Your Questions Answered

We received the question:

How does a person know for sure that something was from the Lord? Our hearts are so deceitful. We can fool ourselves with our emotions and give ourselves comfort. Life is too serious and short to deceive ourselves. I know we have to see what comes before, during, and after. If a person is stripped down in self, feeling very sinful, sorrowing because of his sins against a good-doing God, feeling helpless in self, and a text from the Bible “hits home in the heart,” completely overtakes a person’s emotions and lifts him a little bit off the dung hill, takes away his sins for a short time, and causes the devil to flee, was it from the Lord?

This is a question that many of our readers might have. It is not a question that is so easy to answer. God’s Word must be our guide. The Lord first of all works faith by the hearing of His Word. The common way that God’s people are taught is by the preaching of God’s Word.

It is also important to see if that text is considered in its context, that is, if the meaning of the message we received is in agreement with the truthfulness and unity of the Holy Scriptures; in other words, whether it really is in accordance with what God is saying in His Word.

We also have to be careful with feelings and emotions. Our heart is deceitful. Never make a ground for salvation out of feelings. The late Rev. I. Kievit once said, “A child of the Lord may receive a text, but the receiving of a text does not make us yet a child of God.”

There is a difference between truths which come unto us and truths which come into us (voorkomende en inkomende waarheden).

There is the danger that people comfort themselves with “words” which come unto them without the application of the Spirit. People help themselves with a text and yet never come as a lost sinner to Christ. They tend to become something with it: converted, saved, and rich.

But a word that is carried into our heart by the Spirit gives us such deep impressions of the greatness, holiness, majesty, goodness, and mercy of God, that it humbles us and makes us small. It gives labor at the throne of grace and causes one to seek Christ.

The former truths, coming unto us, do not really bind us to the Lord. But the latter, the truths coming into us, certainly do. They bind us to the throne of grace for more instruction.

Indeed, God can teach us by means of giving a text. But how was it before? Was there room really made for it? God’s Word is always fitting, not for our desires, for they may be carnal and human, but for our real condition.

How was it during it? God speaks with majesty, authority, and power. He gives faith with it. Then they must believe it at such moments, although it can be attacked later.

How was it after? Did it bring us low before God? Did it cause us to say, “Who am I, Lord, that Thou hast looked upon a dead dog as I am?” Did it give us tender fear of God, hope, but also submission to His will? Did it bind us closer to the throne of grace? Was it to our instruction and to the strengthening of our faith?

When God gives “a word” from Scripture, it will not always be what we desire to hear from Him. Some people, when you hear them telling what God has done to them, have received many texts. It is so remarkable, however, that these texts are always comforting and encouraging words, never a word that makes them ashamed or a word of rebuke or of discovering. However, we need those words too. God’s people also desire uplifting words rather than rebuke and instruction; yet the latter can be more useful and necessary.

Be also careful that you don’t make your own application of it. Some indeed received “a word” from God in times of need and affliction, but made the wrong interpretation of it.

Much more could be said about this important question. What is essential is whether we know the living life of faith, the fellowship with God, the seeking of His countenance and His nearness. Did we go to the Scripture, or did God’s Word irresistibly come to us? Did it bring us to Him? Did we receive high thoughts of Him and low thoughts of ourselves?

If it is well, then these words made us more teachable, humble, and hungry. It made us long for Him, the blessed Mediator, and for the guidance of His Spirit.

Dear friend, do not trust in your feelings. Do not seek to have many feelings or emotions. Seek to know Him, and to be found in Him. Then you will certainly also have feelings with it. But then He will be your hope, your comfort, your foundation. May the Lord give what we read in Psalm 43:3, “O send out Thy light and Thy truth: led them lead me.”

Remember: if we are more than such a beggar in need of this guidance, we are too much. Let it be your desire and experience, “Till in Thy house of prayer all was made plain” (Psalter 204:1). It was for this reason that David longed for a place in God’s house (Psalm 27:4). There the Lord will cause the needy ones to be fed, the blind ones to be taught, and the fools to be instructed.

Then God in Christ will be honored.

Your questions may be sent to: Rev. C. Vogelaar 729 Willow Run Wyckoff, New Jersey 07481

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen