Ask a Pastor Ep. 80 - Does the Holy Spirit Lead or Speak to Us?
Welcome to Ask a Pastor, a podcast from Orchard Hill Church! Have you ever had a question about the Bible, Faith, or Christianity as a whole? Submit your question and one of our pastors will answer on the program. New episodes every Wednesday.
This episode, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund, Joel Haldeman and Brady Randall sit down to have a conversation about the situation at Bethel Church with praying for a resurrection, how the Holy Spirit leads us and how God works in the world.
Mentioned in the Podcast
Bethel Church Story #1 - https://www.christianpost.com/news/bethel-music-songwriters-2-y-o-daughter-stops-breathing-pronounced-dead.html
Bethel Church Story #2 - https://www.christianpost.com/news/bill-johnson-explains-why-bethel-is-praying-for-2-year-olds-resurrection.html
Bethel Church Story #3 - https://www.christianpost.com/news/bill-johnson-elaborates-on-why-they-prayed-for-resurrection-of-dead-mother-calls-it-victory-story.html
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Podcast Transcript
Joel Haldeman: Hey welcome to the Ask a Pastor podcast. We're excited to jump into some topics about how the Holy Spirit leads us today and some of the work of God that exists today. I'm joined of course by Kurt and Brady Randall is our campus pastor in Butler County. Brady, give us a scoop on Butler.
Brady Randall: Yeah, Butler, way up North. It's been a lot of fun. We went to two services this past year and you never know when you're on that threshold because you go from having a ton of energy in the room to dividing that in half. But it's just been really encouraging to see God work and the excitement of the people and then to feel two services has been really awesome. So we've been really encouraged people have being getting connected, people who have a lot of spiritual questions about who Jesus is and so that's just been really fun to be a part of that. And to see it from afar as well.
Joel Haldeman: I think what a lot of people who come to church, they don't really think about this, although they feel it. Is that as the managers of church, we have to manage energy. And if a room is packed, there's too much energy and it's like there's no room for anybody else. I can't invite anybody because there's no place for them. But if the room is too empty, it's like, "Oh, this place is dead," even though there's multiple services. So that's such an interesting balance that we have to play between, the room is full. We need to make room for more people, but if we divide this in half, it's going to feel a little bit empty.
Brady Randall: Yeah, there's that threshold.
Joel Haldeman: But it sounds like people have responded so well to that. You went to two services, both services filled up. So that's awesome.
Kurt Bjorklund: We're starting to look at three from where I sit, I know Brady doesn't love that question, but I'm looking at it and saying, "Two are full, it might be time to think about a third."
Joel Haldeman: As someone who grew up in Butler County, school us on Butler County. How would you define Butler County?
Brady Randall: It's funny because you talk to some people further south or in Wexford and you get this like, "Oh up in the sticks or the hicks and the farmland and cows," and we do have some of that. But we also have not city folk, but it's funny because Butler County is so large and you go out and you can find cows and farms, but at the same time there's also a city field downtown Butler.
Joel Haldeman: You guys are terrified of it too.
Brady Randall: Not terrified, no, no, no. And there's been a lot of breweries actually popping up in Butler County, which is nice and neat and not maybe something I would have seen say 10, 15 years ago. So it's been fun.
Kurt Bjorklund: How much fun Brady?
Brady Randall: Oh, it's been real fun. Especially you have some pens and wings nights like we're having with some of the guys. That's a lot of fun. You can have a lot of good ministry over a beverage. So that's very fun.
Joel Haldeman: Of all the Pittsburgh teams, are you most strongly a fan of the Pens?
Brady Randall: The Pirates, surprisingly. Yes, for as bad as they've been, I just am very attracted to the Pirates, always have been and for some reason probably always will.
Kurt Bjorklund: So are you encouraged by the new management?
Brady Randall: Too early to tell.
Joel Haldeman: Has he been named the new manager?
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah.
Brady Randall: New manager, new general manager.
Kurt Bjorklund: Same owner.
Brady Randall: Same owner. So that's the one constant variable. But I'm willing to give them some grace for probably a couple seasons, but everybody has been encouraged within, but at the end of the day, it's wins and losses. So that'll tell the story. But I'm always excited. I'm an eternal optimist when it comes to the Pirates. Every spring training, hope springs eternal. So hey, let's shock them this year too.
