Insight for Living

Chuck Swindoll: We're not talking about UFOs. We're talking about UIPs, those unidentified inner promptings, those hunches, uneasy moments that say, don't go there, or there's danger lurking, or there's harm.

Bill Meyer: Life has a way of bringing us to the edge: seasons of impossible decisions, crushing disappointment, or dangers we can't see coming. In these moments, how does God break through? Well, not always in the way we'd expect.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll shows us how God has guided his people through some of their darkest hours, not with thunder, not with spectacle, but with something far more intimate. If you've ever wondered whether God hears your cries of desperation, today's message will provide ample assurance that he truly does.

Chuck Swindoll: Lord, when we look at the options around us, we realize that they are few as we seek to find a place of peace, a reason for life and the events of life. Remind us again, our Father, that there is a place to flee, there is a refuge, and there is a hope, and it is found in you. And you have never changed. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We pause to thank you for the warmth of your love that is constant, for your plan that unfolds in all of its mystery, for your word that lives and abides forever. Even though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of our God shall live forever. We stand on it, we trust in it, and we seek to know truth from it to stabilize us in this decadent era in which we live.

Be honored, our Father, at this place of worship today, in the work of this church, in the life of the people of this church. Not simply here, Lord, but as we move our lives from this building into the dailiness of life, go before us and work through us and work within us. Give others a reason to go on through our witness. Free our lips and our lives to speak openly of you in this time in which so many are searching, longing to find a reason to continue.

We pause in this quiet moment to thank you for taking care of us, for watching over those who fight for the cause of right and freedom. We pray that you would protect them and bring them safely back. In our nation's transitional time, watch over us. Guide clearly, Lord, through wise counsel for those in high places. May your truth speak through their lips into minds and hearts that will lead and make decisions.

Now, our Father, we give you our gifts and we give them gratefully and hilariously and we give them generously as we invest in that which is eternal for the glory of Christ, in whose name we worship and we pray, and everyone said, Amen.

Bill Meyer: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into today's topic on your own, be sure to purchase our Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message, Those Unidentified Inner Promptings.

Chuck Swindoll: Something occurs in the unseen realm down deep in our spirit that changes us and we feel this is right, and we go there. Or we are assured this is wrong, and we don't. Amazingly, we look back on those times and feel so grateful that at the time of decision, that right decision was made.

Why is it we don't realize that was the Spirit's working in an inner prompting, in a realization of revelation or illumination as we see truth like we've not seen it before, and the mystery leaves and clarity replaces it? The first thing I described we could call intuition. We just felt like we should do that, or we should not do that. This which I've just described we could call insight. We get an insight into some truth that we had been wrestling with over a period of time. I can't tell you the times both of those experiences have happened to me.

I want to talk about this today, and in doing so, I have to tell you I have never heard it addressed publicly. I've never heard anyone talk about UIPs, those unidentified inner promptings. Why is it we never give the Spirit of God credit for such things? When Adam was originally created, he was created to have that sense of community and connection and communication with the one who made him. That broke down. It wasn't destroyed; it was damaged.

I realize as I address this, I'm in a realm that's, first of all, outside my expertise. For some of you, you would think it's in the realm of the paranormal. It could be called that. It certainly is in the extrasensory realm, but you cannot deny it. Occasionally we have a premonition. Sometimes the premonition is wrong. Other occasions, we were right. We have an uneasy feeling about going into partnership with an individual in business, let's say. It's an inner prompting that comes from this fearful and wonderful system of guidance.

Romans 8:16 says that God's Spirit testifies to my spirit, our spirit, that we are the children of God. Somehow there is a connection in that inner prompting that assures me I belong to the Lord. I know there's a bit of a bewildered look on some of you. I understand. This is not an easy thing to talk about, but I think it's an important thing to address.

I believe that as a result of not linking these promptings to the work of the Spirit, we devalue his presence at work within us. We have God the Father who has planned our salvation. We have God the Son who has implemented our salvation by dying in our place on a cross, giving his blood to cleanse us from sin. And then we're left with the Holy Spirit for what? To link up with the Godhead, to live our lives before our God in an intimate manner. It's the image of God in me, in you, that makes that happen.

I know there's a risk. I want to make a disclaimer here so that no one goes off on a tangent in this area and lives by hunches or intuition. I realize when I open the door to this, some of you are given to this kind of thing more than others. Others of you are so skeptical you're going to walk out before I'm through. But there are some of you who are saying, finally someone agrees with me. All of the hunches I have are from God. Stop. I'm not saying that.

