BIBLE HISTORY: BE CAREFUL WHOSE ADVICE YOU FOLLOW
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes; but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise” (ROVERBS 12:15).
No man has any right to offer advice who has not first heard God speak. No man has any right to counsel others who is not ready to hear and follow the counsel of the Lord!

This rule of listening only to those who have first listened to God will save us from many a snare, for in any group often persons at least nine are sure to believe that they are qualified to offer advice to others.

It seems that in no other field of human interest are people as ready to offer advice as in the field of religion and morals. Yet it is precisely in this field that the average person is least qualified to speak wisely and is capable of the most harm when he does speak.

For this reason, we should select our counselors carefully, and selection inevitably carries with it the idea of rejection.

David warns against the counsel of the ungodly and Bible history gives examples of men who made a failure of their lives because they took wrong advice.

It is especially important that young people learn whose counsel to trust. Having been in the world for such a short time they have not had much experience and must look to others for advice. Those who boast the loudest of their independence, for example, have picked up from someone the idea that independence is a virtue, and their very eagerness to be individualistic is the result of the influence of others. They are what they are because of the counsel they have followed.

A. W. Tozer