How can you know you’re walking in God’s will? On today’s edition of Family Talk, Dr. James Dobson continues his conversation with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs about his book, The Four Wills of God. They explore biblical principles for trusting Christ, living in purity, and giving thanks even in life’s darkest valleys. Discover practical guidance for following God’s universal will, and experiencing His unique purpose for your life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/707/29?v=20251111
You’re listening to Family Talk, the radio broadcasting division of the James Dobson Family Institute. I am that James Dobson, and I’m so pleased that you’ve joined us today.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh. And on today’s program, we’re continuing a fascinating conversation featuring our own Dr. James Dobson and his friend, Dr. Emerson Egerich. Now, on the last edition of Family Talk, Dr. Egerich revisited the premise of his popular book, Love and Respect. On today’s Family Talk program, he’ll be talking with Dr. Dobson about his 2018 work entitled The Four Wills of God. In it, Dr. Egerich unpacks four passages of scripture that can help us discern what God wants for our lives and give us peace about the decisions we make along the way. So here now are Dr. James Dobson and his guest, Dr. Emerson Egerich, on today’s edition of Family Talk.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Dr. Egerich, thank you for being back with us. Last time we talked about love and respect. What a wonderful concept that is. Your book is still out there. It’s still available. You’ve sold over 2 million copies. You ought to sell 10 million more because this is one of those rare concepts that really does have the power to change marriages and to preserve marriages. and to prevent divorce. And it’s because it comes straight out of scripture. You didn’t create anything here, did you?
SPEAKER 03 :
It was there before I was born. It’ll be there after I’m dead. I’m irrelevant.
SPEAKER 02 :
Comes down to love and respect. Give us the formula again.
SPEAKER 03 :
The correlation, one of them is when she feels unloved, she tends to react in a way that feels disrespectful to him. She’s not trying to be, but that’s how she appears. And then when he feels disrespected, he reacts in a way that feels unloving to And he’s not trying to be unloving, but that’s how she feels. And this is based on Ephesians 533, where God commands the husband to love and the wife to respect. And I believe, in part, to prevent that crazy cycle. But, Doc, again, I have to credit you. You were the one in 2004 who saw this, and you let the world know that this message was very, very important. And because of your credibility and influence— This thing has gone crazy in a wholesome sense.
SPEAKER 02 :
If we’re going to have time for your new book, we better get at it. Yes, sir. And the title of it is The Four Wills of God. And I want to hear what they are and how you came to this conclusion. First, tell me if a person can really fully understand the will of a God who doesn’t speak for himself. He speaks through his word, but he doesn’t sit down with you and say, now look, this is what I want you to do. You can find it in the scripture, but how does a person come to the conclusion that these are the four biggies? This is what we absolutely must do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Well, you and I both have come to that point where we trusted what Christ said, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That you and I believe in what we call a revelatory worldview, that God is there, that Christ is his son, and he has spoken. He has spoken through the prophets, he’s spoken through the apostles, and he’s spoken in these last days through his son. And those of us familiar with Scripture know that we’re quoting key verses on that. And you and I, without apology, have aligned ourselves with the worldview of Christ. We believe that. We believe Abba Father’s there. He loves us. He’s for us. And he has spoken. But he isn’t going to sit down with us. and tell us specifically, you know, it doesn’t work that way. He’s already spoken through Christ and through the apostles. And what’s fascinating to me is that when we pay attention, we suddenly discover some things. And there are four passages in the New Testament that are unparalleled. They’re matchless. There’s more to the will of God than these four. But these four identify God’s will with a specific behavior. And as I’ve mentioned to you before, I had the privilege of studying the Bible 30 hours a week for nearly 20 years as the senior pastor. I was to exposit the scripture. And so that gave me time to track down a lot of things. And this isn’t new to me. This has kind of been known, but I have used this now for almost 40 years of my counseling and pastoral help to people because this framework has not only helped other people. It’s been the framework that Sarah and I have sought to live, my wife Sarah and I, that these four passages have really helped us. And the reason this is important is there is a type of person out there that fears missing God’s will. They panic. It is this fear that they’re going to miss it. They’re going to do something wrong.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, I can imagine many people feeling like I have on occasion. When faced with a very important decision, I just wish the Lord Jesus would come and sit across the table from me. And tell me exactly what he wants. Take this job. Don’t take that one. Move here. Have another child. Those very practical, everyday kinds of questions where you would really, I think, most of us would like to get a telegram or something. Tell me exactly what to do and I’ll go and do it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
But he gives you the word and he says, follow these principles and you will see it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