Joel Haldeman: So we want to jump into a topic that, a few months ago there was a situation at a Bethel Church where one of the worship leaders had a daughter that passed away unexpectedly. Super tragic. But what was unique about this situation was that the church said very publicly that they were praying for her resurrection. And so we're going to spend some time talking about this and then just also talking about the role of the Holy Spirit and how does the Holy Spirit lead us? When is it appropriate to say, "God told me X, Y, Z." But first on this Bethel situation. So the church really rallied and was having these prayer events at the church where they were gathering to pray for her resurrection, even up to a week after the child was born. And so I think the question that I just want to start with is, is it ever appropriate to pray for a physical resurrection today? Let's just start there. Is it ever appropriate?
Brady Randall: Yeah, and it's one thing to sit in our seats and speculate and what should have happened and what would have happened. But I can only imagine being in those parent's shoes, your two year old child who's got the rest of their life in front of them is suddenly gone. And what would you do in a situation like that? I would want to say, "God, if you can raise the dead, I pray that you would do that." I can imagine that being a first response, and certainly, Jesus raised the dead. He's the first fruits of those who will come after him. One day those who have trusted in Jesus, you'll hear the voice of God and will be raised to life. And we get some foretastes of that.
Brady Randall: Certainly we see people raising the dead in scripture before Jesus. We see Jesus raising, I think what, three people in the gospels that we're aware of and we see other people also raising the dead. So there is some precedent in the scriptures, but it's certainly not the norm. And people who died in Jesus' present, he didn't always raise them as well. So is it appropriate? I don't think it's biblically inappropriate necessarily. I think some of the controversy comes in when it's expected or declared or demanded. But as far as having a biblical warrant against it, I don't know that we have that.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, what do you think Kurt?
Kurt Bjorklund: I think that's really well said. I think the natural impulse if you're in a situation like that might be to call out to God. And I wouldn't ever want to say to somebody that's inappropriate. But I would also say that anytime we start to presume demand, declare, that's where I get uncomfortable. And that's probably a bigger question than just this instance. I feel like there's a movement in some of the branches of Christianity that says you can command God, you can declare things, you can make things happen because of your faith. And this is really just a logical outworking of that way of thinking. And I don't believe that that is biblical. And as a result, it ends up being damaging to people's faith. Just take it off something maybe that's so emotionally charged.
Kurt Bjorklund: If you have a child who is playing little league and they say, "I really want to play my little league game tonight, but it's forecast that it's going to rain. And I learned at church that I can pray for the rain to hold and the rain will hold or that I can declare something or command something." And so they say, "God, I command or I declare that it won't rain today," and it rains. Well, what happens to the child's faith? All of a sudden the child says, "God isn't reliable. This faith thing doesn't work. There is no God." I mean you go down all these paths. Well all that happens as you get older and your issues change is the same format. And the tension is the scriptures do indicate that faith is something that God desires to see and sometimes responds to.
Kurt Bjorklund: And so we don't want to ever get to a point where we say, "Oh, just don't pray for anything. Don't ask boldly." But at the same time, I think the tension is how do we ask boldly for something without turning it into a command. And again, this is where maybe a parenting analogy is good. If your kids come to you and they ask something, you want them to ask boldly but you want them to do it without demanding. If your kid wants to go to Kalahari or something, you them to say, "I want you to take me to Kalahari." And that's great. You appreciate the request. What you don't appreciate is when they command, expect, when they basically say, "You will do this because you're a good father, so I expect you to do this." And then all of a sudden you start saying, "Well that's not how this is going to work." So I don't know if that's helpful. How do you respond to it, Joel?
Joel Haldeman: I'm with the two of you. I've always thought, if I had a child that dropped dead, I would pray for a resurrection. I just would ask God, "Raise the child from the dead." I think what became just a little concerning with what we saw in that situation, and again, this is awful. Such a tragic situation for the family, but we're trying to look at the church's response and how is the church shepherding people in the midst of this? And what is the church teaching people? I don't know if for beyond a day after that, that I would pray for a resurrection. At some point we have to accept that resurrections are not normal and if we've prayed and God hasn't done it, then I think we need to be open to the fact that, what I need to be praying for now is not a resurrection, but for God's glory and for myself to find peace in this. There was a go fund me thing that was started for the family.
