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Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so
that we may present every man complete in Christ." |
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Q&A on Hearing God's Voice(Part 9)In writing these articles I have tried to walk a fine line between two objectives: succinctness and clarity. The quest for succinctness involves sacrificing clarity and vice versa. Thus it is a good thing on a subject like “hearing God’s voice” to have a Q&A article to bring some clarity to subjects or issues that may have been left somewhat unclear in the quest for brevity.1 For some of you, these articles have expressed what you felt for some time. You have been concerned with the claims of some who say they receive direct personal revelations and guidance. For others the subject matter and evaluation of Scripture has prompted much thought and reflection and challenged you to evaluate conventional Christian thinking on the subject. I certainly can relate to that process! Many of the questions that you have or have had are questions that I myself had to wrestle through.2 Here are some of your questions and a couple of my own that I threw in for good measure. 1. Doesn’t your method put God in a box? The objection really misses the point. At no point have I said that God “cannot” do something. That is not the issue. God can do anything He wants, but I can’t teach anything I want, nor are we free to believe those things contrary to Scripture. Is it putting God in a box to say that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2)? Or to say that God cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13)? Or to say that God does not save apart from the work of Christ and personal faith in that work (Acts 4:12)? Of course not. To say these things is simply to affirm what God has revealed about Himself and His way of working. Greg Koukl puts it well when he answers this question by saying, “In one sense, all theology puts God in a ‘box,’ that is, it describes the borders of the person and character of God. This theology that allegedly ‘limits’ God, though, is based on God’s own self-revelation, not on our private ideas of what God should be like. When God describes Himself and His ways, these are not ‘limits’ but truths. . . . If I’m right and the Bible actually teaches what I think it does, then I am not putting God in a box. Rather, I’m identifying the patterns God Himself has chosen to work by.”3 It is the same with the subject of hearing the voice of God. The question is not what can a sovereign all-powerful God do, but rather, what has this God revealed about Himself, His Word and His way of directing His children. To teach what Scripture says about how God communicates is not “putting Him in a box.” It is being faithful to Scripture. Anytime God says, “This is Who I am, this is what I do, and this is how I do it,” He puts Himself in a box. God limits Himself to working in certain ways. The “box” (if you want to call it that) is one of His own making. 2. What if I have to choose between two equally wise and biblically sound options in a decision making process and I don’t know which one I’d rather do? Both will take me in opposite directions from which I can’t turn back. This questions comes in response to the assertion that the biblical pattern for decision making is simply: using the guidelines of God’s Word (moral will and wisdom), I am free to do what I want with God’s blessing.4 If neither choice is a violation of the moral will of God or of wisdom, then you are truly free to choose either without sinning. What if I don’t desire one more than the other? I should say at this point, that I have never found myself in such a situation. Usually with prayer and evaluation of my choices, one will inevitably come to the surface as the clear favorite. That is not to say that I will never find myself in such a situation. In that event, I would do two things. First, ask the question, “Which of these two will likely bring most glory to God?” If after that, both choices are still equal then I would do the second thing, make a decision. Eventually, I have to rest in the sovereign providential hand of God. I have to ask myself, “Do I really believe that God providentially directs the course of history? Do I really believe that I plan my ways but the Lord directs my steps?” If I believe that then the fear and uncertainty should melt away. Further, it always comes back to this issue of the sufficiency of Scripture. God has given me His Spirit and His Word. For me to say that I need something else is to say that the first two are not sufficient. It truly is an insult to both the Spirit and the Word to suggest that together they are insufficient and I need a further “word from God” before moving forward. Let me offer one more thing before we leave this subject of decision making. What would you say if I had a 30-year-old son who called me 10 times a day to ask me for guidance on making decisions? “Dad, I need to know if I should have hamburgers or hotdogs for dinner.” “Dad, should I buy the blue car or the red one?” “Dad, what should I name my child?” “Dad, should I buy the leather jacket or the denim?” You would rightly think that something went terribly wrong somewhere in my child rearing! As a parent, my task is to raise responsible people who are able to use moral principles and wisdom to make sound decisions on their own. God does the same with His children. He has equipped us with all we need and He wants us to grow to mature believers who apply biblical wisdom and moral principles in making mature decisions. 