and I'm going to tell you what they are. He says, you're not going to be guessing, you're not going to be trying to figure out what it is, and God says, whoops, gotcha! There's nothing like that going on. God just lays it out, doesn't He?

We spent three weeks talking about our position in Christ, and those things are all part of God's sovereign will. And that's a good thing. And why is it valuable to think about our position in Christ as we think about the will of God? What value does that have? When we see what's going on all the time, we can be glad that we're Our position is up there. Ah, okay. It's fixed. Yeah.

People have valuable things here that they lose. People get hopes dashed. People have things that they count on and all of a sudden it's gone. How about the people that had Enron retirement? Okay. all of a sudden you've got these people and they're just in a mad scramble and that's no small outfit.

I have, I think, still an uncle who worked for a firm that he was months away from retiring and they let him go. No reason, they just let him go and what that did was they didn't have to pay him his retirement, the way the retirement program was set up. He had worked for them for decades. They could not come up with something he did wrong, but lost all the retirement.

It's easy for us to set a hope on things here on planet Earth that can, even as valuable as they are from an earthly standpoint, can be lost. You're right. They can be lost. In the end, it's all going to fry, right? It's all going to get toasted. The finest car in the showroom. Melted. Burnt to a crisp. Fried. All gone.

But these things that we have in Christ, that we brushed over, over a period of three weeks, all those things we most certainly have irreversibly, untouchably, uncorruptably in the heavens. That's a good thing. Those are good things for us to count on so that we understand that as we're pursuing the will of God we're not trying to figure out, you know, I gotta pick this path over that one or I'll lose my position in Christ. I've got to pick this path over that one or I won't have available to me all the blessings that are in Christ. That's not the case, is it? Instead, we look at those blessings, those ones that we surveyed quickly over three weeks, we look at those blessings and as we're making decisions, we know that our decisions are not of a sort in any way that can touch any of our position in Christ. That's sovereign. So that's why, yes, it's a really good thing. I can't even blow it. I can't even blow it as a Christian and lose those things that are untouchable in the heavens. That's not encouraging you to go blow it, by the way.

But the point being that there is something that indeed we can count on that depends entirely upon Him and not from us. Everything from Him, nothing from us. So as we look at the subject of the will of God, this resting in God's sovereign will is pivotal, isn't it?

That we understand what is the character of the decision I'm making. The decision I'm making is not a, you know, make or break my position. Make or break my blessings in Christ kinds of decisions. Those are not the kinds of decisions that we're making.

As we pick a path, one fork in the road or the other. There is nothing that I can do that will blow those things that are irreversible in the heavenlies. I'm not like the Enron retirees that, whoops, you just lost it. What you thought was solid and stable and for sure is now gone.

Then we come to the area that's the moral will of God. And as we look at that, why does the moral will of God matter? Does God just say, you know, I think I want to come up with something, and it'll give them something to do down there on planet Earth, and I really don't care about this stuff, You know, it'll be nice for him to have something to do and pay attention to and kind of make them good folks.

So I'll lay these things out here. Is that what he's got in mind? I see a little bit of head shaking. Why is that not the case? Why does God have a moral will? Ah, okay. It isn't arbitrary, is it? It isn't God just sort of took a dartboard Okay, no lying, no stealing. I just happened to hit that spot.

The moral will of God is an extension of His character. It comes from His character. It's based on His character. So as we're making decisions, we're not just looking at, okay, here's a list of things to do, and God just sort of cooked it up, and it really doesn't matter. But He said, I got it, so I got it. We're making decisions about things that are moral or immoral based on the character of who God is. So it does matter. How do we know what those things are? How do we know?

You can read it in here. Ah, okay. Yeah, it says so. Spells it out. So I don't need to say, Well, I'm thinking about stealing this... I'll make it simple. I'm stealing this bread because I'm hungry. But I'll pray about it and ask for some guidance on this. What's wrong with this picture? The prayer is kind of useless. Yeah, kind of useless. That's right.

You're coming up to the stoplight and you're thinking about putting the brakes on. You could just go through it, but you say, You know, I'm going to pray about this. Well, I guess God didn't say no, so whew, you know. And maybe it's whew, crash, tinkle, tinkle, but you know, the thing is we need to recognize that it's not like that. There's no sense asking God to guide us about what He's already given us guidance on. I somehow knew that when I was growing up. I never asked my mom, can I go down and rob the bank? That's not something she's going to say yes about. There's a few other things she said too, but that's just an example.