Joel Haldeman: Again, I don't think there's anything inappropriate about that, but this was one of the comments that I read. This person said, "We donated $12 because we believe Olive will be raised to life again within 12 days from today. That is before the end of 12 31, 2019 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the firstborn son of the living God. Amen." In all caps. One exclamation point. Amen. Two exclamation points. Amen. Three exclamation points. Also in all caps, "Don't stop believing and persistently persevering." And yeah, to your point, it just made me see that what, and I don't know a lot about the church itself, but there are people that are responding with this. You can't just pick a day and say it's going to happen by this day. It's one thing to pray for God to do something, it's another thing to name a day and say God's going to do it by this day.
Kurt Bjorklund: So if I were to take the other side, if I were to say, "Hey, I'm somebody who advocates this kind of thing," what they would usually say to that is, "Well, you are demonstrating a lack of faith by saying I can't pick a day. God responds to faith and therefore," they'd probably even go so far as to say maybe the reason that this child wasn't resurrected is because there were doubters. There were people who didn't believe, people who didn't enter in with enough faith. And that's why this didn't happen. And that's part and parcel of the whole way of thinking because it always turns it back to somehow somebody didn't have enough faith because it's always God's will to do the best things.
Kurt Bjorklund: And so I bring that up because I think what you're saying is completely reasonable and right, but at the same time, that's the objection that somebody would give to that. Because they'd say, "By you saying that, you are planting seeds of doubt. And that's exactly why it didn't happen." So how would you respond to that spiritually if that's what somebody said to you and you were in the midst of having prayed for a friend where this happened?
Brady Randall: Well, Kurt, just to validate what you're saying, some actual quotes that came out of that church in the midst of this, one of the pastors said, "Her time is not done," and that just gave me a little pause because that would presume that we know the mind of God. There's a couple of scripture references, Psalms 139 comes to mind about how all of our days were ordained in God's book of life. And so for us to presume the mind of God as to when that is, that would give me a little pause.
Brady Randall: They said, "Keep declaring life over Olive," there's that declaration, "Her time is not yet done. It's with confidence that we yield what Christ has paid for," and so a lot of times, healing has been bought by Christ and so we need to take hold of that. "It's time for her to come to life." The pastor also on another occasion said that it's always God's will to heal. "How can God choose not to heal someone when he's already purchased their healing? He already decided to heal. There are no deficiencies in his end. All the lack is on our end of the equation." So that's just some of the quotes that come out as to what you're referring to.
Kurt Bjorklund: So there It is just in very clear words saying Jesus' death and resurrection paid for all future healing. So if we're not healed, it's not God, it's us, is exactly what that says. And that's actually a key point too, is that when you hear this teaching, it's tied to Christ's death. And part of the atonement in people's minds isn't just Jesus paying for sins, but making all physical healing. So any lack of physical healing is a lack of an ability or lack of faith to receive the atonement of Jesus. And so yeah, that's a very different teaching than what we would teach here at Orchard Hill.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, and I would say it's absurd. You think about the amount of suffering that existed, let's just say post-crisis death on the cross that existed in the early church among the people that we regard as apostles and founders of the faith. Like Paul kept praying for this thorn to go away, and God said, "No, you're stuck with it. It's for my glory that you're going to have this." My reaction to that is, on the one hand, is it James 1 that says, "When you ask, you must believe and not doubt."
Joel Haldeman: And so there is this sense in which when we ask God, we have to have faith that he's capable, but that's different than having faith that he will do it. And I don't know that any place that we're told that we have to believe that God's going to give us everything that we asked for. But we absolutely need to believe that he's powerful and that his glory is larger than those things. And that his glory is ultimate. But when I think of the raising of Lazarus, no one believed. Everybody thought Jesus was nuts when he said roll away the stone, and yet he still chose to do that resurrection. So that's I guess how I push back on that argument. And I'd ask for what is your biblical evidence that it's God's will for all people to be healed?
Brady Randall: Yeah, the other thing I would say is that there were people who died in Jesus' presence that he didn't raise. You think about John the Baptist, he was beheaded. Jesus didn't raise him. You think about the apostle Paul, who evidently one of his gifts was healing. And I know that's a little controversial in some circles. I think God can certainly heal. God can gift people, but it's always God who heals. But even in Paul who had a gifting of healing, not only could not heal his own thorn in the flesh, but there were people in his midst that he couldn't heal [inaudible 00:16:57], these were people who were sick. Timothy at one point, sick in the presence of Paul, and they weren't always healed. And I think sometimes there's a missing link that God can get glory when someone is healed or raised to life, but God can get maybe as much or more glory in someone who's not healed, but their faith and their character increases in the midst. And I think there's something about God walking with you even through the valley of the shadow of death that maybe is missed as well.
