Jeremiah 42:3 - Homiletics

Divine guidance.

I. THE NEED OF DIVINE GUIDANCE .

1 . It arises out of our obligation to do the will of God. We are not left to carve out a career for ourselves, but to fulfil a Divine vocation. With this definite end before us, our life must fail unless we are directly making for it. A harmless life, following its own whims and fancies, is a wasted life. But only God knows his own will. Therefore we need that he shall reveal this to us, to show us, not only the path of safety, but the way he wills us to go. The most clear sighted need this guidance. As servants, we wait for our Master's orders; as soldiers, we are to follow our Captain's commands. Without these, how can we do the one thing needful?

2 . It arises out of our own ignorance and blindness. We do not know all the circumstances which surround us; we cannot predict the exigencies of the future; the ultimate issue of our actions is beyond our reckoning; the limits of our powers are not known to us; our future requirements and capacities cannot now be gauged. Yet we must decide and act at once in relation to all these unknown quantities. Therefore only a higher wisdom and a larger knowledge can secure us from fatal blunders.

II. THE METHOD OF DIVINE GUIDANCE . The Jews appealed to a prophet. We have no Jeremiah. Yet we have essentially the same means of guidance, now broken into two parts, for the higher education of our spiritual nature.

1 . The revelation of God's will and truth in Scripture. There we have God's guidance in the words of the prophets, and in addition to that in the higher thought of the apostles of the New Testament and of Christianity. Above all, we have the great example, the speaking lessons, of the life and character of Christ, who is the "Light of the World." In all this we have larger, clearer views of God's will and of man's duty than were given to the Jews under the earlier dispensation.

2 . The light of the Spirit of God in our mind and conscience. It may be urged that, while the instructions of the prophets for the guidance of Israel were definite and particular, the lessons which we may gather from revelation are general; and that, though the ideas of conduct thus communicated to us are higher and larger than those of the Jewish economy, they are nevertheless so abstract that we may make great mistakes in the practical application of them. This is true; and therefore, with the less particular revelation, God gives to us more light for the interpretation of it. We live under that dispensation of the Spirit wherein all Christians are, in a measure, prophets, and God's Spirit is poured out upon all flesh ( Acts 2:17 ). By God's light in our souls, interpreting God's revelation in Christ, we may know God's will concerning our lives; and, no longer slaves to the letter of unintelligible precepts, we may carry out the broad principles of the spiritual life by a thoughtful and conscientious application of them to the details of daily life.

III. THE USE OF DIVINE GUIDANCE . God reveals the way; we must walk therein. The direction may be so clear that he who reads may run, yet he must run. The sign post is not a carriage to convey the indolent traveller to his journey's end. God reveals his will; he leaves it to our free choice and effort to obey it. He does not guide us, like the horse or mule, with bit and bridle. We are not forced to follow the revelation, but we are bound in moral obligation to do so. The main object of the revelation of truth is to guide us in practice. God enlightens our darkness that we may gird up our loins and walk in his ways.