We don't ask the Lord, and we don't sit there and threaten Stu about something that is clearly revealed is right or wrong. There will be that aspect too, but we don't want to be in a position of And we brought this up. We don't want to be in a position of saying, okay, Holy Spirit, guide me. If the Lord has given us something that's direction, we want to listen to it.

It's like this fellow that, you know, his house was getting flooded out, so he got on the roof. You probably heard this, but I'll tell it just the same. This house was getting flooded out and he got on top of the roof because the water levels were getting higher and higher and higher and just a little bit of the roof was left and the waters were still rising.

And he said, Lord, save me. And pretty soon a little guy goes by in a lifeboat, you know, and he says, okay, get in. The guy says, no, God's going to save me. And then a little bit later, you know, a larger boat goes by and they say, get in. They throw him, you know, a life preserver He says, nope, God's going to save me. And a little bit after that, a helicopter goes by and pretty soon there's going to be a pretty skinny top of the roof left. And the helicopter drops a ladder down. He doesn't grab it. He says, nope, God's going to save me. So they fly off. Well, pretty soon he drowns.

And he goes to talk to the Lord. And he says, Lord, I was down there and I said, please, Wouldn't you please save me? I asked you and I trusted for you to do that." And he said, good heavens, I said, a boat, a larger boat and a helicopter. You know, what do you want? See? Where the Lord has provided something, we want to depend upon what He's provided and not say, Lord, no, I don't want that. I'll do something else. Okay? And so the Lord has clearly provided guidance in His Word. We want to listen to that.

We want to pay attention to that and not be like the goofy guy ask the Lord for help, and when he got three different kinds of help, he still refused it. Now, one other point comes up, and we've got moral guidance here, but the clear picture in the New Testament for those in the church is that this living in this life is not our in the flesh, just listening to a set of rules, and living by the flesh according to those rules. But we made the point clearly before that we live God's will in the moral area by the life of Christ, not by our best efforts to do it. Best efforts to do it that fail, that's Romans 7. Paul describes his, I'll call it exasperation. He says, good list of rules, seems like a good thing, can't do it. That's a quick summary of Romans 7.

It is not intended that we live the moral will of God in our own strength. It is intended that it be not just even God helping us, but it be entirely His life. That's Galatians 2.20. It's no longer I who live God's moral will, but Christ who lives in me.

Alright, so we have the sovereign will of God, Those are things that are spelled out in Scripture. We've got them laid out. And boy, there's a bunch. There is just a whole lot. We have the moral will of God. And the moral will of God is not there as just an external set of laws saying, you do it. That was the Mosaic Law. As believers, we're not under that law. That's Romans 8, 14 and 15. We are not under that law.

Instead, we are called to live the moral law that's laid out, because you will see in the New Testament. Paul writes to the Ephesians, don't steal any longer, which implies that they were doing it. Don't steal any longer. But he didn't do that until he told them their position in Christ, until he told them their absolute dependence upon their position. Now, so we have the moral will of God. How about the individual will of God? The truth is that we all have lots of decisions to make that are not spelled out explicitly here.

Okay? So, now I understand you're about ready to get through with your internship, right? And you'll be all done. Okay? All right. How do you decide what you're going to do next? In other words, the Bible doesn't say, here is what you're going to do next, right?

The Bible does not spell out every jot and tittle. That's where we come to the individual will of God for each believer. It is important that as we look at the individual will of God, that we recognize all the things that are laid out previously, things that are abundantly clear, and we're operating within that guidance. Now, remember there were seven things that we said were guidance within the individual will of God.

Do you remember what those were? Scripture was number one, wasn't it? Right? Scripture was number one. And why did we put that first on the list? Sure, everything else is going to be measured by scripture. We're going to lay that. He used the word yardstick, and that's a good one. You're going to lay that against everything and measure it with scripture because that's objective. That's something we can study and understand and gain insight from. Now, you're not going to get explicit direction on what do you do next when your internship is over.

We have God's sovereign will laid out. We have God's moral will laid out. Why do we say that scripture is helpful in your individual will? in the individual will of God for the believer. Why do we say it's helpful? It reveals God's will. Remember we said that there were several respects in which it lays out some things that are valuable guides in terms of determining God's individual will.

Recall what those were? Not offhand. Okay, that was another one of the things, and we'll get to that. And the Bible does tell us about the Holy Spirit. We don't just invent that. It comes out of Scripture. Certainly, we can lay, yeah, this is within. Or it's not. Yeah, this is within or it's not. You don't want to look at this position that says, okay, we're going to be a drug dealer. Yeah. Because that's totally against what's in here. Sure. Right. You have choices to make and you base those choices on what you know to be the right thing in Scripture. Okay. Alright.