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, I visited with a lady the other day who's probably getting close to death and she said something almost exactly, she said, "I started out this journey praying that God would heal me, that it would be a glory story for God and that I would give him glory." And she said, "Now I've come to where I still would love that to be true, but I realize that God can be as glorified in my sickness and in my death as in me being healed." Now again, if you're of the Bethel charismatic variety, you'd say, "Oh no, no, no. You have now spoken words of death into your own life. And the reason you're not healed is because you're not claiming the atonement." But ultimately the real challenge, and I think you said, where's the biblical evidence for this?
Kurt Bjorklund: What somebody on that side would say, "Well, it's in the atonement, it says Isaiah 53, by his stripes we are healed." And they would say, "That's not a spiritual healing. That's a physical healing," is the evidence that people would point to. And so they would say, "If you don't live in that, then you are not actually appropriating all of the atonement." The challenge with that is you take a church that teaches that. And I'm just going to guess, I don't have any data, but I would guess people die and get sick at about the same rate as any other church. And what you would expect, if that's true, if that theology is true, is that people who believe it and practice it would live longer and have fewer ailments along the way. Meaning the average life expectancy should probably be 120 years. If that's a good human life expectancy for a super healthy person who has no issues.
Kurt Bjorklund: And even then you'd have to ask isn't aging something that's part of the fall if the atonement has healed us, do you even need to die at all? And so why then would churches with that theology not have fewer instances of people who are sick and if they really believe it, and some churches go this far, why would they ever go to a doctor? Because going to a doctor is ultimately admitting a lack of faith that God can and will heal. And if my healing is in the atonement, then I ultimately...
Kurt Bjorklund: And so what you see is a lot of inconsistency is ultimately, I've always said, as soon as you see a faith healer wearing glasses, disregard everything they say. And I'm say it somewhat in jest, but my point is this, if you can't even get God to give you 20/20 vision, then why would I buy what you're selling about anything else? So as soon as they take off their glasses to read their text, just say, "I'm out," that's right. I'm done. You have nothing for me because you can't live even what you're talking about. As soon as I hear you're sick, now again, the way it's often portrayed as well, it isn't just me, it's a communal effort. So it's your lack of faith for me, that's the part where you just go, "That's patently absurd."
Brady Randall: Well, if you think about it, everybody that Jesus healed or raised from the dead eventually got sick and died again. So I think, again, it's one thing to sit and chat about it, but the hard part is either God failed or you failed or the gospel failed. Sometimes there is a lack of faith, I think that can be a really dangerous thing that you can wear the weight of it and people that get healed eventually get sick again. I went through one time and looked at a bunch of different faith healers who all got sick and died.
Brady Randall: They apparently believed it. So I just think there's a danger and a inconsistency even with a theology that believes that God can do it and God has done it. I then think that's the other way, I need to be pushed to say, I've heard missionary accounts of people being raised from the dead and I believe in and miraculous healings, and I believe that I need to be pushed that way. But if it's never God's will that we would get sick and die, what do you do with people that Jesus healed who ultimately got sick and died?
Joel Haldeman: And I would also add that that line of reasoning is at best, historically insensitive and at worst, historically illiterate because are we really to say that today, 21st century America is more righteous than we were as a society in the dark ages when people lived much shorter lifespans? And are we really going to say that all of the first century believers that gave their life as martyrs for Christ lacked the faith to have their life protected? To think that I have more faith than Peter, who was crucified upside down, that's crazy to me.
Kurt Bjorklund: And to me as well.
Brady Randall: I think there's a really helpful text in Hebrews 11 that's where it's considered the hall of faith, people who had faith in God and what God did. And Hebrews 11:35 said that women received their dead raised to life again. Others were told that they could gain a better resurrection. So some people receive their dead, others were told they could gain a better resurrection. And Paul, when he talks about the Thessalonian and believers who were grieving over people who had died, he didn't say don't grieve. And he didn't also have a ceremony of bringing them back to life at the time. But he said, "We don't grieve as those who have no hope." And he told about the one day of the resurrection of the dead. So Paul even saw that yes, we are going to die, there's going to be heartache and pain, but we also look forward to a better resurrection.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, and I think regardless of your interpretive view of the book of Revelation, I think everybody agrees that it is through hardship that God's glory ultimately comes about that it's not through... I guess maybe if you're a millennial, but anyway.