And that’s what you have written about.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and I believe in signs, wonders, and miracles. And I believe, as you do, that there are moments when God heals somebody. And the medical profession itself says this is beyond our grasp how anything like this could happen. That would be a miracle. Signs are things that it points to. The fishermen were told, cast your nets over the side. Well, they’d fished all night. And then they have this great catch. Well, that’s not a miracle because there could be carpenters standing there watching this. Well, that’s just a coincidence. But they knew that was a sign. And then there are moments where there are wonders. It’s like we get chills. It’s like we just sense something. It’s not necessarily a sign, but like God showed up, something happened here. And all of us want to live in these miraculous signs and wondrous things. But that isn’t always the way he works. When you study the prophets, it can be three decades between miracles. The broader point we’re making is God comes crashing in at certain moments. But those moments are not going to be daily. And so how do we live week after week… When those kinds of interventions are not there, how do we know we’re doing His will? How do we know we’re not missing it? But I, in this book, have unpacked these four passages that, in the simplest way, it’s this. These four passages say this is the will of God. And if you do these four, then you’re doing the will of God. So how can you miss the will of God if you’re doing it?
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s get to them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s talk about them.
SPEAKER 03 :
What’s the first? Well, the first one that I highlight is what Jesus said in John 6, 40. This is the will of my Father. that you behold the Son, and he who beholds the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day. And Jesus is saying, this is the will of my Father. It is a unique thing. And what is it? Believe in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s a foundation for everything.
SPEAKER 03 :
Foundational, and it’s right there.
SPEAKER 02 :
You can’t know the will of God without honoring his Son.
SPEAKER 03 :
There would be secularists out there who would be very uncomfortable with that because they can’t stand exclusivity. But Jesus himself says this. And you and I came to a point, and we’re not the dumbest people. We may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but we are not totally dumb. We came to a point where we said, I trust Christ. I believe in him. If anybody’s the perfect gentleman, it was Jesus of Nazareth. He has influenced the world second to none. And he said, this is the will of my Father, that you behold me and believe in me. Trust me. And as I referenced earlier, my mom and dad had problems in their marriage. I came to Christ because I was sent to military school at age 16, and I asked Jesus Christ to come into me to forgive me. And I had a Billy Graham film called For Pete’s Sake.
SPEAKER 02 :
There he is again. And something happened, I know. And he shows up everywhere.
SPEAKER 03 :
Everywhere. And something happened to me, Doc. And my mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law all were watching me. None of them were believers. I went to Wheaton. I was headed to West Point. That’s where I was wanting to go. But I found out Billy went to Wheaton. I didn’t know anything. So I applied to Wheaton because I thought Billy and I were the only two that knew what was going on. I really did. It’s immaturity on my part. So I applied to Wheaton. And my mom, my dad, my sister, and brother-in-law, his professor, all came to Christ my freshman year. Oh, my goodness. And my mother came to me with an open Bible at age 53, tears rolling down her cheeks, and she said, all my life it was right here, of placing my faith in Jesus and having a personal relationship with him. That is one of God’s universal wills, believe in Jesus Christ. It applies to all Christians through all generations, right? But what we are all hungry for is the unique will of God for our life. And I make this point. When we follow the universal will of God, it triggers our experience of the unique will of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
So the two dimensions to it right there. Huge. Huge. I put it into words. What’s the difference between universal…
SPEAKER 03 :
and unique. The universal would be these declarations in Scripture that we’ve been talking about. God said, this is my will. So we tend to say that’s his universal will. There isn’t anybody that there’s a footnote in the Greek that says, Dr. Dobson is an exception. He doesn’t have to believe in Jesus Christ. In the Greek text, that’s not going to be. Everyone is called to believe. Jesus is expecting universally that everyone’s going to follow that will. That’s a universal will. It’s global. all time for everyone. If you come to that point where you’re struggling, but you say, Christ, I’m going to trust you in the midst of this situation. I don’t know if I should go through door A or door B. Well, it may be that you’re at a point of difficulty because he wants you to revisit, are you trusting him? Have you even come to Christ yet? Are you getting ahead of yourself on this? I know that was the case. My dad lost his job. And when he lost his job, he didn’t know what he was going to do. But during that time, his heart was tender, and he discovered that God had orchestrated that so that he would discover this personal relationship with Christ. And my dad used to get teary-eyed realizing that God had orchestrated that moment of frustration to bring him to the love of Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, apply it to yourself. You were not raised in a Christian home. You were not taught early on about the fundamentals of the faith. And yet the Lord found you. He was really looking for you, wasn’t he? He was calling you when you didn’t even hear it. Powerful, powerful moment.
