ANNOUNCER: God reveals himself, we say, through natural revelation and special revelation. That would include creation and His word. But are there other ways that He speaks to us? How does God lead us every day? The question today we’re answering is, how about through impressions or convictions or feelings or signs, things like that? Let’s have a discussion about it here on Grace in Focus, and we’re glad that you’re joining us today. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. There you can get information about our free magazine. It is also called Grace in Focus. It comes out six times per year, very beautifully done, great articles. The only expense is you need to pay the postage if you live outside of the 48 contiguous United States. But otherwise, it is free. We do want you to have it. Get subscribed today at faithalone.org.  

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr.  

SAM: Alright Bob, we’ve got another question from Ron. His overall question is, does God speak to us through impressions, is what he calls it, but then he has a few different sort of categories. But the first area he’s talking about is when it comes to conviction. He gives an example. I’m going to sum it up. Basically if I am interacting with someone, I do something. It hurts their feelings. It harms them in some kind of way. And I don’t really feel bad about it. It’s not my fault. They just got their feelings hurt, whatever. But then I go, I reflect on it. I realize, man, I messed up. I hurt their feelings. I shouldn’t have done that. That was wrong. And then I go apologize. Is that kind of conviction, what he calls an impression, is that God’s direct involvement in our life? Are those sort of minute convictions, feelings, are those God actively tugging on our heartstrings or not? 

BOB: That’s a good question. I appreciate the question, Ron. If you think about the Old Testament prophets, the Old Testament prophets received direct revelation. And at times these were from dreams, but oftentimes these were the Lord actually appearing to them and telling them. Sometimes it was even dictation. While we don’t believe in the dictation theory of inspiration, that God dictated every book from Genesis to Revelation, there are portions of Scripture where there’s a chapter or a part of a chapter where God literally dictated what to write, and they wrote it down. 

But those weren’t impressions, right? Those weren’t feelings or impressions. Those were direct revelation. I don’t think there’s an example anywhere in the Old Testament of an Old Testament prophet being led by impressions, nor in the New Testament. They’re always led by some direct revelation. And I remember Zane Hodges speaking at Victor Street Bible Chapel on this subject, and he said there’s not a single example anywhere in the Old or New Testament of anybody, prophet or not, being led by impressions. He said, God doesn’t lead us by impressions. 

Now Hodges could be wrong, right? But in my view, he’s correct, and here’s what I would caution for Ron and for others. Let’s say we believe this, that God gives us an impression, or take his example. I hurt somebody’s feelings, I reflect on it, I realize I was wrong, and I apologize, I’m convicted. Well, the Holy Spirit convicting us of some sin in our life is not the same as an impression. It actually is a conviction that we experience. I don’t think you’d really call that an impression, but even if you say it’s an impression, it’s based on facts. 

Where we get into real trouble is where someone, let’s say that you believe that God guides you, Sam, to who to witness to. So you’re walking down the street, and you see somebody begging on the side of the street, and suddenly you feel like God wants you to witness to that person. You’re late for a meeting, you’ve got a very important meeting, and you’re late for it, and so you’re torn. God’s impressing me to witness to this person, or do I go to this meeting? Maybe you’re supposed to be the speaker in front of 500 people, but you’ve got this opportunity to talk to this homeless person. Well, there are some people who would skip the 500 people and go talk to the homeless person because they have this feeling that this is the right thing to do, and then they may show up 10 minutes late to their talk to 500 people and tell them the story. And the people might go, wow, that’s great. 

Personally, I would say that’s terrible because God doesn’t guide us by impressions, and once you go there, then wouldn’t you be a nervous wreck all the time? Because doesn’t God want me to evangelize everybody? If your attitude is He’s impressing on me, well, you’re not going to be able to hardly go anywhere or do anything because you’re going to be impressed. And then you get to the point of what parking space should I take, maybe God’s impressing on me what parking space, or what shirt should I wear today? 