Kurt Bjorklund: That's another podcast.
Joel Haldeman: So this all revolves around the subject of controlling God, hearing from God. So I want to go into this next subject here because the three of us certainly have all heard somebody say to us at one point or another, "God told me that this is what he wants me to do," or maybe less directly, concretely, "This is what God wants me to do." How do you respond to somebody who says that? How does the average person who's sitting in a life group and somebody else in the life group says, "God told me that this is what he wants me to do." What's an appropriate way to respond to that?
Brady Randall: First, I'm interested, and I've got a number of charismatic friends who really pushed me on this. And I'm genuinely curious, I don't doubt that maybe God has impressed upon them. So I've been asking them, "Can you tell me how that came about?" I'm somewhat skeptical, "God told me," well, God may have, but I'm curious of what that process was like. And certainly, I was reading through the scriptures, you do see evidence of some of the apostles saying the Holy Spirit spoke to me or it was good to the Holy Spirit and it doesn't give how that happened. So I always want to hold that loosely and I'm always very quick to say, "Okay, how does this stand in line with the word of God? Is there anything that they're going to say that would conflict?"
Brady Randall: And I would be more comfortable with someone saying, "I think that the Holy Spirit has told me to tell you." No, "I'm sure that God has spoken to me." Maybe that's true, but I'm a little hesitant and I want to know what was that process like? Was it a still small voice? Was it something that was... Was it your gut? Because our guts can be wrong. Our hearts are deceitful above all things. So I want to dig in a little bit about how the Lord, how you sense that the Lord told me to speak to you.
Joel Haldeman: Is there a difference between saying, "God told me" and, "I believe that God's leading me." I believe that God told me versus I believe that God is leading me.
Brady Randall: I think one's just a little more maybe hedging a little bit. One's a little more cautious to say, "I don't want to presume if it's not written in the word of God." I think one's a little more careful whereas one is a little more outright and bold. So I think it depends who you're hearing that from too.
Joel Haldeman: What do you think of this?
Kurt Bjorklund: How do you respond to the whole question first?
Joel Haldeman: I think that that yes, we have to say that God leads us sometimes in specific ways that are outside of scripture. By outside, I mean it doesn't say in scripture that I need to go have this conversation with this person or send a text message. And so sometimes God does lead us. Once time I picked up a hitchhiker because I was driving. I was like, "I feel like God's leading..." I don't know if that was a good decision. I don't know if that was coming from God or if that was just based on the guilt or slash new growth that I was doing as a believer where I was just trying to think through putting myself out there to help other people.
Joel Haldeman: But I think what we always have to remember is that when we listen to the voice of God, it's almost like we're looking through a window that has been cracked and then has had mud thrown on it. And that is our sin that we're seeing. We're not seeing things clearly all the time. And so sometimes it's hard to tell, is this something that God's really leading me to or is this just my own inclination? We have our own inclinations all the time. I'd really like to have some food from Nikki's Thai Kitchen for lunch today. Is that God's leading? I think that's just the fact that I haven't had any noodles in a long time.
Kurt Bjorklund: You know, I go back and forth on this issue in a couple of ways, and that may not sound like a very clear way of thinking, but the first is this, and that is, I do think God leads people in ways, as you say, that are outside of scripture. That is the prompting that you'd like to think it's the prompting of the Holy Spirit to say, "Am I going to confront something or something's not right here, or I should give some money to this organization or to this cause." Those I think are genuine promptings. The reason I say I go back and forth though is I think we have to hold them loosely enough to be able to say, "Because of my fallen nature, because of all kinds of things for me to say definitively, this is God if it's not written in the word of God, that's dangerous territory."
Kurt Bjorklund: So for example, I think it's legitimate to say, "Well, I think this might be from God," but as soon as I double down on that, then I think I'm in dangerous territory. And just a couple analogies of this. I remember years ago talking to a guy who was dealing with the reality of he got caught going into an adult bookstore place. And his answer was, "Well, I prayed about it and I said, 'Lord, if you want me to go into this adult bookstore place, let there be a yellow car sitting as I'm driving up to it.'" And he drove up and said he saw a yellow car. So he felt like God gave him a green light.
