Making Decisions; Fleeces and Confirming Signs
Advertising can be defined as psychological warfare waged on the consuming public by advertisers who are attempting to influence and manipulate our purchasing decisions.
And it works.
In college in a psych class, I read one example that the day after Tide had a commercial on national tv they sold 90,000 more units.
The other week I was driving, and kablam my wife hauled off and belted me on the arm. I asked what's up and she told me she had just seen a Volkswagen. I'm like yeah, and? Apparently there is a commercial where if you see a Volkswagen you get to punch the person next to you. I don't know how it has impacted Volkswagen sales, but punches are up 400% across the nation.
If you think companies would spend millions of dollars on advertising just hoping they might work, you are very mistaken. They consult psychiatrists, and psychologists, and focus groups all in an attempt to maximize their influence on you.
The point I want to make through this, is that their are a lot of little nudges we get in life that impact and affect our decision making process. Last Sunday, I preached on small seeds. This is a corollary message. Divorce doesn't just happen, a small seed is planted. adultery just doesn't happen, a small seed is planted. People don't just get saved, a seed is planted, watered and ultimately harvested. We talked about being careful about the seeds that are being implanted into our spirits and those of our spouse, children. Get the message, if you weren't here last Sunday.
This morning I want to talk about making decisions, and especially the role of fleeces and confirming signs. Influences in our decision making process.
Read text Gen 24:1-27
In this passage of scripture Elieazar, Abraham's servant, put a fleece before the Lord so that God would confirm to him that he was making the right decision.
Wouldn't it be nice every time you had to make a big or important decision that we got a sign from God on what we ought to do. I mean something that would dramatically demonstrate to us that we were on the right track and going in the right direction. That would erase all doubt, and that we could confidently say, "I know I am walking in the Lord's will."
First church I went to pastor, Orilla Youker a lead woman in the church was in the hospital with a blockage. I prayed, it opened up that day, they voted me in. We both took it as a confirming sign I was to pastor that church.
Confirming signs are nice, but the heart can always find one when it wants to:
Illustration: A flight attendant spent a week's vacation in the Rockies. She was captivated by the mountain peaks, the clear blue skies, and the sweet smelling pines. But she also was charmed by a very eligible bachelor who owned and operated a cattle ranch and lived in a log cabin. At the end of this week, Mr. Wonderful proposed. But it had all happened so quickly that the woman decided to return home and to her job, feeling that she would somehow be guided to make the right decision. The next day, in flight, she found herself wondering what to do. To perk up, she stopped in the rest room and splashed some cool water on her face. There was some turbulence and a sign in the rest room lit up: PLEASE RETURN TO THE CABIN. She did--to the cabin back in the mountains (Reader's Digest [1/81], p. 118)
Illus: Girl I knew was wondering what school to go to, in her devotions she read about Bethany concluded it was God's will for her to go to Bethany Bible College.
While God may have wanted her to go there the bible says, 2Pe 1:20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of one's own interpretation, (NASB), and yet people put personal spins on the scripture all the time.
Illus: Guy who is thinking about buying a black Ford pickup, all of a sudden he sees them everywhere. He is tickling his own ears.
Simple decisions usually need a simple decision-making process. But difficult decisions typically involve issues like these:
Uncertainty - Many facts may not be known.
Complexity - You have to consider many interrelated factors.
High-risk consequences - The impact of the decision may be significant.
Alternatives - Each has its own set of uncertainties and consequences.
Interpersonal issues - It can be difficult to predict how other people will react.
Emotional confusion we do not live in a contaminant free clean room environment.
Pressure to act, by circumstances, family, friends, coworkers
Deadlines
Think about that word "deadline." Origin: 1864
It began as a real line, drawn in the dirt or marked by a fence or rail, restricting prisoners in Civil War camps. They were warned, "If you cross this line, you're dead." To make dead sure this important boundary was not overlooked, guards and prisoners soon were calling it by its own bluntly descriptive name, the dead line.)
Sometimes because of these factors we are tempted to make decisions that rush us to our ruin, or to procrastinate to we stagnate.