Now, how about a principle that would be less explicit but still valuable, if I use the word, The scripture tells us what's valuable. Scripture tells us what counts. You see, this is where Josiah taught last week, and he talked about the difference between godly wisdom and worldly wisdom. The world tells us what's valuable, doesn't it?

Isn't that what TV commercials are? It is the electronic digital format flying at you at every channel you turn on, telling you this is valuable. It's exceedingly valuable that you buy this Cadillac until next year when they want you to buy the next one. It is exceedingly valuable that you call up 1-800-BAR-NONE and get that loan for the car that you can't afford. It is exceedingly valuable that you put this cosmetic on.

The world is constantly putting values to us, isn't it? This is telling us what's valuable, and it is revealing something the world isn't. And that's why what Josiah covered last week in 1 Corinthians 2, you see this dividing line between the world's wisdom and God's wisdom. This tells us what's valuable. The world is going to give us a message of what it thinks is valuable, and the two are not the same.

How about time frame? Does the world ever make any decision in view of eternity? No. Now, that doesn't mean that in every situation I've got it all spelled out, but I've got a perspective from Scripture that I'm not going to get from the world. So here's where, as we start to look at individual decisions, I might look at it and I say, hey, this doesn't tell me what school to go to next or whether I take this job or not, but I've got an absolute message here as to what's valuable and in what time frame I measure things.

The world says you only go through once, and for whatever crazy reason, He who dies with the most toys wins. I'm not sure what you win, but you win, right? This is the time frame and the set of values that the world says, here, take this. And scripture, because it's God's revelation, is saying, let me tell you what's valuable.

Paul makes a comparison and he says, these things are not worthy to be compared. The scale is way out of balance. What this world measures and says is valuable by the time you put it in the scales of eternity. The scale just goes bonk and the needle is pointing way off to one side. You've got no question. You know it's valuable because of scripture. So again, now this gives me something to measure my individual decisions by. What's really going to matter here? What counts? What's valuable? What time frame am I thinking in, in view of eternity? The believers in the time of the Roman Empire were required, and it became more intense as time went on. They went through ten cycles of persecution, and the last one was the worst.

But they were required to go to the Roman Emperor's temple. And cities would have Roman Emperor's temples, you know, built for each new Roman Emperor. And you had to go to the Emperor and call the Emperor your savior. And they didn't care what other religions you had, as long as you did that.

You know, Salvator. And so the Christians, you know, they wouldn't look in here and say, Well, it doesn't say that I can't call the Emperor my Savior, explicitly. But they looked at it and they said, wait a minute, Jesus is the Savior. The Savior. The Savior singular.

And they said, no, I can't go there. Individual guidance in their situation. Individual guidance. They had a sense of what's valuable. There were Christians who tried to get around it by faking a certificate that said that they'd done it. That, we know, happened. There were Christians who just headed for the hills. And then there were some that they didn't come forward and say, I haven't done it. But as soon as it was said, you must do it, they said no and paid the price. Why?

They knew what was valuable. They knew what was valuable. Now, we said scripture is the measure of all things, but then we have, and you mentioned the next thing we had on the list, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will guide the believer into truth. How does that happen? Let's get specific. How does the Holy Spirit guide the believer into truth? How does the Holy Spirit help you in the individual will of God? Sure, sure.

And how will we know what that is? I mean, I may get this burning and it might be because I had enchiladas. But how will we know what this working of the Holy Spirit is? Often we don't know if it's real. We've got to trust it by faith. Okay. Ultimately we have to trust the Lord by faith. Are we left blind there?

Have we got some guidance on how the Holy Spirit is going to work? The Holy Spirit is not going to lead us contrary to Scripture, so that's why we go back to the Scripture principle, so we know that. If someone gets some voice inside that says, kill this person, you might want to question that because it doesn't fit here. However, I am going to... we see in Galatians 5 that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.

One of the things, as I look at a particular decision, if I am looking to the Lord in it truly, will I not have peace in the decision? There will be a sense of peace, and frankly it will be a peace the world won't understand. It will be a peace the world won't understand. And that's okay. That's just fine. If the world is baffled, great.

I recall one time where I was on a flight between San Francisco and Palm Springs on a business trip. And it was a smaller plane, and the weather was horrid. I mean, the thing was dancing all over the place. The plane was going. And frankly, just about everybody on the plane was screaming. And the gal sitting next to me was looking at me and she says, why aren't you screaming? And that occupied the conversation the rest of the flight, which was a little tumultuous, but nonetheless it was a conversation. There will be a peace that frankly the world may well not understand.