Kurt Bjorklund: Now my answer would be to say, "You don't need to pray to God about whether or not it's right or wrong to go into a adult bookstore. And that yellow car was not from God. It may have been from Satan. It wasn't from God." And so you're manipulating and I think this whole area is so open to that where that one, it's easy to sit back and go, "Oh, that's wrong." But how many times do people say things like, "Well, I thought God wanted me to do this." And it may have been ego that led to it. Not anything else. I remember when I was first working as a pastor, I'd have a lady who would want to sing a solo and she would always say, "I feel like God is leading me to sing this song."
Kurt Bjorklund: And I've probably shared this before, but she'd get up and sing it. It would just kill the service. I mean, it was awful every time. And yet she was convinced it was God who was telling her to sing. And so finally, I'd heard somebody else who had dealt with this. So I parroted it. But I finally said, "Well, I'll tell you what, God told you to sing a solo. If I hear and sense that God tells me that you're supposed to sing a solo, then we'll invite you to sing a solo. If not, I won't." And she would come and be like, "God's told me," and I'm like, "I'm not hearing that." And, it's a harsh thing, but at the same time, saying just because somebody says that God is in something doesn't mean... Now you could say, well how do you know God didn't tell her?
Kurt Bjorklund: Well, because it was killing the service. I don't think that was God's intention. Now am I right? Am I wrong? I don't know. And here's what I would really say, especially to people who have the inclination. Because there are times I have felt like that's from God and I've been pretty certain in my gut, but I'm very cautious not to say that, especially as a pastor. Because I feel like if I do, it's a club. And what I mean by that is if I go into a meeting and I say, "God told me that we are supposed to do X," what are you going to argue with? If I'm arguing, am I arguing with God? So my thing is, if I think something should happen is to say, "You know what? This is where I sense God might be leading us," again, hedging maybe a little whatever you want to say.
Kurt Bjorklund: But if it's not confirmed with other people, then it probably isn't really God. And if I come out too strong, I don't give any interplay for that joint plurality of thinking or leadership. Same thing in a family or a friendship. If somebody is really dogmatic, "Well God told me we should take a vacation here. God led me here." Well am I going to argue with God or am I... Whereas if they say, "Well, I sense, or I want," maybe there's a spiritual dimension. I'm not saying there isn't, but to have that humility to be able to say there might be something that I'm wrong on and this is not a known area with that.
Joel Haldeman: I think that what's clear is that Christianity itself is communal in nature and that one of the requirements really in the New Testament for a church is that it would have a plurality of elders and the idea is that then nobody can stand up and say, "God's telling me that we should do this." Well, why would God tell this one person but not tell that to everybody else? We're meant to do faith together and one person's sometimes stupidity, is supposed to be balanced out by other people's wisdom. I guess what I feel is that, similar to what you said, is that I've just never felt like it was appropriate for me to say, if I feel like God's saying something to me personally, I think it's just great and appropriate to say, "I feel like God's leading me to do this, or I feel like God's telling me," or whatever to do this. If I'm communicating to somebody else, if I feel like I have this intuition or if God's telling me to say something to someone else, then I agree that it's probably never appropriate to use God's name in that. Not to use his name, but to base it upon on his reputation.
Kurt Bjorklund: Use it as a club.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, I think that's a perfect way of saying it.
Kurt Bjorklund: Where you're saying, "God said this, so if you go against it, you're against God." You're just simply saying, "This is something that that I sense God has in this and I want to say it."
Joel Haldeman: And if you are going to, then you really do have to hedge your bets and say, "I feel like this was a leading, but I could be totally off on this."
Kurt Bjorklund: And if not, again, if you want to be biblical about it, go back to the Old Testament. What was the price for somebody who was wrong as a prophet? Do you guys know? Want to be stoned? And so in the modern ethos, when you try to say, "Well, God spoke to people back then," it is not the same. And what I mean by that is, you clearly would say, "Oh my goodness, if I had to say I could die for having this wrong, would you still say, 'Oh yeah, God told me this?'" But that's what an Old Testament prophet lived with as a reality of how certain they were. And certainly in the New Testament, you come to First Corinthians, you read about, if somebody has a word of prophecy, let them stand up, let it be examined, and all of that.
Kurt Bjorklund: So a lot of modern church meetings don't function exactly that way, but smaller meetings do. Life groups, small groups, mid sized group events where somebody can just say, "Hey, here's what I think." And what happens again is you have a plurality of people saying, "Well, that may or may not be true." And so that's an important thing. And you brought up something significant Joel, and this is a total aside, but if you're part of a church that doesn't have a plurality of elders, I think you should leave and go to a church that does. Because without that, you are susceptible to all kinds of error from the teaching to the leadership decisions to everything without a plurality of people involved.
