1 Samuel 23:1-12 October 19, 2008
How do we “Inquire of the Lord?”
2 weeks ago I preached from the story of David where he wanted to build a temple for God. He asked Nathan the prophet about it and initially got the thumbs up. But Nathan goes home and God gives him a prophetic word for David that said “thanks, but no thanks.”
The sermon was about making our plans with God, and how to respond when God says “no” to our plans.
I mentioned that for almost every big decision, (excepting a few notorious decisions) David would “inquire of the Lord.”
As a person who wants to do God’s will, I have often wondered how David did this? What did it mean for David to inquire of the Lord, and how do I do this today? How can I know God’s will for my life?
1. God does have a plan for our lives – David’s life teaches us that He is concerned with every decision.
2. God’s plans are the best way to live our lives – they take into account his individual plan for us, and his plan for all of creation.
3. God reveals his plans when we have the intention of obeying him – if not, not so much –
Read passage
When it says that David Inquired of the Lord, the writer assumes that we know what he is talking about. When I & II Samuel were written, most people would have known exactly what that phrase meant – not so much today.
I think that we can know how David inquired of the Lord by looking at how Saul tried to and failed.
It says in 1 Samuel 28:6
He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets.
Prophets
There would have been any number of Prophets in Israel in David’s day, but there was often one of the community who would advise the king. At the time when David wanted to build a temple, Nathan was the prophetic advisor to the king. Nathan loved David, but he was not shy to tell him what God was saying, even if was that he was going down the wrong path.
Even today we have people with prophetic gifts who we can go to when we want to know God’s mind on something – we just need to make the distinction between prophetic words and personal advice. We can gather a few prophetic people around and lay our decision before God together, wait on God and see if he speaks directly for the issue that we have. In our culture, people are often reticent to declare themselves as a prophet, or even having a prophetic gift. (and those who do often don’t) so you could just as easily say that we should gather some people who hear from God at times and pray together for direction.
Dreams
There was a strong belief that God spoke through dreams – and he does all throughout the scripture. Particularly at Jesus’ birth, God speaks through dreams. He still does today, but many of us have stopped listening to our dreams thinking that they are meaningless: we seldom even remember what we dreamt. When we remember our dreams, it is good to ask if God is speaking to us through the dream. There are times that I know that he is saying something, but the interpretation only comes as I explain the dream to someone else.
If you have troubles remembering your dreams, keep a pad and pen near your bed, so you can write down the gist before your rational mind erases the memory. Not all dreams are from God, some just tell us about what is important to us, some are just brain entertainment while we sleep, but some are a message from God.
If you have an issue you are concerned about, ask God as you lie down to give you direction in your dreams.
Ephod – Urim & Thummim
This is the method we might connect to least out of the three. The Urim & Thummin were “sacred lots:” stones that were cast like dice. They were kept in a pouch in the front of the priestly garment called an Ephod, so when David called for the ephod, he was asking for these stones. It appears that they would give yes or no answers to questions, as well as no answer, since Saul could not get an answer out of them.
The last decision by casting lots that we have recorded was the choosing of an apostle to replace Judas in the twelve. So it was a practice of determining God’s will throughout Bible times
Proverbs 16:33
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
This might be the hardest form of discerning the will of God to replicate today. 1, it might take more faith than we have! 2, we honestly don’t know the mechanics of how they did it.
Us
How do we decide if a plan of action is God’s will or not?
Nicky Gumbel has a great Alpha talk called, “How Does God Guide Us?” In it, he details 5 ways that we can know God’s will. He calls them his 5 C-S’s I’m going to add a 6th
1. Commanding Scripture
2. Compelling Spirit
3. Common Sense
4. Counsel of the Saints
5. Circumstantial Signs
As we look at ways to discover God’s will, or to “inquire of the Lord,” it is important to see that God answered David when he inquired because David’s desire when inquiring was to do what God wanted. On the other hand, God stopped answering Saul because Saul really wanted God to rubberstamp what he wanted. David wanted to serve God, Saul wanted God to serve him. We are allowed, and even encouraged to lay the desires of our heart before God, and to ask him for what we need, but we are not to confuse asking God for something and asking him what his desire is. Part of being successful in learning God’s plan is the ability to subject our plans to his.
Scripture
This is most likely the simplest discernment tool – if your plan goes against the teachings of the Bible it is not God’s will – it is not God’s will for you to leave you spouse and run off with someone else; it is not God’s will for you to cheat on your taxes, it is not God’s will for you to enter into a business deal that will hurt the poor or the environment…
If we are going to understand God’s specific will or plan for us, we need to know that it will always fall into his general plan for everyone. So, read you Bible, understand it’s basic teachings, like the Ten Commandments and apply them to your life and decisions
There are times that God directs us individually through his word – time and time again there are stories of people reading the scriptures, and a specific verse jumps out at them, and they know that it is a directive message from God. This does happen, but we cannot force it – the Bible is not a magical oracle book where we open it randomly, blindly place our finger on a page and do what it says.
Holy Spirit
If you have given yourself to Jesus, then he has given you the Holy Spirit to live within you. Part of the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives is guidance and direction. He does this in many different ways, sometimes through a still soft voice, sometimes through just “knowing.” Sometimes while we are praying things become clear, other times the spirit gives us a strong desire or a passion to do something. As we learn to listen to the Spirit, over time we learn to recognize his “voice” just as we recognize a good friend’s voice on the telephone even without caller display.
We often pour our heart out to God in prayer and then not wait for his response – we need to learn to be still and listen in prayer as much as we talk!
The Spirit can also guide us by more unusual means – through dreams, visions, physical manifestations…
Common Sense
We aren’t supposed to throw our brains out when it comes to seeking guidance. John Wesley said that God usually guided him by presenting reasons to his mind for acting in a certain way. God may call us in a direction that makes no sense on the surface, but that is not his usual method – we can’t say if it is crazy, it must be God, nor can we say if it is crazy it must not be God
My experience prospecting for gold
Good Counsel
The Proverbs are full of verses advising us to seek good counsel.
Find a wise Christian friend and ask them, “I’m thinking that God is leading in this direction, what do you think?” Especially for large life decisions, it is good to seek wise counsel. That doesn’t mean you keep asking people until you find someone who agrees with you! You should ask people who will tell you what they honestly think is right, whether they agrees with you or not.
Circumstances
Sometimes we know we should go down a certain road because all of the signs seem to be pointing in that direction. God puts things in our path that would not normally come up that way as a way to guide us – illustration
Esther is a book in the Bible that hardly mentions God. It tells the story of a young Jewish woman who is chosen by the king of Persia to be his queen. Through a series of events, the Jewish people are in danger of being massacred by the Persians because of a Royal decree. Esther is the only person who has any chance of changing the situation with the king – but it is dangerous – you could lose your life for speaking to the king uninvited.
Her uncle, Mordecai says to her, “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:14
There are times when God puts us in a situation where we have the opportunity to do his will, and his will is pretty obvious.
James says, “So then, if you know the good you ought to do and don’t do it, you sin.” - James 4:17
Trial & Error in God’s presence – Jonathan & Amour bearer
6 Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, "Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few." – 1 Samuel 14:6
As we inquire of the Lord, we have to remember that he is on our side. If our heart for following him, if we aren’t trying to run away from him, he isn’t trying to trick us – he is actually trying to help us to get it right.
We don’t need to be forever second-guessing ourselves. We can trust, that as we seek His ways, God will lead us