What we need to do is to come up with a strategy for dealing with difficult decisions. There are two paths we can take in this regard, a secular model, and a spiritual model. The problem is there is no single secular model for decision making, and there is no single spiritual model for decision making.
In general the secular models would be a logical, step by step assessment of the pros and cons of each different choice and coming to a decision based on those assessments. While that can be a very good help, its shortfall is that it does not include God. As Christians we always want to include God in our decisions.
The book of James says:
Jas 4:13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."
Jas 4:14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are [just] a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Jas 4:15 Instead, [you ought] to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that."
Proverbs says: Pr 3:6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
The problem with the spiritual model is that there is more than one, and some of them are the opposite of each other! I am not saying the bible contradicts itself, I am saying that when it comes to God guiding us to certain decisions, He uses different means for different people and circumstances. That is not contradiction, that is wisdom!
For example let's consider confirming signs, and fleeces.
Like I said earlier, sometimes in life we would like a nudge from God. We would like God to just make the decision for us, we don't like having to juggle all the possibilities and choices, and besides after all He already knows what we are supposed to do. The reason God doesn't just always tells us what to do, is because it would stunt our development.
Howso you ask?
In straining after God's voice we improve our spiritual hearing.
In a Peruvian textile factory in the city of Arequipa, some 500 miles southeast of Lima, generations of women have learned to rapidly sort alpaca fiber into five qualities of fineness merely by touch, distinguishing diameter differences of as small as one micrometer— one hundred-thousandth of an inch.*
These ladies fine tuned their ability to determine thickness over time and with practice. As Christians it is by straining after the voice of God we can improve
our spiritual hearing. We can learn the difference between our fleshly desires, our feelings, and the impulses God would give us in regards to direction. We can get to the point where we genuinely know if the voice that says, "return to the cabin," is God's or our own emotions.
It also stunts our development because we tend to pray less about things God has told us to do. When we are not sure we fight in prayer for things to come into alignment with God's will, when we think we know what He wants, we assume it will just happen. It is this fighting in prayer that causes us to grow.
Let me quickly show times when in scripture it was right to ask for a sign, what a sign can do for you and what a sign can't do for you.
I know it sounds like a lot, but I think I can do this quickly.
When is it right to ask for a sign, and what will it do for you:
1. When He tells you to, or when He allows you to.
Ahaz. (Isaiah 7:10,11) A sign. Hebrew word for sign is oth. Means to make an incision or dent. Something, some occurrence or action which served as a pledge of the divine certainty of something else.
Gideon. Explain what a fleece is and what Gideon did.
2. What will signs do for you.
Strengthen your faith that God will help you. Gideon.
Help you believe in God's power to forgive sins. Mt. 9:6
Bring people to saving faith. John 20:30,31
2. What a sign can't do for you:
Produce faith. John 20:30,31 says we might believe, it didn't say we definitely would. Pharoah didn't and he saw miracles, the Pharisees didn't and they saw miracles. How many people have said to God, "you get me out of this mess and I will go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life?"
A sign is only as good as the soil into which it has been sown. It can't grow in every type of human heart.
Some big problem with asking God for a sign.
1. It limits God to two choices. Yes or no. In reality are those the only choices He has? No.
2. You are putting a knife to God's throat and saying I haven't heard you, you will answer me now!
3. You are seeking an answer in the world in which we live, rather than in your mind and spirit. The world is the realm of the evil one, he is the prince of the power of air. Circumstances can and often fight against the will of God.
How to know when it is OK to ask God for a sign, and how to know when you are following God's leading.
1. If you have an inner peace. 2 Cor 2:13, the lack of inner peace caused Paul to move on.
2. Ask. He that seeketh findeth. If you will ask with a sincere heart, God will give you and answer. He especially loves to answer this question: "God if you are real let me know."
Close: Are you struggling with a decision? Are you troubled you made a wrong decision. Are you feeling trapped by some decisions you have made. Prayer that God would help, and especially help not to dig ourselves into a bigger mess.
*Source :http://discovermagazine.com/2001/apr/featalpaca
