TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE DOCTRINE
OF DIVINE GUIDANCE:
Knowing God’s Will for Your Life
Part 1
May 6, 2018
BEFORE we begin, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, take a moment to name your sins to God the Father. This will allow you to be filled with the power of The Holy Spirit as you read this booklet (EPH 5:18 & 1JO 1:9). IF YOU HAVE never believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have that opportunity right now. Simply tell God the Father that you are believing on His Son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you make that decision, you are now a believer and will always be a child of God! When you die, you will spend eternity with Him forever in heaven! (JOH 3:16 & ACT 16:31).
The Doctrine of Divine Guidance will teach you how to determine God’s Will for your life. This is very, very important because we need to know His Will to live our Christian Walk. We are talking about His Will as it relates to both specific and general things, by the function of your own thinking in the application of Bible doctrine. It is the communication of God’s Divine will through the Divine revelation of His Word resident in your soul.
Today, God’s revelation is confined to the Bible and through the pain of discipline for the reversionist in the cosmic system. In the ancient world, Divine Guidance was comprised of direct communication from God through dreams, visions, dialogues, the portion of the Canon which then existed, discipline, and lessons from angels. During the Church-Age, in which we live, the only way to know positively what the Will of God is for your life is to understand Bible doctrine and metabolize it. You cannot know the Will of God apart from knowing the Word of God. That, my friends, is one of the most important lessons in your Christian Walk.
God’s Will breaks down into three classifications. The story of Balaam in NUM 22-24, communicates this well. Please take the time to read these two chapters before going further.
The first classification is the Directive Will of God, which basically is what God desires. NUM 22:12 is a good example of this: God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.” So what we can take from this verse is that the Directive Will of God is comprised of direct commands like, “do not do such and such,” or “do such and such.” EPH 5:17 says it nicely: So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. This verse teaches us that if we understand the Will of God, we will not be foolish! It really is that simple!
The second classification is the Permissive Will of God, in which God allows certain things to happen, but they are not what He desires. For example, God permits sin to happen because He gave us free will so we have the right to choose good or bad. But God does not desire us to sin. There is a man named Balaam who appears in the Book of Numbers. Like many believers, Balaam was good but also sinful. He had knowledge of and respect for God. Balaam made a living as a magician. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little magic but Balaam was no David Copperfield. He used his talent as a magician to rip people off! King Balak of Moab wanted him to curse the Jews because of his fear of them; so he offered to pay Balaam to travel to see him. But God directly ordered Balaam not to go. And Balaam disobeyed Him by agreeing to go to help King Balak anyway. God was angry that Balaam disobeyed Him but in His Permissive Will, He allowed Balaam to go. Again, God’s Permissive Will allowed him to go but God did not want him to go.
The third classification is the Overruling Will of God. This is explained by the fact that Jesus Christ controls history. This simply means that God will or will not allow certain things to happen, even though man or angels have chosen to do the opposite.
The Will of God can be described in four principles. The first principle is that the Will of God is directive. God has a plan for your life. The second principle is that the Will of God is determinative. God allows us to choose one way or another, to bring us to the place of blessing or discipline. The third principle is that the Will of God is permissive. Negative volition to Bible doctrine is permitted, but Divine Justice provides discipline. The fourth principle is that the Will of God is preventative. It provides us with Bible doctrine, establishment laws, and discipline to keep our human volition under the Will of God.
In human history, God’s Sovereign Will exists right along with our free Will. Our free will gives us the freedom to choose for or against His Sovereign Will. God is the Supreme Authority and Ruler of all He creates. This means He can do what He wants in any situation. This describes His Sovereign Will. God allowing Amenhotep to be so evil to the Jews is an example of God’s Sovereign Will and man’s free Will coexisting. And remember, God is a Perfect Gentleman and will never interfere with man’s free Will. But in His Overruling Will, He can do things to keep us in line!
There are two other categories of will: angelic will and human will. Both are sovereignly bestowed by God as part of the Angelic Conflict. The Will of God is manifest in the Decree of God which is His Sovereign Plan for angels and man. The Divine Decree teaches us the Will of God. It is His Eternal, Holy, Wise, and Sovereign Purpose, comprehending at once all things that ever were or will be in their courses, conditions, successions, and relations. That’s a HUGE sentence so read it through a few times!!
As humans, we are limited in what we can thoroughly comprehend so we can only understand the Divine Decree partially so don’t be alarmed if you don’t grasp all of this information at once. This warning is taught in ISA 55:8-9: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
God’s Divine Decree is His eternal and irreversible will, regarding the future existence of events which happen in time and the precise manner and order of their occurrence. Therefore, the Decree expresses the Eternal Plan and Will of God by which God has rendered certain all events of history in the past, present, and future. As such, the Will of God is the Sovereign choice of the Divine Will and Mentality inherent in the essence of God by which all things are brought into being, controlled, made subject to His pleasure, and producing His glorification. It is God’s pleasure to permit both angelic and human volition (free will).
There is one all-inclusive Will and Purpose of God concerning all that ever was, or is, or ever will be among creatures. God’s Will and Purpose originates within God himself without any outside influences. They were objectively designed for His Pleasure, Glory, and Satisfaction in Eternity Past. All creatures have been placed in space and time and all events relating to space and time were decreed simultaneously and instantly. These simultaneous decrees result in all Divine action.
Divine action falls into two categories. The first is Divine action within the Godhead; it is the interaction between the Members of the Godhead and is called immanent, intrinsic, and subjective.
The second category are actions related to creation; they are the actions of God which are called extrinsic (outside of God), transient (they function in human history chronologically), and objective (the function of Divine Justice in human history)
{to be continued}