2 – The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
6 – For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor…”
As part of our vacation this summer Sue and I decided to take the entire family White Water Rafting in the Smokey Mountains.
So we perused several brochures, made some calls, and finally selected an outfitter who conducted trips on the Little Pigeon River just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. When we arrived at the embarkation point, we were divided into groups of seven people and each group was assigned a raft and a guide who would ride along with us.
Now, I must admit that I wasn’t too impressed with the appearance of the guide we were given. He had long hair, tattoos on his arms, and a pimply face and this made me wonder if he was “grown up” enough for me to entrust him with the lives of my family. But my first impression proved to be totally wrong. As I talked to him I discovered that he was indeed mature and wise in the ways of this particular river. He showed us how to sit in the raft with our feet wedged in the floor so we wouldn’t be thrown out. He made sure our life vests were securely in place and told us how to use the rescue rope that would be thrown to us if we did indeed fall out or if the raft capsized. He demonstrated how to row and how NOT to row. He carefully went over several basic commands that he would use on the trip and he assured us that if we followed his commands we would have a safe and enjoyable “voyage.”
Now, if you have never been rafting then you should know that rapids on white water rivers are classified with a number from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the roughest water and 1 the calmest). Well on this part of the Little Pigeon there were four class 4 rapids and several class 3’s and as we approached each rapid or series of rapids, our guide would describe what was coming and issue orders that helped us to hit it just right.
As we floated along, He told us stories about the river and pointed out turns in the river that rafters should avoid…dangerous places where other unguided rafts had met with disaster and death. He was a very personable guide and he took good care of all of us. I was in the front of the raft with Daniel and Becca and Sue but Sarah was in the back far from my reach and at first I worried about having her back there where it looked as if she could easily fall out but our guide assured me that he would watch after her — and He did. In short — he was a wonderful guide. We had a great time and I gave him a big tip!
You know, when you think about it….LIFE is often like a ride down a mountain river… There are days when things go smooth and steady…you could call these as “CLASS 1 DAYS.” But as we grow older it seems as if “class one days” are few and far between. Most of the time our days are full of crises that could be compared to “CLASS 4’s or even 5’s.” On top of that as we try to “steer” through all the “white water”of life we are often confronted with decisions, like forks in a river and we don’t know which way to turn. It has been said that the decisions we make, MAKE US, and to a large extent that is true. A life well-lived is a life full of GOOD decisions…a tragic life is often littered with ill-considered judgments. If you have ever attended your High School reunion then you probably met peers who have made wrong turns-poor decisions-on the river to life.
After attending his 25th High School Reunion, Bill Hybels wrote, “I was amazed at how many vibrant, optimistic, and enthusiastic seventeen and eighteen year olds somehow stumbled into a world of multiple divorces, financial calamities, family estrangement, and vocational nightmares before they reached the age of 45.” All this goes to show that we NEED a guide through life. In a world as confusing as ours, we need Someone who can look down from on high and say, “Hey, you better go left! There’s trouble on the river ahead!” Perhaps this is why counseling is such big business these days. Everyone knows that life is filled with challenges and difficult decisions so they’ll pay almost any amount of money for expert guidance.
Did you know that psychiatrists in our area can get $130 per hour for their counsel? And even here in Montgomery County Maryland where people are supposedly highly educated there are individuals who will pay palmists and fortune tellers $165 per hour for their guidance. Financial advisers make a good living here — charging up to $200 per hour advising people what to do with there money. Sue and I realize that very soon we will need specialized guidance when it comes to applying for scholarships and college loans to help Daniel get through college.
So there is a great deal of “demand” for the guidance that counselors provide these days. But you know no matter how good they are most professional counselors only specialize in ONE area of human need. Some are trained to deal with family issues. Others know a lot about anger management. Still others’ expertise is in the unique needs of adolescents. Some have studied and know how to help people deal with their addictions.
So the guidance human counselors can provide is very limited at best. But God is more than qualified to counsel or guide us in EVERY area of life.