SPEAKER 03 :
Exactly. But to your point, Jesus Christ came into me and something happened. And I remember it was at Liberty Theater in Mexico, Missouri, Missouri Military Academy, walking back to that campus that I began to experience the unique presence and peace of Christ in my life that I didn’t even know that I didn’t have. And the people who are listening right now, if you align yourself with the universal will of God, believing in Jesus Christ and opening your heart, asking him to forgive you, he went to the cross for you. He died for you. It isn’t about you being good enough. He’s the one that died in your place. And that’s what I heard that day, that I could be forgiven of everything I had done wrong. And I placed my faith in Jesus Christ. And subsequent to that, all these things began to happen in my life. These unique things that you could chalk up to coincidence. But as my good friend Sam Erickson, Harvard Law graduate, said, coincidence after coincidence after coincidence is no longer a coincidence. And furthermore, it is my incident with God’s incident. It is a coincidence.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, you are a living example. of the foolishness of the notion taught by early psychologists that an individual is the sum total of his experiences and that you are what you have been taught. And there is no free will and there is no opportunity to choose. If you’re raised in a particular faith or a particular point of view, that’s what you inevitably will become. You made an independence decision in your teen years to say, there’s something wrong with that. There’s more here than this. And it was the voice of God that was calling you. That blesses me.
SPEAKER 03 :
It was a huge thing. And I add to that, if you take that position, then what do you say to the woman who’s been sexually abused for years? Is she a hopeless, helpless victim that’s damned forever because she has no way of getting out of that? That is a very, very, very dark position to take. I believe that even though we can be deeply wounded and hurt, And we can be damaged. We’re not destroyed in the freedom that we have to your point. I came out of, you know, some miserable stuff. And that did not mean that now I was destined to be an unhappy soul. And that when I heard that God could forgive me, that I could ask Christ to come into me, that I could experience his peace. Wow. I invite everybody to consider it.
SPEAKER 02 :
The title of the book is The Four Wills of God. The way he directs our steps and frees us to direct our own. Dr. Emerson Egrich, the point is the clock is moving fast, and we’ve only dealt with one of the four wills of God. Let’s talk about the second one. We’re not going to get all through. Some people are going to have to buy the book, and you won’t.
SPEAKER 03 :
wouldn’t mind if they did that. No, in fact, I would love for people to give it to a grandson or a daughter or those of you who have lived this way, you know this, and this book is designed to help individuals. And the idea is this, that when we do these four universal wills of God, it triggers or activates the unique will of God. But when it doesn’t, and you still don’t know if I should go through door A or door B, I make this point that if I am trusting Christ, for instance, and another one is 1 Thessalonians 4.3, this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s number four, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, BAGS, B-A-G-S, is an acronym that I put together, Believe in Jesus Christ. abstain from sexual sin, give thanks in everything, 1 Thessalonians 5.18, and submit in doing what’s right, 1 Peter 2.13-15. That when I am believing in Christ, when I’m abstaining from sexual sin, when I’m giving thanks in everything, and when I’m submitting and doing what’s right, when I can do what’s wrong and get away with it, When I follow those four, I believe God begins to respond to that individual. I believe with all my heart, Doc, that you’ve lived by those four, whether you are conscious of it or not. And God has looked at you so that when 1 John 3.22 says, Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God that in whatever we ask of him, We receive because we keep his commandments, starting with those four wills, and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. And here’s what I’ve recognized. Every person I’ve seen that God has used greatly has been keeping his commandments. Whether they were conscious of these four or not, they had aligned their heart. There was no way they were going to step outside of those. We look at Billy Graham’s life. We know that man lived for Christ. He lived in humility. And we believe God’s hand was on him because of that. And so there is a price to pay. But I say to people, the price is so little. If you follow these four and you decide on your watch, this is how I’m going to live, I believe God will respond to you. But if he doesn’t respond to you, here’s what’s so beautiful. You can go through door A or door B. That’s really secondary. As long as you continue to do these four, you’re doing his will. You’re continuing to actively trust. You’re continually walking in moral purity. And Jesus said, the pure shall see God. That you’re giving thanks for things in spite of your understanding, and you continue to do what’s right regardless. You continue to do that way, and you can go through door A or door B. Relax. Just relax. You’re not going to miss his will when you’re doing his will.