I'm saying there are times the only way he can communicate to us, whether it is through conviction or assurance or direction or reassurance or encouragement, is through the unidentified inner prompting. That's all I'm saying. I'm asking us to stop calling them intuition and coincidence and hunches and feelings and to identify them as the work of the Spirit.

Let me show you a couple or three examples. Go from Psalm 139 back to First Kings 19. The key person in First Kings 19 is a courageous, valiant Hebrew prophet named Elijah. A little background: he has stood toe-to-toe against the king named Ahab, Ahab's wife Jezebel. He has dared Ahab to stand against the living God. Ahab, with the influence of Jezebel, has done that.

It came to a final climax on Mount Carmel where there was a battle. An altar was built, and Elijah said to the people, the false prophets of Baal, "You call on your god, and if he comes down and consumes the altar, we'll say that he is God. If he doesn't and mine does, then mine is God." It was one of those standoffs. As you would expect, they were wrong, Elijah was right, and all 450 prophets of Baal are wiped off the scene. This incenses Jezebel.

That's what we read about in verse 1 of chapter 19. "Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, 'So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.'" Only the Bible could say it like that. We would say, you're history. Curtains. I'm wiping you off the earth in 24 hours. You'll be in the past tense.

Believe me, Elijah understood what she was saying in her threat. In a moment of weakness, perhaps exhausted from the standoff at Carmel, perhaps weary himself from the drought that has swept across the land—and it is wearisome to fight against false prophets and demonic forces—Elijah caves in and he runs for his life.

Verse 3 tells us why he did it: he was afraid, rose, and ran for his life, came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, left his servant there. He goes another day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Watch closely. He requested for himself that he might die. I can't speak for any of you, but I have the feeling that some of you know what that feeling is like.

You have been so low you thought death is better than living. The thought of suicide never entered Elijah's mind, being a prophet of God, but he certainly is asking for God's aid. "You gave me life. Now I ask that you take it. It isn't worth it." Every leader knows such discouragement. He says, "It is enough now, O Lord. Take my life, for I am not better than my fathers." He lay down and slept under a juniper tree.

An angel touched him and said, "Arise and eat." He looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. That's a nice catering service when you're at the end of your rope. He looks over and he's got a warm meal prepared for him. So he ate and drank and lay down again, but that didn't break his depression.

A similar event happens at verse 7. He arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights. Verse 9: "Then he came there to a cave and lodged there." So he's no longer under a tree; he's in a cave. "Behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, 'What are you doing here, Elijah? Why are you here?'"

He said, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left. They seek my life to take it away." Now watch closely. You're going to see one of those inner promptings.

He said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord." And behold, the Lord was passing by. And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a sound of a gentle blowing.

Let's pause there because that's gotten a little press over the years and you may have heard of the still small voice. The 1611 King James version renders this "a still small voice" he heard. The New King James version reads "a delicate whispering voice." The NIV renders this "a gentle whisper," a little whispering. Moffatt's translation handles it "the breath of a light whisper."

There's a reliable old commentary named Keil and Delitzsch. Dr. C. F. Keil writes this: "It was not in the tempest that Jehovah was, and after the tempest an earthquake, it was not in the earthquake that Jehovah was, and after the earthquake fire, it was not in the fire Jehovah was, and after the fire a still gentle rustling."

You know what I call it? A UIP, an unidentified inner prompting. God got through to his capacity, to his spirit. He touched him as nothing in the sensory perception would have grasped. Earthquake, wind, fire, none of that moved him, but there was this gentle rustling. Keil adds, "It was in a soft gentle rustling that God revealed himself to Elijah."

The result is that Elijah wraps his mantle around him and walks toward God rather than from him, comes to the mouth of the cave, and is led ultimately to meet up with Elisha. They, together as partners, make their way right on until Elijah is taken off the earth. With his mantle wrapped around him, he began to pursue further and further God's plan for his life. It broke what had paralyzed him.

The point I want to make is the turning point was this unidentified inner prompting: gentle, quiet. If there's anything that troubles me about our culture and our times, it is the noise of it all and the pace of it all, because I think it works against the voice of God quietly speaking to reach us. There's an old hymn we don't even have in our hymnal that says, "Speak, Lord, in the stillness while I wait on thee. Hushed my heart to listen in expectancy."

