In this third and final part of the series, Carl reviews the four ways God communicates to us, ranging from the inner witness to the authoritative voice of God. He also addresses the importance of letting peace rule and reign in our heart, and how this relates to decision making. Sometimes in life we need to make the first move and God’s path will become clearer as we step out in faith. This premise is revealed in the Book of Proverbs as God’s persistence via confirming words through the prophetic gift or in private devotional time, ensures we will not miss out on His best for us. Join Carl now as he concludes the series…
Here is a complete transcript of the broadcast (below)…
Friend, welcome to the third and final part of Making Wise Decisions. In the end of the last session, I talked about five steps to making a wise decision, and I hope you got those. But very shortly, I will give to you the four ways God speaks to us internally. But before I do that, there’s some new revelation from the word. After Jesus was resurrected, and he was on the beach of Galilee, on the seashore there, with Peter cooking breakfast, they said, Lord, how do you like your steak? And he said, well done, faithful servant, well done Sorry, friend, couldn’t resist it. And there was this other guy. He was a young man. He was a son of a preacher. And his dad said, son, you’re of age now. I’m going to attend a funeral, and I want you to come. He said, OK, dad, it might be difficult, but I’ll do it. He said, good. So they went off in the car, and they drove to the funeral, and dad did the ceremony. And it was very somber, and the father spoke well. As they were lowering the coffin into the ground at this funeral, the father kept saying, in the eyes of God, we are all but dust. We are all but dust.
And he said a closing prayer, and they moved on. And in the car journey home, the son said, dad, that was a very moving service, and I appreciate you bringing me today to my first funeral, because I know I’ll have to do it one day myself if I want to be a preacher. But I’ve got one question for you, dad. What is but dust? Friend, forgive me. That was from my seminary. I couldn’t resist it. The four ways God speaks to us internally. Number one, inner witness. OK, and we’re going to talk about peace shortly in Colossians 3:15. But it’s that inner unction, that inner intuition, OK, that sometimes the ladies have more of than the men The famous saying of the woman’s intuition, of knowing something on the inside without any validation from the outside, not necessarily understanding it with our mind, OK. I would say the main way that I am led is through the inner witness, and I let peace be my umpire. And I’ll tell you more about that shortly. Number two, there’s a still small voice. This is the voice of the Holy Spirit within you, better known as the comforter on the inside of us, who teaches us all things and brings all things to our remembrance. Remember the very words of Jesus in John 14.26. But how can he bring words of Jesus to your remembrance if you haven’t spent time in his word to understand what he said in the first place? Ouch.
Yes, that’s a salty word, friend. The still small voice is that calm, peaceful voice, yes, and it’s so, so important. Then we have number three, the conscience in Romans 2:15. There’s two things that are given to the unbeliever as a witness for God. They are the conscience and the creation. Here in Colorado, you look around, you see the wonderful mountains, incredible scenery, the majestic sunsets, etc., and the creation of God gives testimony to his existence, and we would be foolish to ignore it. Then we have the conscience You know, people who are unsaved, they have a conscience, and God is speaking to their heart right from wrong, OK? And so, you know, growing up, we know right from wrong, all right? And in verse 15 of Romans 2, it says, “who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them.” So, the conscience is bearing witness to us that we are doing right or wrong, but friend, when we become born again, that conscience is connected to the Holy Spirit, and it is much harder to disobey him from that point forward. Then number four, the final one, is the loud and authoritative voice of God.
Now, very few people have heard the external voice of God down the years. I haven’t, friend, OK? Brother Hagen did. I think Andrew Womack’s heard it. Maybe Wigglesworth is a few guys like that, who we look up to, and they’re leaders, and they’ve heard the voice of God, OK? And sometimes it’s in very stressful situations, times of extreme danger, so maybe it’s a good thing that we haven’t heard the authoritative word. All right? Now, let me turn your attention to Colossians 3:15. Now, I’m going to read it from the Amplified, OK? I want you to get this, friend. Of the three messages I’ve given on making wise decisions, this verse is a standout verse for us, OK? Verse 15. “And let the peace from Christ rule, act as umpire continually in your hearts, deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds in that peaceful state, to which as one body you are also called to live, and be thankful, giving praise to God always.”
Wow. Friend, we need to let peace rule and reign in our heart, OK? That is the default setting for the believer. If you’ve lost your peace, you’ve messed up somewhere, and it’s your job to get your peace back, friend, because if you don’t have peace residing within you, remember that scripture in Romans, the kingdom of God is neither meat nor drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. These three triumvirate are within our hearts, OK? But peace, if you’ve lost it, it’s hard to make decisions confidently, because you’re supposed to let peace be your umpire, all right? So what I do is if I want to make a decision, I move in that direction, and if I lose peace, that’s a sign to me from the Lord saying, don’t do it, don’t do it. Internally, I’m talking about, right? Not the soul.
The soul can reason things through all day, and things can look right in the soul realm. But I’m talking about the inner man, the peace that you feel as a gift that Jesus gave, right? Peace I giveth I unto you. Peace not of this world Jesus gave us, right? Now, if you look up that word umpire, all right? We have umpires in cricket in the UK, which is an odd game, won’t explain it now. But umpires, by definition, and I’m reading from the dictionary, is one having authority to decide a question between parties, as one appointed to decide between arbiters who have disagreed, i.e., your flesh and spirit man may be in disagreement today, friend, but allow the peace of the Holy Spirit to lead you. He will make the decision, and he’s going to go in the way of the spirit. He’s not going to go in the way of the flesh.