Joel Haldeman: And sometimes even if they have a plurality of elders, it's meaningless because there's one person that runs it. And so it's not just the Catholic Episcopal. There are some Baptist churches where, yeah, there are elders, but there's one person who whatever they want to do, that's what happens.
Brady Randall: Now we do have some biblical precedent that I want to just... Acts 11:12 says, "The spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them." Now this is Peter, but that phrase the spirit told me, I'd like to know, how did the spirit tell you Peter? But that's there. And this is Paul, Romans 9:1, he says, "I speak the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit." And again, well, how, but that's all we get.
Kurt Bjorklund: I mean, I don't think there's anything inconsistent with what we've said because I would say absolutely that happens. I mean, there are instances I'm sure, where all of us could tell stories saying, "I felt like I was going to do something and then all of a sudden it was a spiritual blockage of some kind that said, 'don't go down that path right now. Or don't trust this person.'" Now you could argue that's intuition. You could say that's the Holy Spirit, but you make that decision. I think what we're talking about here is more of the once you bring it into the public eye versus a hindsight and sometimes you look back at that and you say, "I have no idea." You may say, "I never got to see what would have happened. So I can't say definitively, 'Oh God was in that.'"
Kurt Bjorklund: I may have been wrong, but it was a sense in the moment or you make a decision, it's confirmed in your conscience to say... There was an incident, this is years ago now. I was invited by a church, this was long before Orchard Hill, to be their pastor and it all made sense on paper. I probably looked at it and thought this would be a good thing and I had something in my gut, I don't know if it was God that said, "Your family will not thrive here. Don't do it." It was one of the hardest decisions I made to say, "Okay I don't want to do this," because it made sense on every other level. I have no idea. But looking back because I didn't go there, I can't say, I can't look back and go, "Oh, something would have happened." All I can say is that was a sense I had, so I made a decision based on that that did not make logical sense.
Kurt Bjorklund: Years later we ended up going to Orchard Hill. I think my family's thrived here. But I don't know how to say any more than there was a spiritual part of a decision. So I would never try to take a spiritual sense out of a decision. But I would say to always hold it somewhat loosely and to be especially careful once you start to talk about it. One of the churches I served at, I've shared this, I felt like God prompted me to say we should leave our building and go into this community theater to hold services because it would be way better for the churches outreach. And I was confident God had said that to me, but I never shared that publicly or even to the board through the entire process for exactly the point I'm saying here, because I felt like if it was really God, then it should be confirmed through the people. And if I led with that, then it would have again, been in that whole area. And so maybe that's just me, but I think one of the ways to look at that.
Joel Haldeman: Yeah, and I'd agree that, in Acts, was that Luke or was that Peter, that Peter said, "The Holy Spirit told me to go with them." Again, I put that in a different category than the Holy Spirit's telling me to tell you that you need to go with them. Because that's a whole different-
Kurt Bjorklund: Or that it's a group decision even.
Joel Haldeman: What else? You got some stuff there, what are the thoughts you had on this?
Brady Randall: There's also Acts 20:23, "The spirit testifies to me in every city that afflictions await me," and certainly it seems like God burdens people with certain things, like Nehemiah was burdened to build a wall in Nehemiah two or something like that. Paul was burdened to preach the gospel where it hasn't yet been preached. And I think sometimes God allows us to use plain logic. When choosing elders, they roll a dice and the spirit led, but the reality is, is here's three to four to five good candidates and we chose one out of them. So that's using logic. And I think sometimes there's an inconsistency like, "Is God calling me to go to live in Pittsburgh or Butler?" We want to know that, but we don't want to know, "Is it God's will that I would have ham and cheese or peanut butter and jelly for lunch?"
Brady Randall: So we become the arbiters of what's God's will and leading. And where I found some freedom in that is, two of the metaphors we have of God are as a shepherd and a father. And a good father doesn't tell his children everything that the father knows about everything. He tells his children everything that they need to know. And a good shepherd doesn't take the sheep in a pasture and tell them that they have to eat these individual blades of grass. But as long as they're in this safety of this pasture, they can eat anywhere in here. And so I think there's a lot more freedom than we often want to give it that either it's God's will or the Holy Spirit's leading here, or it's not. Sometimes I think that's clear. Sometimes God may open or close a door, but I think there's a lot more freedom there.