SAM: The other dangerous side of that is if you start interpreting your feelings as God’s will, it can get really dangerous really quickly. Because, let’s say I’m going about my life and I start having feelings of depression or self doubt or low self esteem. Are those impressions that God gave me? Does God want me to hate myself? Does he want me to be unhappy in my job or with my family? It’s almost a cult-like mentality where everything you experience is God directly giving you those things. So when bad things happen or in bad internal feelings occur in your life that maybe you don’t have control over, that’s God doing it to you. God gave me this depression or he gave me this whatever, and that can lead people to become extremely manic and narcissistic. We don’t really have examples of that in the Bible outside of God directly speaking through either the indweling of the Holy Spirit or a pre-incarnate Christ or the incarnate Christ. So it’s a dangerous road to follow. 

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BOB: If what Ron is asking is, do we ever have ideas that are influenced by the Holy Spirit that sometimes maybe we have some idea on what we want to speak on at church or some idea of some blog I’m going to write? Is it possible I’ll find out when I get to be with the Lord that some of those things were impressions or thoughts or something that God influenced? I’d say sure, but I can’t say that all my thoughts are impressions from God. If I did that, then I would say, okay, well then how do I distinguish the ones which are from God and the ones that aren’t from God? Because I get lots of ideas, right? In the given day, I might have 100 ideas and 99 of them proved not to be very good. 

So fortunately I don’t act on all my ideas, but one of the ways I operate when I have ideas is I’ll go to you or I’ll go to Dan or I’ll go to my board or I’ll go to other people and I’ll say what do you think of this idea? If I start getting some positive feedback, then I’ll get more people involved. Then I’ll have them help me polish the idea. But I rarely just come up with an idea and then go with it without bouncing it off a lot of people. 

Another thing I guess I would say when you talk about the dangers, I’ve heard examples of people who thought they had now met the right woman. And they’ve been married to the wrong woman for 15 years, but now they meet the right one and so they believe that God has impressed on them that this is the right woman, so they divorce their spouse and marry this other woman. 

Well, that’s directly contrary to Scripture, especially like in Malachi, there were examples of Jewish people who were divorcing the wives of their youth. These were men in their middle ages, maybe 40, 45, 50 and they were marrying 18 to 20 year olds and divorcing their wives who were 40, 45 or 50. And God hated that and it says God hates divorce, yet there are people who sometimes do that kind of thing thinking God has impressed upon them to do that. 

SAM: That’s a really easy check for the matter how extreme it is because there’s, like I said, the people who pray, they think that God’s giving them direct insight into certain things or even just what you’re talking about. Anything, a real quick litmus test is, does this contradict God’s written word? If the answer is yes, then I don’t think God is impressing that idea on you. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not God. 

I think this is just like or very similar to what we were talking about with the wrath of God because there is God’s direct involvement in some areas, but then there’s a natural consequence for sin and death in the fallen world we live in. But the inverse is true. There’s a natural consequence to walking in the light, being in fellowship with the Lord, spending time in God’s Word and with other believers. So if you are doing those things, then it’s natural that certain things might happen to you. You might be more mindful of other people. You might see someone and think, okay, I could really help that person today or I could evangelize that person. 

So it’s not to say any time you feel convicted to do something, you should just ignore it because there’s no way that’s the right thing to do. That’s not what we’re trying to say, but if I’m walking down the street and I see a person and I think I should evangelize them, I don’t need to think God beamed that thought straight into my head, but I can think, okay, I’ve been spending time in God’s Word, I feel confident, I could probably help this person, maybe I’ll talk to them. But that’s a natural consequence of living like Christ, being like Christ. 

BOB: I like that and I have a quick Scripture for you. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul talks about the situation where an unbelieving couple invites a believing couple over to eat. And Paul says, if you want to go, go. He doesn’t say seek an impression. He doesn’t say pray about it and decide if it’s better to go or not go. He just says, if you want to go, go. And I think that’s the same thing. If you’re walking down the street, you’ve got time to talk to this person and you think it would be profitable, then go ahead and do it. But you shouldn’t feel like you need to evangelize every person that you walk by. I have friends, they go to airports and they evangelize people in airports. 

So I guess my point in all of this is beware of looking for impressions. Yes, God may give us ideas, but a lot of ideas, like you say, just come from the fact that we’re in God’s Word, we’re around God’s people, and God’s given us brains to think. And so let’s be people who are seeking to please God and don’t get caught up in looking for some kind of secret message, because if we do, it can have very negative effects on our lives. Well, I hope that helps. In the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus. 

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