SPEAKER 02 :
Boy, that is good stuff. You know, I read just this morning when I first got up that more than 80 percent of today’s young people are involved sexually in what the Bible would identify as willful, on purpose, deliberate sin, living outside the will of God. And it’s Very difficult to please God when you’re doing that. In fact, I would say it’s impossible. And he will not tolerate it. He will prick your conscience and make you uncomfortable until you deal with this. But everything else in terms of the will of God occurs and flows out of that obedience, doesn’t it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Hugely so. And I address at length what we’re up against with the millennials and what they are hearing as the culture. And so our appeal always is that each of us has to come to a point where do we really believe God is there and Christ is his son? And has God really spoken? And is he a cosmic killjoy to ruin our party? Or does he really love us? And I believe there are enough Christ followers among the millennials that they know this. I spoke to 150 of them, and I said, I kind of joke, I said, you know, when I get to the section in the chapter on sex, the publisher said, well, your book sales are going to be killed because the millennials are not going to believe this. And my position is I don’t adhere to that. I believe that they’ve been influenced. I believe they think that they’ve got to live together, for instance, in order to learn how the other person is. But for those who love Jesus Christ, you and I would both say to them, the Lord is not going to ultimately honor your life. Hebrews says, adulterers and fornicators, the Lord will discipline. The Lord disciplines because he loves us. Hebrews 12 is talking about that. And so I appeal to that person out there who knows that Christ has changed them. He’s come into them. He’s forgiven them. But they’ve moved into this particular arena, and they know in their conscience, as you’re saying, that it’s not right. So the question is, do they have the courage to follow Christ, or are they going to give in to their culture and miss out on what God has for them?
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re almost out of time. You know, many of the churches today begin with praise songs. And some of those praise songs have great substance to them. Many of them don’t. Many of them have no theology, no specific understanding of Scripture, and often no poetry and no expression of the gospel. Let me remind you of a little praise song that I wonder if you remember. I’m not going to sing it because I have enough trouble talking. But it says, “‘Trust and obey.'” For there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. That’s really what you’re talking. You were mouthing those words.
SPEAKER 03 :
Just saying it on Sunday in a traditional service down in Macon, Georgia. Trust and obey. There’s no other way. And that’s really the choice that you had to come to, Billy Graham had to come to. Every person who’s ever been a Christ follower has had to take a position on this. And is that because God is somehow trying to make us unhappy? Or does he know something and he’s calling us to trust him? And at the deepest recesses of each heart, you and I, I suppose, would be Christian hedonists. We want to be happy. We don’t want to be sad. And I document all the sadness to the hookup generation. It’s not working. So pragmatically, it’s not working.
