Proverbs 20:18 Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war
Do you ever struggle making decisions? We live in a day of absolute sensory overload. It is hard for any of us moderns to appreciate how different our world is from any world that has preceded us. It is a very noisy world. There are images, sounds, music, and voices ever with us. Maybe you are familiar with the idea of decision fatigue. The idea is that decisions that are easy in the morning become harder at noon and by evening seem impossible. For instance, in the evening my wife may say, “What do you want for supper?” and I’ll say, “I don’t know. Don’t ask me something like that.” I feel that way because I have been making decisions all day.
Can you imagine having to make decisions like war and peace, life and death? I have trouble even deciding what to eat for supper at the end of a long day. Proverbs 20:18 says, “Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.” You are not likely to rise above the level of the counsel you receive.
Do you ever act when you receive counsel? If you never do or haven’t lately, then kindly I must tell you that you are going ahead without any sight whatever. If you have received bad counsel, you are in the basement or below that. If you receive good counsel, that is great. If you receive godly counsel, you are humming.
When I was in college, one of the jobs I had was to man the information desk. We answered questions from across campus and across the country from people calling in with questions about the school. I quickly learned that I didn’t have to have all the answers, but I did have to know the people who did have the answers. The knowledge was outsourced. I put people in contact with more knowledge.
You don’t have to know everything. I have observed people who are asked a question and either because they are flattered someone would think they would know the answer or they felt obligated to give an answer, I hear them give this long, circuitous answer. I thought, “You are just making it up. You don’t know the answer. Just tell people honestly that you don’t know.” Saying that is liberating. When someone asks me something and I don’t know, I’ve learned the best answer is, “That is a great question. I don’t know.”
There are two things to note here. First, God is the source of all wisdom. If you look at Proverbs, over and again this is made clear. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom.” God is the source of all wisdom. Someone is making decisions. What should they do? They should pray. That is good. James says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally.” Ok, so you have asked God. Now what? Is God going to send an angel? God can do whatever He wants to, but I have noticed that pious people, those who are outwardly, apparently spiritual in what they portray, still make foolish decisions. The problem with that is now you are pinning a foolish decision on God.
Suppose I tell my friend, “I am thinking about taking a second wife, but I am praying that God will give me wisdom.” Guess what? God has already told me what He thinks about that. Even if there is a question that He hasn’t specifically spoken to in His Word, God is the source of wisdom and there are principles that certainly apply. God is the source of all wisdom,
Second, God uses means. If I pray, “God give me wisdom,” then I had better be searching for the means God has given. If a child builds a sandcastle in a sandbox, he may come back the next day and it is blown over because of the rain. You don’t want that. You want to be established. When the Bible says every purpose is established, it means it is put upright and kept there. We have all kinds of plans. “Every purpose is established and kept upright by counsel: and with good advice make war.” So, God is the source of all wisdom and He uses means.
One of those means is good books. We have gotten away from this. We have been deprogrammed so that we can’t read anymore. We are impatient. There are things that come from that format and the age of written content that is not available in the most prominent means today. If you can’t read, then you can’t read the Bible, and then you can’t know which way is up. If you are a preacher and have not trained yourself to read, then you can’t read the Bible. If you can’t read the Bible, what are you doing, making things up? The wonderful thing is you don’t have to be creative and make things up. God has an endless supply of His thoughts and mind on our matters. Books are important, and specifically the Bible.
Then, there are people. In Deuteronomy 21 God says that Moses is going to die and He would send Joshua. He told the people they should not fear or be dismayed because He was going before them. God uses people. He used Moses and Joshua, but He transcended them both.
One of the means of God’s guidance is good counsel. Proverbs 24:32, talking about experience, says, “Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction.” Here is a person who observes life and learns from it. That is good. God give wisdom through good counsel from people.
Notice it is not just good counsel. Proverbs 20:18 says, “With good advice make war.” I am not going to live higher than the level of the advice I receive. We are receiving advice every day unsolicited, without our even knowing it, primarily through our devices. Proverbs 24:6 says, “For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” We need good counsel and a lot of it. Don’t be stingy giving or asking for help.
So, do you ask counsel from means that can help you? Who have you asked advice from in the last seven days? If you haven’t done that at all, that may not be good. When I was twenty, I knew I was dumb and needed help, and it wasn’t hard to ask for counsel. Now I am older, still dumb, but is hard for me to ask counsel because I feel I should know all the answers.
Why ask for counsel? If I am simply asking people for confirmation bias, to tell me what I want to hear, that is not good counsel.
When do you ask for counsel? Someone has said, “A wise man does at first what a fool does at last.” It is great to ask counsel; do it early on.
Who do you ask for counsel? Do you ask social media or AI? Those both may have utility, but God has established a system in which we are supposed to ask flesh and blood people in our world for the counsel that God provides through people and most importantly through His Word. Titus 2 says that older people are to live godly lives that they may give guidance and counsel to the younger people who are following them.
So, as those who are godly, have common sense. Nothing is less common than common sense, a lick of sense about real life. Godly, common sense is independent, meaning not dependent upon you, and will give an honest answer.
Finally, ask someone who is successful in the domain for which you are asking counsel. If you need advice for your car, don’t ask me. I don’t know about cars. I have friends who know about cars and I ask them for advice.
“Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war.” You are not likely to rise above the level of your counsel. If you are getting no counsel, you have no level. If you have godly counsel, the sky is the limit.