You know this verse?
But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.
It’s not the Bible though. It’s considered part of Mormon scripture, Doctrines and Covenants 9:8, by Joseph Smith. Nothing like it is in actual scripture, but you wouldn’t know it by how many, if not most independent Baptists treat the will of God, if not most evangelicals today. “You shall feel that it is right.” The technical terminology you will often read is “a settled peace,” or a statement like in the title: “I’ve never had more peace.” Someone makes a decision, and he knows it’s the will of God because he feels at peace about it. Garry Friesen in Decision Making and the Will of God (pp. 360-361, 2004) gives an example, his being negative of this approach by quoting an individual in his explanation of “faith promise giving”:
How can a person know how much to promise [to give in Faith Promise giving]? By asking God what additional amount He wants to channel through you. Then by means of His Word and a settled peace that comes with prayer, you will come to a conclusion with thanksgiving to Him [emphasis mine].
Friessen explains the operative feature:
[T]he amount to be given is determined by God and revealed subjectively to the heart of the believer in response to faith and prayer. . . . Through prayer and inward impressions of the Holy Spirit, God is expected to reveal that specific amount to the believer.
“A settled peace” he calls “revealed subjectively to the heart of the believer. . . through inward impressions.” I call this “the voice in the head.” Friessen calls it an impression. Imagine Lot pitching his tent toward Sodom and then never having more peace about his decision to move there. This isn’t how believers know the will of God. That feeling of peace is parallel with or even synonymous to the Mormon “burning in the bosom” described by Joseph Smith.
Here’s a person who claims the settled peace or never having more peace, while he is sinning without repentance, actively disobedient to God’s Word, and disobedient to godly parents. What is this settled peace? Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” What about someone who feels good, who is sinning? He’s not obeying scripture and he’s disobedient to his parents. This person shouldn’t feel at peace. That feeling does not mark the will of God any more than the burning in the bosom says that Mormon doctrine is true.
The feeling is not how you know you are in the will of God. The Bible no where says that you know the will of God by a feeling. The feeling of peace when someone lives in sin without repentance is what Jeremiah describes of the false prophet in Jeremiah 6:14-15:
[S]aying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.
The peace of the prophets was a feeling, a feeling of peace while they were not ashamed, neither could they blush, even though they had committed an abomination. The peace was the lack of shame of a person. The Apostle Paul describes these people in Philippians 3:18-19:
(For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Richard Baxter writes in “The Right Method for A Settled Peace of Conscience” (p. 19) in a prescient manner:
It must be understood, that the case here to be resolved is not, How an unhumbled, profane sinner, that never was convinced of sin and misery, should be brought to a settled peace of conscience. Their carnal peace must first be broken, and they must be so far humbled, as to find the want and worth of mercy, that Christ and his consolations may not seem contemptible in their eyes.
To know and then be in the actual will of God, Baxter says “their carnal peace must first be broken.” This settled peace content with continuing in sin is a “carnal peace.” A defiled or seared conscience, one no longer trained by the law of God, no longer functions as the warning device God intends it. The spiritual senses have been numbed by continuous sin and a lie such as antinomianism, a cheap grace used as an “occasion to the flesh” (Galatians 5:13).
Everything gets completely turned around. Someone gets peace by faith in and then obedience to the Word of God. The peace isn’t a feeling. It is reconciliation with God first receiving the “gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15, Rom 10:18). The peace is reconciliation to God that 2 Corinthians 5:17 calls being “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” The gospel of peace is a position peace that results in practical peace, that is described as reconciliation. It isn’t a feeling. Spurgeon says in his sermon, “The Reason Why Many Cannot Find Peace”:
To help you to a settled peace, let me, first of all, urge upon you to obey the comprehensive command of our text—“Submit yourselves therefore to God.” And then, secondly, let me further press upon you to practice the other precepts which follow, such as, “Resist the devil.” “Draw near to God.” “Cleanse your hands.” “Purify your hearts.” “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep.” And, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord.”
I concur. He continues:
Submission is essential to salvation, therefore bow before the Lord at once! May the Lord bend that stubborn will and conquer that wayward heart. Yield yourselves to God and pray to be delivered from future rebellion. If you have submitted, do so yet more completely, for so shall you be known to be Christians when you submit yourselves to God. If you will not submit, your faith is a lie, your hope is a delusion, your prayer is an insult, your peace is presumption and your end will be despair!
Furthermore,
If you are to have peace with God there must be war with Satan! You cannot rest in your spirit and know the peace which faith gives unless you wage war to the knife against every evil and against the patron and Prince of Evil, even Satan. Are you ready for this? You cannot have peace unless you are! . . . . Can you ask God to be at peace with you while your hands grasp your sins with loving embrace and are full of bribes, or are foul with lusts, or are smiting with the fist of anger and wrath? . . . . Then it is added, “Purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Can they do this? Assuredly not by themselves, but still, in order to have peace with God there must be so much purification of the heart that it shall no longer be double-minded.
I said it was the reverse. You don’t know the will of God through peace. You know peace through the will of God. When you are sinning, actively disobedient to God’s Word and your godly parents, and you feel peace, that is a carnal peace of which you should repent. You are in dangerous territory. Your glory is your shame. You mind earthly things.
Kent, About the Friesen quotes, can you supply a footnote that has the page number? Also, an uninformed reader could understand from what you have written that Friesen is in favor of the "impression" view of God's will. Do you believe that he is or is not?
Thanks Matt. I put the page. I added a few words that would show Friesen is not positive about his quote, which I thought was clear enough, but maybe not. His book against that feeling-oriented method of understanding the will of God.