Impressions, by Martin Wells Knapp, 36

In a previous excerpt, Knapp stated that there are four features of "impressions" from God. These are Scriptural; Right (consistent with good morals); Providential (in harmony with God's will); and Reasonable. His discussion of "Impressions from Above" continues:

Unless it is a settled question with us that we will follow God's guidance when it is clearly revealed, at any cost, we can never know it, but will be a prey of impressions from below.

I heard a minister say that there had been times when he would pray for light on certain subjects, and then get up and hurry away lest he would get an answer that he would not like. Such seekers arise from their knees but to stumble on in darkness.

We must not only "commit our ways" unto God, but also the time and manner of them. "God," says an eminent minister, "not only requires us to obey and serve Him, but to obey and serve Him in His own time and way. In the eye of God voluntary disobedience in the manner of a thing, is the same as disobedience in the thing itself."

He who consents to obey God, but seeks to dictate the time of so doing, is as unwise as a blacksmith that would hammer the iron either before it is heated or after it cools off instead of when it is hot and flexible. Had Joshua dictated as to the time and manner of taking Jericho, Israel doubtless would have been defeated, and his own name have sunk into oblivion. For transgression in the manner of obedience, Moses was debarred from the promised land.

God said to David: "When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the Philistines."

There is a mighty significance in the two "thens" in the preceding paragraph. "THEN thou shalt bestir thyself, for THEN shalt the Lord go out before thee."

Confusion ever comes to all who say now when God says "tomorrow," and who say "tomorrow" when God says "now."

Excerpted from Impressions, by Martin Wells Knapp. Original publication date, 1892. Public domain. My source is here. The previous post in the series is here.