3. I think you make a good point when you say that one trying to hear from God must wonder if a "message" is from God, Satan, or just a bad pepperoni. Let us use the same logic for one trusting God to direct him without a "message." How do we know whether he is actually doing God's will? If we say, “Because God is sovereignly directing him,” why not say the same for one who is genuinely "seeking God's will" (not neglecting his Bible or all common sense) and gets a “message from God?” Let’s break the question down. First, how do we know whether he is actually doing God’s will? The answer to that question is not, “Because God is sovereignly directing him.” Rather, if he is not violating the moral will of God or wisdom, then we know he is within the will of God. All of God’s will that He intends to make known has been revealed. If I am not going against biblical wisdom or violating God’s moral will, then I am within the parameters of God’s revealed will and am free to make the decision and trust God to sovereignly direct my steps. In short, I know I am within God’s will because I have not violated what He has revealed in Scripture. The question really assumes that I can’t have any confidence of being within the will of God unless I receive a special message from Him. My question is, “Where is that taught in Scripture? Where are we told in Scripture that we cannot be sure of being within the will of God unless we hear personally from God on the issue?” The second part of the question, “Why not say the same for one who seeks God’s will and gets a ’message?’” Now we have come back full circle to the heart of the issue. Does Scripture teach that God directs us through “messages?” The answer is an unequivocal no. There is no support for this doctrine of hearing God’s voice in the one place we would expect to find it: the epistles of the New Testament. You can search the writings of any of the Apostles and you will find nothing but silence on this issue. Never once are we told to seek or receive “personal messages” from God for direction. Why are the Apostles so unanimously reticent on a capability that’s allegedly at the core of the Christian life?5 4. What about Joshua who made the mistake of not “asking counsel of the Lord” regarding the deception of the Gibeonites? It seems that obeying the moral will of God and wisdom was not enough for this man of God. Shouldn’t he have sought a Word from God? (See Joshua 9) We are not in Joshua’s situation. Joshua was the mediator of God’s theocratic rule through and over the nation of Israel. Joshua was the successor of Moses, and was appointed to lead the people into the promised land. He was God’s appointed man over the nation and he functioned as a prophet and king. We are not Israelites under the Old Testament theocratic kingdom. Joshua was unique and in a unique situation. We cannot take historical events that were unique and make them the pattern for the norm. I would expect for Joshua as the ruler of the theocracy to speak to the Lord face to face as Moses did (Deut. 34:10). What else about that unique historical situation should we think is normative? If Joshua is the pattern to follow, then before we move into a neighborhood, we should kill all the pagan neighbors first. We step into error whenever we take the supernatural, extraordinary, unique occurrences and try to make them the natural, ordinary, common pattern for us all. We are not Joshua nor are we Apostles, and God has not promised to communicate to us apart from His Word. He did do that with Joshua. He has not indicated that He does that with us. Joshua should have sought counsel from the Lord because Joshua had every reason to expect that God would give him supernatural revelation since Joshua was a chosen vehicle that God used for such leading. Numbers 12 is instructive in this regard. Moses’ siblings Aaron and Miriam said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” Did you catch the arrogance of that statement? Who is Moses to think that he is the unique vessel of revelation? Has God not spoken to all of us equally? After a stern rebuke (12:6-8) it says that “the anger of the Lord burned against them” and Miriam was struck leprous as a judgment from God. The person who presumes that Joshua (or Moses, or Paul, etc.) was not a unique spokesman for God and channel of divine revelation but that He has spoken through us as well makes a grave mistake! 5. Does the Spirit of God have no role in my life? It seems that if God is not directing me and whispering in my ear, that He is distant and not involved. Doesn’t your evaluation of hearing the voice of God make our relationship with God into a cold, austere, emotionless, mechanical relationship? I don’t deny at all that the Spirit of God is at work subjectively in our hearts all the time. The Spirit of God sanctifies us, gives us holy desires, testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God, convicts us of sin, prompts us toward righteousness, gives us a hunger for righteousness and the Word, illuminates the Word to our hearts and minds, gifts us for service, uses our spiritual gifts, comforts us, strengthens us, and guides our prayers. Those are just some of the things I can think of off the top of my head. Here is the key: none of these things involves “speaking” in the sense of giving propositional content (revelation). Let me offer an illustration: When my wife hugs me, I feel loved and comforted. It would be right to say that I felt comforted. It would be wrong to say my wife spoke to me and said, “I love you.” She didn’t. She just hugged me. When my wife speaks there is propositional content. When she hugs there is comfort. The two are entirely different. We experience God in very personal, profound, intimate, and emotionally powerful ways. But that is not being “spoken to” or “directed.” When I am standing at the checkout line in the grocery store and I see the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, there is something inside of me (sin) that wants to pick it up. That thought immediately brings conviction and I realize that I would only be giving in to temptation. Then I think of the covenant that Job made with his eyes not to look on a maid. A dozen scriptures flood my mind pertaining to purity, sin, and temptation. So I turn my eyes away and look at the candy bars. Then I have an all new temptation! Did the Spirit “speak” to me? Did God “tell” me not to look? No. He did not communicate new revelation. Rather He, by the work of His Spirit brought His Word to bear on my heart. I was convicted, not spoken to. His Word which I have hid in my heart kept me from an evil path. When I am going through a difficult time and a sermon I hear, or a