Kurt Bjorklund: Most hard choices in life are not 90% one direction and 10%, or they wouldn't be hard. They're the ones that are 55, 45 and that's where you're asking God to sometimes lead. But you're right, sometimes it isn't even about that decision. It's they're both good choices. Make a choice and move on. Let me add one other thing and this comes right just from the scripture you just read about the spirit showed us all the things we must suffer and told us to go here and teach or that. A lot of times if the character of God is being reflected in what we think God is telling us, it will usually lead us to things that cost us comfort, lead us to sacrifice, lead us away from the spotlight, not things that make much of us, make us more comfortable, make our lives easier.
Kurt Bjorklund: If you think about the call of God in the Bible, when did he ever call somebody to something that was like, "Oh, that's going to make much of me and make my life easy?" It was always to something that was a challenge and I think that's a really good gut check on is this the spirit of God? Is that usually the spirit of God is going to call you to give more and to serve more and to sacrifice more. Not to something that's going to make much of you. And I think that gets turned around often.
Joel Haldeman: Let's end with this question. So we are able to quench the Holy Spirit. We're able to become calloused to the leading of God. So what can we say to people about how can you, and this is both the case for people probably in our tradition, who are more likely to ignore the voice of God and people in other traditions where they're more likely to see the voice of God in everything. How can we develop ourselves to be more sensitive to the leading of God in a couple sentences?
Brady Randall: This maybe sounds a little too formulaic, but I have a five fold process that I would... Is there a little chuckle in the background here?
Kurt Bjorklund: That is very formulaic. Yeah, that's not a little, formulaic. Yes, all right, let's hear it. Five fold process.
Brady Randall: All right. So, first thing I would say is you start with the scriptures. You're having a decision one way or another. Is there anything in the scriptures that would either prohibit or encourage this? Kurt mentioned before, should I go to the adult bookstore? Well, I think there'd be something in scripture that would tell you no. The second thing I would say is the Lord speaks to us through prayer. And so as you're praying, is the Lord putting something on your heart? I think God speaks through a still small voice. God speaks through prompt and God listens and responds to prayers of people. So I think that's huge. The other thing I think is that God speaks through the church and through wise believers. And so I would want to consult with other godly men and women because God speaks through other believers. God gifts the church.
Brady Randall: And a lot of people say, "I can have me, my Jesus and my Bible," God's given the church to build those others up. So I would say also seek godly counsel and wisdom. You've heard the line sometimes, the Holy Spirit sounds an awful lot like my spouse. And so I think there is some, some truth to that. You've got to hold that loosely. And then I would say look for open and closed doors. Now that can go negative, but sometimes you read in the scripture, God opened a door for ministry. Again, I would hold that loosely because Jonah, his open door was to go to Nineveh. He said, "No, I'm going to go another way." So we got to be careful with that. As you said, Kurt, hold it all loosely. And then the fifth thing I would say is using logic. I think if you do that process, it's not a, if I do it, I'm going to get the answer. I think that's a helpful something to keep in mind so that we're not just, "Oh, whatever I think goes."
Kurt Bjorklund: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I would say, and I certainly think those are all great things. The more time I spend in scripture getting the mind of God, the easier it is to hear the voice of God. And if I go to scripture just trying to get an answer, I can be wrong. It's in the day to day reading, study, contemplation that you start to say, and you even feel God pushing in on areas that you're not even aware that he might. So to me that's one place where I know God has spoken. So if I really want to hear God's voice, the more I let that work in my mind, the more I'm going to be able to discern God's voice in the midst of things.
Joel Haldeman: I think that's good. And I'd even add to just be aware and expect to hear the voice of God or expect... I shouldn't say the voice of God, I should say the leading of God and I actually had to go and schedule, there's a day of the week at a certain time where my calendar says, I don't know what it says, but it's a prompt for me to ask God, "Who in our congregation do you want me to encourage today?" And I just need to have that moment of asking God. And I've noticed this weird habit where I always think of the same person and so to me, I don't know, is that that God is reminding me to encourage that same person over and over and over again? Or is that just how I started and that's where my mind goes every time that alarm goes off? But I don't know that we have answers to that. All I know is I can keep on encouraging that person and pointing all people towards Christ.
Joel Haldeman: Hey, thanks for tuning in to Ask a Pastor. If you have questions, we'd love to deal with those in an episode. Send those to askapastor@orchardhillchurch.com. Thanks guys.