As Isaiah proclaimed, “The Lord of hosts…is WONDERFUL in counsel and EXCELLENT in guidance.” (Isaiah 28:29 ) You probably know that Scripture defines God in terms of three “OMNI’S”. God is OMNIPRESENT, OMNIPOTENT, and OMNISCIENT. OMNI just means “all.” So to say God is OMNISCIENT means that God is ALL knowledgeable or TOTALLY knowledgeable. He has complete knowledge. As it says in I Samuel 2:3 “…the Lord is a God of KNOWLEDGE.” Understand….this is not saying that God is bright or that HE is sharp. It is not even saying that He is a genius. Using any of these words to describe God would be far too much of an understatement. What the Bible is really teaching is that God knows EVERYTHING! No question can confound Him — No dilemma can confuse Him — No event can surprise Him. He has eternal, intrinsic, comprehensive, and absolutely perfect knowledge. And.unlike my computer, He doesn’t’ have any memory problems in which He is forced to flush His memory banks to create room for more information. In fact the Bible says that even though He keeps track of the moon and the stars; not a single bird falls to the ground without God knowing exactly what is going on. His knowledge even covers the trivial, such as the latest count of the hairs on your head. Hebrews 4:13 puts it this way… “ALL THINGS are naked and open to the eyes of God….” This means that God’s knowledge includes everything there is to know about YOU and the trials and decisions you are facing in life…the “rapids and forks in the river” that life forces you to deal with day after day.
David — the Shepherd King — knew this about God. His 139th Psalm is full of the realization of this truth. Remember its words? “Oh Lord, You have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit or stand…when I am far away you know my every thought.
You know what I am going to say before I say it. You chart the path ahead of me, and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. .” You see, God keeps a copy of the itinerary of your life even before it’s printed. There is no place we have ever gone that has escaped His notice….no place we will ever go that He will not keep His eyes trained on us.
So God is the perfect guide as we go down the river of life.
And in sending Jesus-the long-promised Messiah-God made His skilled guidance available to us in a way it never had been before because when He was born in that stable so long ago God in essence “got in the raft with us.” Hebrews 1 says, “In the past God spoke to [OR GUIDED] our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us [OR GUIDED US] by His Son…”
….which leads us to the first pre-requisite for getting God’s guidance in life….
1. .You see, to be able to take FULL advantage of God’s wise counsel, you must be a Christian.
Romans 8:14 says, “…those who are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God.” When you accept Christ as the Savior and Lord of your life God adopts you as His child and when that happens. His Holy Spirit comes to dwell within you and one of His purposes is to reveal the will of God to you.
So only Christians have the Spirit’s presence within, and we must have this “inside help” if we are going to be able to hear God’s guidance clearly. Remember Jesus did not say, “I will SHOW you the way”…He said, “I AM the Way.”
E, Stanley Jones tells of a missionary who got lost in an African jungle-nothing around him but bush and a few cleared places. He found a native hut and asked the owner if he could lead him out. The native said he could, “All right,” said the missionary, “show me the way.” The native said, “Follow me.” They walked and hacked their way through the unmarked jungle for more than an hour. The missionary got worried and asked, “Are you quite sure this is the way? Where is the path?” The native said, “Bwana, in this place there is no path. I am the path.” And Jesus is the path to the will of God. There is no other way to access it so to take full advantage of God’s wisdom in life you must know this Wonderful Counselor personally. And then another thing you must to do if you really want to follow God’s guidance in life is this…
2. .You must re-evaluate our current guidance systems
Have you ever been on a commercial airline flight and heard the flight attendant say, “All computers, cellular phones, and electronic games must now be turned off”? The reason she says this is because the electronics that power your computer or Game Boy might just interfere with the electronic guidance of the airplane. And competitions between guidance systems-especially when you’re twenty thousand feet in the air-usually leads to trouble.
The same is true in our life. When we have competing guidance systems it leads to a confusion that can have devastating results. One of the worst train disasters in history occurred in the El Toro Tunnel in Leon, Spain on January 3, 1944. Over five hundred people died. The train was one of those long passenger trains with an engine on both ends. On this particular day, when the train went into the El Toro Tunnel, the engine on the front stalled. When the front engine stopped, the engineer on the back engine started up his engine to back the train out of the tunnel.
At the same time, however, the engineer at the front of the train managed to get his engine started again and attempted to continue the journey. Neither engineer had any way of communicating with the other. Both engineers thought they simply needed more power. They continued to pull in both directions for several minutes as the tunnel filled with the exhaust fumes from both engines.