SPEAKER 02 :
It leads to death, really, one form or another. The last one we have time to talk about is giving thanks. Now, your wife, Sarah, had bilateral mastectomy many years ago, and she began giving God thanks. How in the world did she do that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, she would say she was giving thanks before then and that she continued to give thanks through that. But we always point out that not only is she a great model and has impacted our family tremendously, but you don’t give thanks for evil. You don’t give thanks for the cancer. You don’t give thanks that you’re going to die. But there is this text that most of us know, Romans 8, 28, that God is working all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And there’s this sense that I trust God. I trust Christ. She was giving thanks. Lord, I don’t know how you’re going to use my cancer. I don’t know how you’re going to use this double mastectomy. I don’t know how, if I’m going to die in five years. But I thank you that you’re going to use this. I thank you because I love you. I thank you because I trust you. And this, I believe, is a crisis of faith for someone who may be listening because circumstances haven’t turned out. And there’s a tendency either we’re going to be like Job or Job’s wife. Job’s wife said, curse God and die. And I think because she was cursing God and wanted to die. She’d lost her family. Our empathy goes to her. But Job made a decision not to sin. And he made a decision to trust God and to praise God. God gives. God takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Even if you slay me, yet will I trust.
SPEAKER 02 :
What a great man. It’s unbelievable. He lost everything.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And so it would be natural to say, well, why would you give God thanks when God could have prevented it? And this is a stumbling block. Intellectuals say there are three scenarios. God is all loving. God is all powerful. And there’s evil in the world. We know there’s evil in the world. But Jesus Christ is on the cross, and he believed God was all-loving and all-powerful, and the reality of evil was there. He didn’t see the inconsistencies of those three. They all lived together. So as believers, we’ve got to come to a point where we will ask, why? Jesus on the cross said, my God, my God, why? That is okay. It’s not un-Christlike to ask why. But eventually, each of us has to come to a point where we will make a decision to trust him. I will thank you. I will praise you. I will give thanks to you. I will trust you on the basis of what I do understand about you in the face of the unanswered question. I will not choose to distrust what I understand about you in the face of the unanswered question. And each of us comes to that crossroads where we have to make a decision. Am I going to be like Job or am I going to be like Job’s wife? And this is not superficial stuff. Some who are listening are in deep pain right now. But Sarah was on the, you know, death’s door. I’ve got a woman who’s a good friend who was in satanic sexual abuse for years. The evil… that came to her. And she came to me for counsel. And I just said, hey, in the midst of all this pain, have you ever given thanks? Not for this, but in spite of this. Well, she got up and walked out. But she went back and she began to give thanks to God. And it even said, God, help me give thanks to give thanks, you know. And something began to happen. And I quote her in this book about how God began to uniquely respond. Again, do the universal will of God. And I tell story after story. And then God begins to uniquely respond. And my heart goes out to that person who’s stuck here. Give God an opportunity to respond to you. But you have to move first. You have to make a decision that I’m going to trust this universal will. I’m going to follow this. I’m going to act on this, even though I can’t comprehend why I should or how I fully should do this. But in my childlike way, I’m going to do this. And I just say, God isn’t asking for a whole lot. He’s very gracious. He’s very loving. Just move in that direction and watch what begins to happen.
SPEAKER 02 :
Dr. Egridge, let’s end this conversation with another scripture. You base everything you do on scripture, don’t you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Try to.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s the reference for everything you write about, everything I’ve seen that you’ve done. But Psalms 100 verse 4 says, Enter his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. That’s pretty straightforward. We’re out of time, sir. Thank you for being our guest for two days. It’s been a pleasure talking to you again. We’ve worked together for, has it been 20 years? 2003, yes, yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Dr. Egerich reminds us that when we align our lives with God’s revealed will, we can trust him with the rest. You’ve been listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk. Hope you’ve enjoyed Dr. Dobson’s conversation with Dr. Emerson Egerich. Now, if you missed any part of today’s program or the last broadcast discussion on love and respect, you can listen again at jdfi.net. There you’ll also find information about Dr. Egrich’s book called The Four Wills of God and his ministry, Love and Respect Ministries. Again, you’ll find all that information and more at jdfi.net. Programs like the one you just heard reach families every day with biblical wisdom and practical encouragement. And that’s only possible because of friends like you. When you donate to the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, you’re helping us share biblical truth with families who are searching for guidance in their marriages, their parenting, and their walk with the Lord. Every day we hear from listeners who tell us how these programs have strengthened their faith and given them practical wisdom for life’s toughest decisions. And your gift of any amount helps us continue in this mission. To make a secure donation, visit jdfi.net. or call 877-732-6825. That’s 877-732-6825. Well, I’m Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for making Family Talk a part of your day. And be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