But it's again a way that the Holy Spirit will guide that certainly is in conformance with Scripture. Now, what are some of the other indicators that we have, aside from the Scripture and the Holy Spirit? Yes, we mentioned that. Personal desires are another one. Now, it's something to be, again, we test those with Scripture. Any personal desire may or may not be right. But if I am indeed looking to the Lord and trusting the Lord, Why can we say that personal desires are a piece of guidance?

Well, because God usually leads us in a way that we are already in our bent, so to speak, that we are already intended to go. There are rare exceptions, but usually we've been prepared from the time of birth, and we live our life as we've been prepared. Sure, sure. And the bottom line is that there are things that are about the way we're made, the way God designed us and built us individually. There are things about the conformity process.

If we are indeed being conformed to His image and looking to Him, then yes, our desires will be a point of guidance. Now, like everything else, that's not to be looked at in a vacuum. I might have a personal desire to go throttle somebody, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that's right. In other words, I'm going to test things with Scripture, but subject to the guidelines that we have in Scripture and to the other points that we have here, yes, personal desires may be a very good indicator. I would say especially occupationally, that that's a real valuable indicator.

The verse out of the Old Testament, you know, train up a child in the way that he should go. This is frequently thought of as, gee, if I raise this kid as a Christian, he'll always stay one. What it's intended to convey is train up a child in the way in which he is bent, already inclined. He has an inclination in a certain direction, train him up. Consistent with that inclination. So again, that's a personal desire, it's a God-given inclination that that person already has. The conformity to Christ, that process will additionally give you guidance on what direction should I head here.

Alright, what else did we say? I don't know what's the time here. What else did we say? Circumstances, okay. Now, how are circumstances helpful? And why would we say circumstances are any value? That sounds like planet Earth. I mean, how spiritual is that? Why is there any value in circumstances? Can you think of it? You used the word placed. Who did the placing? God did the placing.

It goes back to God's sovereignty over the affairs of things on planet earth. That's why. We know from scripture that God is sovereign over affairs. Nothing happens that he does not have control over. God is not pacing the floors of heaven saying, what on earth happened? What on earth am I going to do? That's not the way things go, right?

So God's sovereignty is indicating that circumstances can also be an indicator. Now, circumstances won't decide everything, will they? You may have, let's say you've got five different forks that you can pick from. Is that going to help you? Not by itself. But it's going to give you, here are the choices, right? And suppose you start going down some road and all of a sudden a circumstance comes up and says, you're not going there. For a long time, I had kind of a desire why I'd like to be a missionary. Do you know that every time I tried to pursue it, the Lord closed the door?

Before Nancy and I were married, I was getting ready to go down to work for HCJB in Quito, Ecuador. And I just completed a Spanish course. I figured I'm getting all prepped for this thing. And it was an intensive Spanish course, so I was getting well prepared.

Well, the draft board says as soon as you get there, you're going to get a draft notice. I guess that's the end of that, right? So the Lord closed the door there. After we were married and after we had kids, Nancy and I applied. And I had the same thing, HCJB.

And I sent an application in there and there was all sorts of things I could do. I said, hey, I'm a registered civil engineer. I'm a registered civil engineer. I've taught high school. I've taught Sunday schools. I can play the guitar, sing, and a whole bunch of things. I gave him his capabilities. I got a letter back, can't use you. We've even talked to people at HCJB who worked there and they didn't understand. What? They were baffled. But the Lord just closed the door.

Anyway, that's just a couple instances. Circumstances are not absolute guidance in the sense that they're not sufficient all of themselves, but they lay out the alternatives before us that God has put the forks in the road because of His sovereignty. He is able to do that, okay? So they are part of the guidance. They're a valuable part of the guidance. They're not the whole thing. And we still have to judge the forks in the road in front of us. Sometimes circumstances will be absolute. No, Vern, you're not going to Quito, Ecuador, okay? But it won't be because there's something in here that says Vern shall not go to Quito, Ecuador. That isn't First Hesitations 912, okay?

All right? He knew you were coming here. Now, I guess so. So again, the principle comes up. There's no one of these things, I would say, except for scripture, which is total in itself. There is a confluence that comes together and points to what is the individual will of God. These points will come together, not to be taken in exclusion. Alright, what else do we have on the list there?