Hundreds of passengers on the train in the tunnel died of carbon monoxide poisoning because the train had one too many engineers. The same principle is found in life….you can’t have two guides…As Jesus said in Matthew 6, “No one can serve two masters.” You must make a commitment to follow God and only God. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and lean NOT on your own understanding; In ALL your ways acknowledge Him. And He shall direct your paths.” And then a third pre-requisite for following the guidance Jesus offers is to…
3. ….develop WISDOM.
In other words, we must learn to use our minds. You see, seeking guidance from God does not mean we are passive. God wants us to learn to use the brains He has given us. He wants us to become wise followers. One foolish follower once said he decided NOT to seek a job he was interested in, on the grounds that it would be a sign of God’s will if he got the job without trying.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it assumes that whatever happens as a result of our doing nothing is God’s will. This is obviously not true. Try going out and sitting in the middle of I-270, saying, “I’m not going to move. I’ll just sit right here and if I don’t get run over by a car, then I will know it is God’s doing and not me acting in the flesh.” We would consider such actions stupid-and so would God. When we face important decisions, we must be not passive but active! We must pray, seek guidance, AND exercise judgement, wisdom, initiative, choice, and responsibility. We are created in God’s image and He is certainly not passive. I think this is what Paul meant in Romans 12:1 when he referred to the Christian life as “reasonable service.” Following God involves our using the reasoning powers of the wonderful minds He has given us. And He has provided several tools or guideposts that help us to use our minds in such a way that we can discern His guidance as we float down “the river of life.”
4. . The first is the BIBLE.
Guidance from the Lord is ALWAYS in accordance with His written Word. He will never lead you to do something that conflicts with the wisdom in the Bible. God has filled the Bible with both principles and precepts to guide us through life’s decisions. PRECEPTS are clearly marked statements like “Thou shalt not steal.” That’s like the signs on Muncaster Mill that say, “Speed Limit 35.”
Well, according to those signs speeding is anything over thirty-five miles per hour…that’s a precept….very clear….easy to understand and apply. There are also PRINCIPLES in Scripture. These are general guidelines to apply to various situations in life. For example Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is more of a precept to be applied to all of our relationships with other people. It is like the the signs in my neighborhood that say, “Drive Carefully.” This may mean 25 miles an hour when the road is clear, or it may mean 10 miles an hour on an ice-covered curve or when kids are playing near the street.
The principles and precepts of God’s Word will never steer you wrong. You can always rely on them. Just be sure you don’t take them out of context. Men often quote Ephesians 5:22 to their wives where it says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” as a text to order their wives to submit to their domineering rule. But doing this is taking God’s written guidance out of context…..for the verse prior to that says, to husbands and wives “Submit TO ONE ANOTHER out of reverence to Christ.” Also….don’t use the “Open-window method” of seeking the Bible’s guidance in life. This is where you open the window and put your Bible on the sill and then close your eyes and let the wind blow it open and then put your finger on the page so that where ever it ends up is God’s leading. If you do that you might end up with Matthew 27:5 where it says, “Judas went away and hanged himself”. Then let the wind blow a little bit more and you might land on Luke 10:37 where Jesus said, “Go thou and do likewise.” Think about it. Would you want to go to a doctor with a stomach ache and have him say, without ever examining you,
“It’s your gall bladder. I know this because I sat by the window a few minutes ago and trusted God to blow the pages of my anatomy book to the problem and the pages landed on ‘Gallbladder.'” As long as we study it correctly the most effective way to receive God’s guidance is to study the Bible. As Psalm 119:105 puts it, “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” In His Word, God has already told us how He wants us to live, love, talk, take care of our bodies, handle our money, pray, function as a family member or employee, and many other things.
So many of the decisions we face in life are no-brainers because the best course of action is clearly spelled out in Scripture. If someone were to wonder if they should sell their house, take all the money, and buy lottery tickets we could tell them with absolute confidence that according to the Bible, “God would say NO!” His written Word is clear about “get rich quick” schemes or attempting to earn our livelihood through games of chance. Should we tell the truth? The Bible says yes. Should we marry a non-Christian. II Corinthians 6:14 says that is not best for us. The clearest and most direct route to the guidance of God is through His revealed Word, the Bible. We ignore it at our own peril.
5. .. And then a second guidepost God has provided to guide us in life is the Holy Spirit.
