We have looked at some of the hard questions of life. It is imperative that we ask them, and ask the only One who can truly answer. We should never think that it is a lack of faith, or a challenge to God's integrity to ask such questions, as long as we do it in the right spirit—which is to get an answer.
I think the most crucial questions need to be asked of God, not men. Men will inevitably give us answers. They may even give us the right answers, but even the best answers from men will never satisfy or impart as much faith as the answers that God gives us directly.
When we take our questions to the Lord, He may answer us through men, a sermon, tape, or book, or the answer could even come from a totally unexpected source—but we will know it is the Lord answering our question. When He answers in the special way that He does, it imparts a rock solid faith in our hearts as we receive His answer. This is actually the rock that the Lord said He would build His church upon, as we see in Matthew 16:13-18, which concludes with "…upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it."
Many have wrongly interpreted these Scriptures to mean that the Lord was going to build His church upon Peter, but that is not what He meant. The rock that the Lord is building His church upon is the revelation from the Father of who Jesus is. We cannot be converted to the Jesus our parents or pastors know, but we must all have a personal revelation from the Father of who Jesus is. He must be our own King and Savior. That is the Rock the church is built upon. Every truth solidly built upon this foundation in our lives will also come from the Father.
It is good to listen to anointed preaching, read books, and seek to learn from others in the body of Christ. Submitting to the body in this way is a part of the humility required. It is also essential for sustaining us. I once heard an old man say that of the thousands of meals his wife had prepared for him, he could only remember a few as being spectacular, but all of them were used to sustain him. Preaching and teaching do not have to be spectacular to sustain us. We just need a balanced, healthy spiritual diet that keeps us going.
However, if we are going to go beyond being sustained to actually growing spiritually, we need to have the Lord Himself teaching us things. We need to have quests for knowledge that we know He has called us to follow. These are often things that we need to keep privately before the Lord so He can reveal them to us in His special way, and we will know it is from God and not man. In this way, we are not just hearing the words of the Lord, but the Word Himself. Though the words may come through a man, we know they are coming straight from God to us. This is the way Paul the apostle received the gospel that he preached, which is probably also one reason that he had such boldness and confidence in it.
Even so, Paul presented his gospel to the leaders of the church after receiving it for the purpose of confirming it, which is also essential before we present such understanding as teaching in the church. We too need to be digging our own wells, asking the Lord Himself to teach us certain things that may be the deepest questions of our heart. But as Paul modeled, before presenting a new teaching as doctrine, it should be confirmed by the shepherds whom He has given to us for the protection of the church.
It is also true that everything the Lord shows us personally will probably have been shown to many others. It is not new revelation that we are seeking, but it is simply the truth taught to us by God Himself. When we receive it from our Father in heaven as Peter did, it becomes a rock in our lives that cannot be stolen from us. Teaching that we receive from men is much more easily eroded by challenges from other men.
This is why in our School of Ministry we sometimes invite guest speakers who we know will teach things that are contrary to our own positions on certain matters. At times we even bring in several different teachers to address a subject when we know their teachings will conflict with each other. We do not do this to confuse our students, but to challenge them to search these issues out, and inquire of the Lord for His position on the matter. We know that any who enter the ministry will be continually challenged by different opinions, and we want the ministers that we send out to know how to go to the Teacher for His answers to the questions that will inevitably arise.
We do not want to waste time "reinventing the wheel" with every doctrine, so it is right to go to trusted teachers and pastors for many of our questions. However, even then we should be seeking to hear the voice of our Teacher.
As we are told in I John 2:27:
And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you,
and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing
teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie,
and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
Some of the foolish and immature have interpreted this to mean that they should never listen to human teachers, but if that were true why would the Lord appoint teachers in His church, and why was so much attention given to the apostles' teaching? This Scripture is saying that we should only seek teaching from those anointed to do it, and we should recognize the anointing as our Teacher's voice. Even so, take your deepest questions to the Lord and patiently let Him teach you in that special way only He can. His teaching will be an immovable rock in your life that you will also find can shut the gates of hell.