And when we lose our peace, that’s an indication that we could be heading in the wrong direction in the direction of our flesh, okay? So let peace be your umpire. Absolutely critical. And elsewhere in the scripture, it talks about letting the peace of God guard your mind, okay? So peace is something that’s so precious that we need to cling on to as believers, and oh, we give it away so easily, don’t we? Yep, the slightest agitation, we get upset, we get into worry, anxiety, and all these other things when God’s saying, no, stay in that moment of peace. Now, here’s how I test whether or not God is leading me, and I would lead you to this verse.
Proverbs 4:18, A critical verse “But the path of the just is as the shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day.” The path of the just, the shining light of God’s will in your life is going to shine brighter and brighter, okay? So what I do is I test the word and go in the direction that God is telling me. And what I say to people is, if it’s the Lord, this unction from him is not going anywhere He will repeat it to you over and over. It’s not something you can forget, okay? It’s Monday, you’ve forgotten about it, but on Thursday or Wednesday, he’s gonna come back. I want you to do this, I want you to do this. God will repeat his desire. It’ll become a burning desire inside of you that you can’t really escape. Now, if you’re one who, you know, puts away the things of God and doesn’t listen, there’s a point where you can become callous to his prompting, okay? And we talked about the seared conscience in previous broadcasts.
We don’t wanna be their friend. We wanna be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, okay? He’s a dove, right? He’s symbolic of a dove, and doves are very gentle and tender, okay? And so we tested, or rather I tested in particular, an unction from the Lord, whether or not it goes away or not. Like going to Bible school. That was an unction that came on me in 2009. And the Lord said, you know, you need to go to Rhema in Oklahoma, in Tulsa. I’m like, Lord, it’s pretty hot down there. It gets to be 120 degrees or something ridiculous and 85% humidity. You know, a Brit might melt there. I was making it clear to the Lord. He said, no, you go to Oklahoma, you go to Rhema. This is what I want you to do. Now he told me that one-on-one, but he was gracious enough to give confirmation to me that it was his will And when God called me to pastor, he told me personally, he then provided a dream through a co-laborer in Christ. His name was Pablo Sanchez. I was ministering in 2009 within this state of Colorado, in Delta, in Sterling, in various prisons around this state. And Pablo and myself would go into these prisons and it was an awesome time with God. We actually saw a man who was in a wheelchair, stand up and run around the service. And that was fantastic. But while I was driving to the prison that day with Pablo, he said, look, last night I had a dream. I had a dream of you. I saw you behind a pulpit.
It was around here. It was in this state. I know that. Me and my wife drove about an hour to an hour and a half to come and see you. And you were ministering in this area, okay? Now that morning, the Lord had already shared with me that I was to be a pastor. Okay. And the same day, Pablo gave a confirming dream by the Holy Spirit. And God is gracious. Amen. Then when I visited Rhema for a weekend, okay, it was just like an introduction to the seminary. When I walked through the door of the first classroom, the teacher, after she just adjourned the previous class, pointed to me and said, you, you’re going to be a pastor. You know that, right? God’s called you to pastor Friend, this person did not know me at all. Okay. That’s an example of a word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit. Okay. Well, arguably a word of wisdom, because by definition it was for the future, but it was confirming a word that God had already told me. And friend, God will confirm to you. If it’s a major life decision, if it’s someone you’re going to marry, if it’s a house you’re going to buy, if it’s a car you’re going to purchase, if it’s which school to go to. Okay. A lot of younger people out there listening, don’t know which school to go to.
God’s going to confirm it, friend. He’s going to tell you directly firstly, because he makes collect calls. All right. And then he’s going to confirm it through his prophets, through visions, through dreams, however necessary, even circumstances. Although we need to be careful with circumstances. Okay. Because although Gideon in the Old Testament used a fleece, that’s not how we should do things primarily, because we have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us. And we should be led by the Holy Spirit, not circumstances. I say to people, be careful. Okay. Using circumstances as a confirmation from God. You know, some people are like, well, if it rains today, I’m going to pray for Sister Susan. Or, you know, if it’s foggy, I’m going to do this. Or if the person hands me two sugars instead of one at the coffee shop, I’m going to do this and that. That’s weird. Don’t do that stuff. In fact, I would say to you that that’s tempting God.
We don’t want to be tempting God in his leading. Okay, friend. So let’s recap real briefly. If you have a major decision right now, don’t rush that decision. If God is leading you in your decision, his unction will not go away. He will confirm it to you through words of wisdom, knowledge, dreams, visions, etc. Okay. And I mean your imagination, not visions, open visions. And be careful with fleeces, because you might get fleeced if you start tempting God using circumstances. No, we go by the Word. We go by the Holy Spirit. We go by prophetic confirmation if necessary. But that’s not requisite to do God’s will. Sometimes God expects you to do it because he told you, and you’re waiting for fifteen confirmations. Okay. That is not needed, friend. I hope you enjoyed this series.
https://carljosephministries.com/podcast/is-there-a-time-to-die/
https://bible.org/seriespage/4-wisdom-god
Title: Making Wise Decisions: Part 3
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