When was mature counseling? It might be good to have some advice from somebody that's more mature than you are. Can you give me an instance how that would be helpful? Why is that particularly valuable? Because of their experience. Ah, okay. Yeah. Their experience frequently includes what? Their walking with the Lord. Okay. Their walk with the Lord. Okay. Which is on the side of success. What about failures? That too, right? Part of maturity is failure, right? Part of maturity is also recognizing, hey, this didn't work.

I would recommend you not do that. This is not a good idea. There is value in the mature counsel because it represents, hey, given that kind of situation, here is the outcome you can expect. and to see is that a good thing to do. Nancy and I do marriage counseling together and that's got a number of different benefits to it. As I was going through seminary, that was one class I had her take with me. One of the things that's interesting is as we've sat down with people We have even done premarital counseling with one couple in which after a certain amount of counseling, and there was a number of meetings, the conclusion was, you better not get married.

You're not in the right direction. They were both ready. They were even talking about setting a wedding date. But the conclusion was, don't go down this road. This is not good. You're not ready to take this on. That's not the way we counsel every time, but just so you know. But in this situation, it was.

So mature counsel was intended to help them avoid a serious problem. And getting married is obviously a spiritually significant decision, isn't it? So getting counsel is valuable. Why would you particularly pursue mature counsel in some areas and not others? Can you think of some reasons why you would pursue mature counsel in certain areas and other areas that might not be as critical? Well, it just all depends on the person's experience in a certain field. Ah, okay.

We might be stepping into something, as Richard pointed out, where we just don't have any experience and expertise. It might be someone who would say, I have no idea about that. Sometimes actually the person is not actually scripture orientated either. He has to know what actually scripture dictates to him. Yes. Yeah, there may be something that, by getting counsel, Scripture has provided some guidance and you just didn't realize it.

We went through a quarter on biblical principles of personal finance, like a year and a half ago or so, and one of the comments that I got back from some of the people that took that was, I had no idea that God's Word talked about some of these areas, that it spelled out so much. And so that's one of the areas where we say mature counsel. Part of it is recognizing where God's Word does say something. Sometimes we may look at it and say, well, I've looked at all that God's Word says about it.

Maybe not. It's possible that there's something that applies that we've overlooked. And so that's one angle. Well, we could be misinterpreting what we're reading. Yes, that's right. We don't understand it properly. Knowing how to read it. We made the joke before, you know, Judas went out and hung himself and go thou and do likewise. We have to know what we're reading and how to understand it in order to make sure that we're not heading off in the wrong direction. The Bible says don't forbid tongues, the use of tongues. It does say that. Be careful when it comes to poison. You've got to be careful what you put together. It's critical to understand what Scripture says.

What else do we have on the list there? What else were we looking at? Personal desires. We mentioned personal desires. We did talk about that. I think godly wisdom. Godly wisdom. And this was the distinction that Josiah particularly focused on last week. And it's real important to understand the difference. The world does offer some wisdom, but it's the world's wisdom. And scripture definitely makes a fork in the road when it makes a distinction between godly wisdom and worldly wisdom.

You may sometimes get some advice and say that's good. I remember being at a family gathering once with some of Nancy's family. I remember the elderly uncle advising the younger ones in the group, you know, go ahead and live with the girlfriend beforehand, you know. And this was the advice from the elderly uncle. It may be advice of a person who's older. This is not godly wisdom, okay. It's a problem. It's a serious problem. Bad advice. So the distinction between godly wisdom and ungodly wisdom is critical.

The last one we had is special revelation. And the point we made is that this is really falls under the category of the guidance by the Holy Spirit, but it tends to be more of an inexplicit and I would say almost miraculous nature. So it is by nature rare. We observe that the book of Acts, which is 30 years of the apostles, admittedly not all of them, but it's 30 years of the apostles, And we find only two instances, Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch and Paul in the early chapter, Acts chapter 16, being guided from going into what we now call Northern Turkey, out, he says don't go there, go instead to, over to Thessalonica and Philippi and that area, okay? Macedonia. Those are the two areas where we have explicit and really more miraculous special revelation. It's the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but in a more overt, clear, miraculous way.

It's rare. It is clear when it takes place. What's interesting is that it even takes place when people aren't looking for a miraculous revelation, which is valuable to take a look at. If we go around always looking for a miraculous revelation, that's probably assuming something that's not needed or not valuable. What's interesting is in the rare instances when it occurs, it's clear.

