In case you missed our last episode, Episode 27, Simply Grace, you can check that one out first. Click here. Today’s episode is entitled, “Bad Advice”.

Bad Advice Podcast Outline

• Dissecting Decision-Making
• Younger Adult Advice
• Same Age Group Adult Advice
• Older Adult Advice
• What the Bible Says About Advice
• Bad Advise
• Rehoboam’s Advice
• Solutions for Advice
• Our Charge

Welcome to Healing Our Brokenness Episode 28, entitled, “Bad Advice”.

Dissecting Decision-Making

When it comes to making decisions, some of us take way too long.  Others of us make decisions too fast.  We wish that we had thought things over well.  A lot of times, bad decisions can’t be erased.  The domino effect can be felt for years.  When we make decisions, sometimes we include God and other times we leave him out.   God also uses other wisdom-filled people filled with discernment to help us make decisions.  Ultimately, we have to decide what we are going to do.  Other people can’t make us decide to do what’s best.   

Younger Adult Advice

It is good to gather advice from our younger friends.  These friends are more than likely raising children younger than ours.  They can cause us to have a come to Jesus moment about some of the crazy perfectionistic moments that we had with our kids when they were little, use this advice for our grandkids, and see how it is when younger adults are active in community.  Some of our younger friends have been through a lot, and they have old souls.  They can give as much advice as an older person. 

Same Age Group Adult Advice

The next group of advice can be given from same age-group friends.  These friends can give us a different view than we are currently using in raising children, making friends, and living in community.  Since God hasn’t made any two people the same, our same-age group friends can help us to reframe what we are thinking regarding life, and vice versa.  We tend to share parenting kids of the same age group, and thus we can share similarities and differences.  If we are in community with safe friends, then they will go there and tell us what we need to hear.

Older Adult Advice

Our older friends have been there and done that.  They have years of advice and experience to give us.  They can serve as mentors for the younger and middle-aged adults.  They can tell us the lessons they have learned from their struggles in life.  Older people are less into the comparison trap and caring what other people think.  They have more of the you do you and let me do me.  They help us to be more at ease.  I praise God for my older friends who are indeed old enough to be my mother.  They have helped me in parenting, living life, and being me. 

What does scripture say about giving advice/training different age groups?

In Titus 2, it reads:

Titus 2 New International Version (NIV)

Doing Good for the Sake of the Gospel

2 You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.² Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.

³ Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. ⁴ Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

⁶ Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. ⁷ In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness ⁸ and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

Bad Advice

 We’ve all had times when we’ve gotten bad advice.  And this is where we have to use discernment and proceed with caution.  Healing advice from a person who has been stuck in self-pity or blame for 15 to 20 years and is seeing no way out wouldn’t be in our best interest.

Getting advice for how to deal with your spouse from a person who hates all men or all women because they were wounded by one wouldn’t be in our best interest as well.

Rehoboam got advice from the younger men in his age group.  And it was the worst advice ever.  Jeroboam had expressed to Rehoboam that his father Solomon had a heavy labor load on them.  They wanted the load to be lightened.  The older men who advised Solomon said to lighten the load. The younger men who were Rehoboam’s friends, said to increase the load.  Not only did he deliver this awful news to Jeroboam and the people, but he was filled with contempt and nasty with the message’s deliverance:

Let’s listen in:

1 Kings 12 New International Version (NIV)

Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam

12 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. ² When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from^[a]Egypt. ³ So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: ⁴ “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵ Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away.

⁶ Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.

⁷ They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”

⁸ But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. ⁹ He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

¹⁰ The young men who had grown up with him replied, “These people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. ¹¹ My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”

¹² Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” ¹³ The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, ¹⁴ he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourgedyou with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” ¹⁵ So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijahthe Shilonite.

¹⁶ When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:

“What share do we have in David,
    what part in Jesse’s son?
To your tents, Israel!
    Look after your own house, David!”

So the Israelites went home. ¹⁷ But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.

¹⁸ King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram,^[b] who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. ¹⁹ So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

This one bad decision that king Rehoboam made caused a domino effect. 

So, the question is:  how do we combat bad advice?

1. Remember God’s advice is the best advice.
2. Pray!!!!
3. Don’t forsake the advice of our elders, especially when they have proven that they possess wisdom and discernment.
4. Test the spirit as the scripture said.  God often uses what we think he is telling us by giving us confirmation through other people.

The question that I want to leave with you today is: “What bad advice were you given that you are still paying the price for today?

Thank you for being a part of our listening audience for Healing our Brokenness’ Episode 28:  “Bad Advice”.  If this podcast is making a difference in your life, please submit a review, tag a friend, subscribe on YouTube, iTunes, or wherever your podcast medium is located.

God bless and have a good week!