Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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We who live on this earth need God's plan for our salvation to be simple. Thankfully, the Creator knew that if He made His way of salvation the least bit complicated, we could neither understand it nor walk in it. In ancient Israel, the prophet Isaiah foretold of a time when God would make the way of His salvation so simple that even a fool could walk that road without making a mistake (35:8).
There are many thousands of doctrines about God that are taught on earth. How many of them have you studied so that you could find out which way is the right way to eternal life? Just in the religion of Christianity, there are thousands of doctrines and sub-doctrines, and variations even of those doctrines, that are taught and believed everywhere. How many of those ideas about God have you studied in order to find the right way to serve Jesus? The wisest among men, in their search for God, do not even try to study the myriad of doctrines that man in his confusion has produced. The wise search for God in a different way. It would be impossible for even the most brilliant of men to study all the doctrines available, and even if they could, their intellectual pursuits would fail them because God has determined that no man by mere intellectual ability can find His truth. One of Job's visitors asked, "Who is it by study can find out God?" The answer is, "nobody".
Jesus rejoiced at this. He exclaimed at one point, "I thank thee, Father, that thou has hidden this from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed it unto babes." If God reveals His covenant only to "babes", then humility must be the key to being one of those people to whom God will reveal Himself. An old hymn points out this truth in these words:
A truly humble man is often not the man who appears to be humble. The truly humble man is he who sincerely prefers God's will to be done rather than his own. God knows the heart; He knows those who prefer His will to be done rather than their own. He will reveal His way to every humble person. None is forgotten. And every humble person rejoices whenever the ways of God are declared (Ps. 34:2; 69:32). The truth is not difficult for any truly humble person to believe; the truth is, instead, the joy of his heart.
It is, at first, discouraging to the sinner who hears the gospel, turns from sin, and wants to know God, when he is confronted with Christianity's multitude of conflicting ideas about Jesus. But that newly humbled soul can safely trust God to find him; he need not fret about how he will find the Shepherd. "Seeking" is our part, but "finding" is His. Whenever the Shepherd speaks, the sheep know the Voice, and, as Jesus said, "a stranger they will not follow." The humble man can rest in the sure hope that God will speak and that He will give him grace to know it is He who is speaking.
In the King James Version of the Bible, Jesus is recorded in John 7 to have said, "If any man will do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether I speak of myself or of another." Isn't that wonderful? All a man has to do in order to know who is telling the truth about God is to do God's will. If he only does that, God will make certain that he recognizes the truth when he hears it! That sounds very simple, doesn't it? It is simple, but that is not actually what Jesus said. The truth of what Jesus said is even simpler than that. After all, how can a man do God's will before he learns who is telling the truth?
What Jesus actually said is this: "If any man is willing to do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine . . ." To have a covenant between God and man in which both participate, this is as simple as it can possibly be. All you have to do in order to know whether or not a man is telling the truth about God is to be willing to do God's will. You don't have to pursue truth by bouncing from sect to sect in Christianity, listening to every man's opinions. Just stay home and stay humble! Just stay home and stay willing to do God's will! Then, the Shepherd will find you because you are seeking him as he must be sought. Maintaining an humble willingness to do God's will, whatever that will is, is the way that they who seek the Lord find peace with him.
In that afternoon prayer meeting in 1981, my father taught us, saying, "God is not going to anoint every one of you the way He anoints His teachers. Then, how are you going to know who has heard from God and who has not? Jesus told us: [Be willing to] do God's will, and you will understand."
David wisely prayed that God would incline his heart to the will of God. That is a good thing for all of us to pray. It is a frightening thing to imagine someone telling me the truth about Jesus, yet I not recognize it as being the truth. That deafness to the Spirit is God's greatest earthly curse on proud men, and it is His greatest blessing to humble human hearts before Him so that we can recognize the Shepherd's voice. When God bestows that grace, even fools need make no mistakes as they make their way home to be with Jesus.