It's not necessarily directly asked for. I'm certain these guys were always asking the Lord's wisdom and guidance. Don't mistake me there. But the expectation of continuing special revelation should not be the norm. The flip side is that God could indeed reveal something more explicitly, and perhaps even miraculously, but we don't go around looking for that all the time.

We look for the things, especially we start off with what's laid out. What do we already have? Yeah? In Paul's case and Acts of Jefferson, The Jesus Spirit said, don't go there. Yes. How did Paul understand that? How did he understand that he was not supposed to go there and the Holy Spirit was saying, no, don't go? Right. Did he get hit with a hammer?

Here's something that's interesting and I think that You have to remember that Acts was also a transitional period. It was a period where you had apostles then, we don't have apostles now. You had prophets then, we don't have prophets now. You had specific guidance lacking the New Testament scriptures. And so there were particular gifts and events that were related to that transitional period of time that have since been cut off or dropped off out of sight.

Think of Paul, and let's step our way through this. You asked the question about Paul explicitly. When did Paul become a believer? Here we are in Acts chapter 9. He is on the road to Damascus. And the Lord comes and taps him on the shoulder, right? No. What happened? The Lord spoke to him. Ah! And this was a rather normal humdrum event, right? No. It was a WHOA! Blinding kind of event, right?

And the Lord spoke to him explicitly. Why do you persecute me? The Lord spoke very directly and explicitly to him. And here's Paul who didn't believe that Jesus was anything other than a hoax. And when he was spoken to, he had no question in his mind who was talking to him. All right, that's part one.

What else do we know about how Paul received teaching? How did he receive teaching? Is it because Barnabas spent years and years with him? How did Paul receive teaching? from Christ. So Paul experienced something that very few people can validly claim to have received, and that's personal, first confrontation by the Lord, and then personal instruction by the Lord. And so when the Lord said no, he was able to discern and distinguish that.

I think for any of the rest of us, it would first of all not be something we would expect. I'm sure he wasn't expecting it at first either. But it would be not something we would expect. It would also be something that would indeed be rare. But even in the New Testament era, it was an unusual event. Everybody did not expect to get the kind of personal revelation, personal confrontation that Paul got. He didn't even, when he wrote to the churches, he said, just like I was confronted on the road to Damascus, everybody else will be. He never said that. I was instructed of the Lord. And he says, I have things to tell you because of that. But he didn't say you're going to get that. So while we see it, it's there. God is certainly capable of doing it. We know that from Scripture.

We also see that even in New Testament times, it was not the norm. It was not the usual way of going about and directing things. But in our lives now, it's not that we say the Lord cannot do that. We know even from what's been revealed that it's rare and unusual. But when it's revealed, it is clear. And interestingly enough, not necessarily because someone was asking for a special revelation.

We don't see that in either one of the two cases. It seemed almost as a surprise. But nonetheless, there, clear, there wasn't any, gee, I wonder if that's what God had in mind. It was abundantly clear. Can you imagine, here's an instance. Imagine Mary, and she goes to Joseph. And here they are in this little town on the edge of Judaism there. Joseph, I'm pregnant. It's by the Holy Spirit. Oh yeah?

Mary had to have that pretty clearly laid out for her to have the boldness to come to Joseph in what would otherwise be an outrageous statement. When the Lord reveals through special revelation in this way, it is abundantly clear. The Lord makes sure that it's clear.

And I can't personally tell you what that's like. I can tell you what scripture lays out. I can't look at anything and say, yeah, the Lord gave me a special revelation here. But we see a few instances of it in the New Testament. But we've got to call it quits.

Yes? I mean, his plan was to put her away quietly because he hadn't received any special revelation. So what did the Lord do to solve the problem? He got one too, right? But it was also abundantly clear. He said, you know, this is my plan. I'm going to put her away quietly. I'm not going to make a big noise about it. And that was how he was going to deal with it until he likewise had his special revelation in which it was abundantly clear. He says, well, I don't understand it, but this is what God has made quite clear. And I don't question it. I don't doubt it at all. Both of them knew that the Lord had spoken. Let's pray. The same was true about Paul that he had to, well, He was going on Old Testament stuff. That's right. Scripture was in the process of being revealed for the New Testament. Let's pray.

Lord, as we've met here over this last quarter, how marvelous it is to look at how much you have laid out before us regarding your will. You have made so many things clear. And we can have confidence in you in all these things, in the things that are sovereign, in the things that are explicitly revealed, and in the ways in which you have given us to determine what's the individual will that you have for us. And we just thank you for what we can count upon in you and for the perspective that we have from you, from your word. that this world does not even know. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.