passage that I read brings me comfort or conviction or encouragement, it is not God speaking. It is God working to “comfort,” “convict,” or “encourage” me. We do well to keep these concepts separate since Scripture does. We ought to use biblical terms to describe these biblical concepts. Say for example, I’m reading in my Bible and suddenly a passage comes alive. I realize that what the author is speaking about pertains to my situation or some topic that I’ve been wrestling with. I see the meaning as I never have before. Maybe I am overcome with conviction or comfort through the passage. Is this God speaking? Yes and no. No, in the sense that He is not giving additional revelation. He is not showing me something in the text that was not there to begin with. He is not giving me some hidden meaning or mystical understanding. But, yes, in the sense that when I hear Scripture, I hear God’s words. The Spirit of God takes the Word of God and applies it to my life and I experience conviction, comfort, peace, love, or the assurance of His promise or presence. Some may object and say, “Well, Jim, this sounds like a semantics game. You say ‘comforted’ or ‘convicted’ and I say ‘God spoke to me.’” It’s not semantics. Is it too much to suggest that we describe biblical concepts with biblical language? How about if we use the terms that the Bible does to describe the experiences? The only place where we hear God speak is in Scripture. The Spirit of God is active in taking that written Word and ministering to our hearts by way of conviction, comfort, encouragement, strengthening, and practical holiness, but none of these experiences constitutes the “voice of God.” Listen, if I didn’t believe that the Spirit of God subjectively works in our hearts in this way, I would never preach. Every time I step into a pulpit, I believe with every fiber of my being that the Spirit of God will be active in His people convicting, encouraging, strengthening, edifying, exhorting, rebuking, convincing, comforting and sanctifying the listeners through the exposition of His Word. I can do none of those things. If I thought that God wasn’t involved in our lives I wouldn’t bother ever teaching or preaching. I don’t believe that God is distant, cold, and not involved simply because He is not whispering in my ear and giving me little clues and messages. He is sovereignly directing my steps and molding me into the image of Christ, sanctifying me, and working in me both to will and to work for His good pleasure. I see Him answer my prayer, work in my family, open opportunities for me to serve, He enables and gifts me for the calling He has placed on me and strengthens me for the task. Daily His grace is sufficient as I trust in Him and rely upon His provision. How much more involved can He be? 6. How should I interpret others’ stories of “hearing God’s voice?” First, it may be that people are just using unbiblical terms to describe biblical concepts. They may be using the “felt led” or “God told me” terminology to describe conviction, comfort, reproof or encouragement or other ways that the Spirit of God works in our lives. However, it may also be that they really believe they are receiving clues and getting messages. They may really believe that just because the thought popped into their heads that that was the leading of God. A problem surfaces whenever someone tries to use their experience as a foundation upon which to build doctrine. My typical response to those types of claims is, “I can’t exegete experience.” In other words, I can’t use your experience as a foundation for an understanding of divine truth. I can exegete6 Scripture. Now we are back to looking at the text of Scripture and the Scriptures do not teach that God speaks to us through nudgings, promptings, feelings, still small voices, peaces or fleeces. It might be entirely appropriate to respond to someone who makes that claim by saying, “I don’t know what was speaking to you when you heard the voice, but there is nothing in Scripture that indicates to me that it was necessarily God.” Where We Inevitably ArriveNo matter what questions we have about this subject we always seem to arrive back at two very basic facts. First, Scripture does not support the idea that God leads, guides, or speaks through extra-biblical means such as nudgings, fleeces, peaces, or impressions. There simply is no text of Scripture that one can point to in order to support relying upon these means! None. We have looked at the few texts which are typically wrenched from their context and used to support these methods and those scriptures do not teach what they are alleged to teach. The Apostles never teach this method, and we don’t ever see it modeled for us in the New Testament. Second, we are always brought back to the issue of the sufficiency of Scripture. This teaching that I have been evaluating in the last nine articles is an attack on the authority, sufficiency, and uniqueness of Scripture. There is no way around that. If God speaks uniquely and directly to each one of us through the thoughts in our heads or our feelings, then His will and His Word are simply clay toys to be molded and shaped to fit the whims of the person “hearing God’s voice.” Either Scripture alone is sufficient, or there is no real objective, absolute truth that is external to ourselves. We must honor the Word of God because in it, the glory and majesty of God are on display. Let us reject anything that would detract from that pure, perfect, and holy Word. As Luther said, “Let him who would hear God speak, read Holy Scripture.” Without Wax- Footnotes: 1. See previous issues of the Kootenai Communicator archived on our Archives page. 2. See Part 1 of this series, Do I Need a Hearing Aid? 3. Decision Making and the Will of God by Gregory Koukl, pg. 36 of the course notes, available from Stand to Reason Ministries. 4. See Part 7, Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. 5. Koukl, pg. 36. 6. Exegete means to draw meaning from. Exegesis is the study of Scripture for the purpose of interpreting and thus understanding the author’s intended meaning of the text. |
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