I warn you about being so busy you will miss his voice. Orin Crane wrote it in these words: "Slow me down, Lord. Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time. Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills. Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory."

Teach me the art of taking minute vacations, of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, to smile at a child, to read a few lines from a good book. "Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life's enduring values. Let me look upward to the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well."

Take time. Take time to listen. God's voice may be in the earthquake or the fire. There are messages there. You'll hear his voice in those quiet moments when it comes like a gentle rustling, a soft whispering, a reassuring word that life is worth living, it's worth going on. His inner promptings will come in the deep well of our spirit where he simply says, "Yes, go there," or "Wait," or "No, stay away from that."

I'll not take your time, but I could to tell you of moments in my life when I've thought it just isn't worth it in light of all the stuff I feel stacking on top. Then in a quiet moment, it's remarkable how that all gets turned around and figured out, and I realize now it was the work of the Spirit bringing reassurance.

Turn from First Kings 19 to Acts chapter 20. Here's another setting, another person, not a Hebrew prophet but a Jewish apostle who's now born again and his life has been changed. His name is Paul. He's meeting with a group of elders from Ephesus and he's saying his final goodbye and he's on his way to Jerusalem. But what he tells them troubles them. It's come from an inner prompting from the Spirit of God, one of those unidentified inner promptings.

Acts 20 verse 22: Paul says, "And now, behold, bound in spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city saying that bonds and afflictions await me." I find that intriguing. What was that? It was a UIP.

"I've been with the Lord and I've met with him and I've sought his guidance and he's told me, 'You're to go to Jerusalem, Paul,' but there's also been that inner sense, that spoken voice of the Spirit saying, 'But beware, there's trouble ahead.'" Sure enough, there was. It was there he was arrested more than once. It was from there he was sent to Rome where ultimately he was imprisoned, had an audience before Nero, and was finally beheaded. All the troubles started in Jerusalem. The Spirit told him it would happen, testifying to him in every city saying that bonds and afflictions await him.

Look at his response: "But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself." Remember his words: "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." "...so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God."

I think this kind of inner prompting explains the courage of the first-century persecuted Christians and the twenty-first-century persecuted Christians. I think this explains how the reformers could stand against the established church and the popular majority opinion of the time and stand alone, knowing that in standing alone they would face the same kind of persecution that their forefathers faced when they stood before the prelates of the kingdom.

The Spirit of God gave them not only an awareness of danger but also the confidence that they could bear up under it. That explains how some of the reformers could be burned at the stake and while being burned offer up their prayer to God that God would forgive those who were taking their lives. It had come from this inner prompting of the Spirit saying, "It is going to be dreadful for you, but I will give you the strength to endure."

The glorious reality is that God is not through giving that kind of strength in hard times. I have experienced them in my life, right here. At times not knowing how I could go on, most of you knew nothing of it. My wife knew all about it. My family knew most of it. But during those times, I had to rely on the presence and the assurance of the Spirit of God to steady me.

What I'm saying to you today is that sometimes these inner promptings are not relieving in the sense that they are taking away the pressure. They are just announcing to you ahead of time, by doing this, you know that trouble is ahead, but I will give you the courage and the conviction to stand fast. I don't know what the future holds for some of you, but you may have such a prompting in your experience and in your life. If you do, my challenge to you today is to obey the guidance of the Spirit. Don't run from the trouble. Don't hold back, because if it is his will, he will give you the strength to endure.

Bill Meyer: The courage to move forward, even when trouble is ahead, doesn't come from circumstances improving. It comes from the quiet, steady assurance of the Spirit of God within you. You're listening to Insight for Living and a message from Chuck Swindoll titled Those Unidentified Inner Promptings.

Maybe something Chuck said today resonated with you and you're ready to learn more about the Holy Spirit and the way he speaks to you. Well, we want to help you go deeper. Why not stop by our website and look at the great collection of Bible study resources that we've prepared for you?

Take a look at the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook for this 12-part series called How Great Is Our God. And if you enjoy listening to Chuck's messages from start to finish, you have access to the complete study, either on CD or MP3. You'll find all the details for ordering these resources at insight.org/offer.

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I'm Bill Meyer. Be sure to join us when Chuck Swindoll continues to describe those unidentified inner promptings Tuesday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, "Those Unidentified Inner Promptings," was copyrighted in 2008, 2009, 2016, 2019, and 2026, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll, Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.