Jesus promised that when the Holy Spirit came He would speak in ways that would, “…guide us into all truth.” (John 16:13 ) You know, .to “speak” to someone is simply to direct their thoughts toward something. Since I am a finite human being, I have to use indirect means to guide your thoughts. I can’t just send you my sermons via telepathy.
NO, I have to express my ideas in words so you can hear them or read them. I need to give my ideas some physical form in order to communicate them to you. But God does not have to do this. He can directly guide our thoughts without the aid of intervening sounds or images. And He does this through the Holy Spirit. How does the Holy Spirit lead and guide us? Well visions and audible words booming from the clouds are not His usual methods. God tends to lead through gentle spiritual promptings. Perhaps this is why in Psalm 46:10 God advises us to, “Be still and know that I am God.” Remember when Elijah was hiding from Jezebel in that cave and God’s voice came to him? It wasn’t as a powerful wind or a violent earthquake or a consuming fire but as a gentle whisper. (I Kings 19:12 ) God’s Spirit usually gets our attention by creating a sense of unrest in our hearts. That sense of unrest should cause us to slow down and listen for God’s quiet promptings. Then when we yield to these promptings there is a sense of quiet peace. Charles Swindoll puts it this way, “God’s peace acts as the umpire of our hearts.”
I have experienced this kind of guidance from God many times and one of the most significant times was when I was in college….faced with the decision of what to do with my life. I went to college in northern Alabama-right in the middle of the Bible belt-and when I began my studies I became active in a huge Baptist Church called HIGHLAND BAPTIST. And it was a church with everything….not at all like the struggling churches of Delaware where I grew up. This church had large, talented choirs, a growing and vibrant college and career class. They had Wednesday night suppers, tons of activities, great preaching, moving worship services, it was great! One week my BSU director on campus called me into his office and told me of a little church north of town called GREENHILL Baptist church. This little church needed someone to lead their music in worship and work with their teens. He asked me to go out there one weekend to look it over and I did. Unlike Highland, this was a small church: 80-90 in attendance, a weak choir that did not read music and where tenors were something you only dreamed of. They had one accompanist and she could only improvise most of the time. There were no college kids like myself, no activities other than the occasional potluck dinner. The preaching was only “fair to middlin.” The pastor was a good, loving man but when it came to sermons volume was obviously more important than content but I did my duty and gave it my best for a weekend and then happily drove back to town.
Well, on Monday morning the search committee from Greenhill called and they invited me to come on staff there part time and continue working with their choir and teens. They even offered to pay me-$30 a week.
Well, I immediately said, “NO….thank you, but NO.” I loved my big church too much. I didn’t want to give it up to go and work in some po-dunk little church….but the instant I said “NO” it was as if a loud buzzer went off in my head. You know….those ones they ring when you give the wrong answer on a game show? I walked around for days with this “buzzer” going off in my soul….feeling such turmoil inside that I knew I was not following God’s guidance. He wanted me at Greenhill Baptist church…so I called them back and I accepted. And when I did a sense of peace settled over my entire being. I could almost hear the gentle whisper of God saying, “YESSSSSS!” Now, I was very green in those days — inexperienced. I could barely read music myself. I made more mistakes than successes with that little choir. But as the weeks passed and I worked with those incredibly patient people I heard and responded to God’s call into full-time ministry and again felt the “YESSSSSS!” of God’s Spirit. And there is no more wonderful feeling than the feeling that comes from yielding to the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.
6. . And then….a third guidepost that God provides for us is the counsel of wise people
Proverbs 12:15 says, “The fool is right in his own eyes but he who heeds counsel is wise.” God often uses other people to guide us to the center of His will.
So, when you face a decision…..follow the example of all those people who played “WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?” Use a “lifeline” and call on someone whom you know to be a mature, experienced disciple. But be careful. Every church has its share of “self-proclaimed counselors,” those people who are unrecognized by the leaders of the church but who love to inflict their opinion on others. Such counsel is often worth approximately what it costs….nothing. The healthy approach is to talk to several people who we know are wise and godly…people who have been around the “spiritual block” so to speak and ask them for input. Proverbs 24:6 says, “In a MULTITUDE of counselors there is safety.” Think of the church as a smorgasbord of wise people….whom you can go to and get qualified counsel on a given matter. I frequently do this….whenever I face a difficult decision, I often call on several of you, whom I respect and tap into your wisdom so that I can discover God’s best guidance.
7. . The fourth guidepost God provides is the open doors of Providence
Hannah Whitall Smith, author of the classic book, THE CHRISTIAN’S SECRET OF A HAPPY LIFE, wrote, “If a leading is from the Holy Spirit, ‘the way will always open for it.'” In other words, God will always go before us and open the doors through which He wants us to walk. It is never a sign of divine leading when a Christian insists on opening his own way and riding roughshod over all opposing things. In 1892 Martin Wells Knapp wrote a book entitled, Impressions and in it he said, “If the Lord goes before us, He will open all doors before us and we shall not need ourselves to hammer them down.” In Acts 16 we find a perfect example of this principle in the lives of Paul and Silas. Paul had already had one successful missionary journey and now the church at Antioch that had sent him the first time was sending him again. This time rather than crossing the Aegean Sea, they were going by land. They came to the cities of Derbe and Lystra and in Lystra the Lord led them to a young man named Timothy and he began to travel with them. And verse 5 says, “the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily.” So things were going wonderfully. Paul and his companions were in a pagan region where idol worship was prevalent. Yet people were coming to Christ and churches were being founded.
So they moved on toward the Phrygian/Galatian regions with high hopes. But listen to what happened. Verses 6-7 says, “And they passed through the Phyrgian and Galatian region having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia….and when they had come to Mysia, they were trying to go to Bithynia and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.”
Now, remember-they had had great successes….open doors…green lights….things were working but when they moved into the more central and southern regions, God closed the door. They assumed then that God was leading them north so they headed for Mysia and Bithynina but again the door was closed. Let’s put it in our own geographical terms to help us understand what happened. They arrived in Virginia and things went great so they headed south to Louisiana and the doors were closed so they headed north to the Dakotas and God said no.
So they wound up on Troas. That’s like going all the way to San Francisco. And when they arrived and prayed for God’s guidance Paul had a night vision of a man from Macedonia saying,
“Come on over to Macedonia and help us.” (Acts 16:9 ) Now…that’s like standing on the beach in California and feeling God calling you to China or something. Think of what this call would require of Paul and his companions. They were in Asia. Macedonia is all the way across the Aegean Sea on the European side. This is another culture, another language, another continent. Closed doors on one side. Open door on the other. And Paul responded to God’s guidance. He didn’t force his way through closed doors but rather he allowed God to guide him and went through the only door open to him…Look at Acts 16:10 . “After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” When they arrived they met a woman named Lydia form the city of Thyatira and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul This led to the beginning of the church at Philippi, the church at Thessolonica, and the church at Corinth. This was the first work of evangelism in Europe recorded in the New Testament. God guided Paul to this wonderful ministry by closing and opening doors….and He guides us the same way today.
In sending Jesus God kept His promise to guide us. He has provided a Wonderful Counselor Who does direct us through life in many ways: through His written word, through the gentle leading of His Holy Spirit, through the counsel of other disciples, and through the doors of providence. But you know having a guide in life is not enough. You must be willing to listen to his guidance and follow it. There was another raft in our flotilla down the Little Pigeon River this summer that hit one rapid and lost 5 of its 7 passengers…no one was seriously hurt but they fell out. And all the other rafts had to used their life ropes to pull them to safety.
Now they fell out of their raft simply because they did not do what the guide was telling them to do. They didn’t row the right way or at the right time. They didn’t follow the guidance provided. This morning I believe that God wants to guide you and me and He is speaking to some of us very specifically guiding us to important decisions. Some of them are decisions we should make public. Will we follow His guidance and hit this “rapid”just right or will you fail to listen and fall out of the boat? Perhaps He is guiding some of you to join this church or inviting you to a deeper walk with Him. Maybe He is calling you to serve Him in some special way.
You know if you are here and are not a Christian, then I know that even now God is guiding you….inviting you to become a believer. II Peter 3:9 says that God, “…is not willing for anyone to perish but for all to come to repentance. Won’t you follow His leading and decide today to make Him Savior and Lord of your life?I urge you to heed God’s guidance this morning and to make your decision public by walking forward as we sing and sharing that decision — whatever it is-with me.