When God Speaks
There is a growing trend among modern Christianity to discuss what the individual has heard from God. I hear it everywhere. "God spoke to me/I heard God say...," etc.
In Genesis 1, God spoke the world into being. "And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." God spoke. Then it came to pass. Over and over again, the passage gives the account of when God spoke and the different aspects of the universe were created.
When God spoke to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus 3, it was a holy event. So holy was God's presence that Moses was instructed to remove his shoes. He hid his face in fear and reverence.
Fast forward a few thousand years or so when Isaiah writes in chapter 40 verse 8, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."
Regardless of how seasons change, the weather is fickle or our gardens waver, God's word stands constant FOREVER.
Toward the end of the great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is recorded in Matthew 7:24 saying, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock."
But what if what we claim to have heard from God does not line up with what Jesus preached there on the mount, or any other things recorded in Scripture? We have a problem.
If this is the case, what you claim to have heard was not of God. Perhaps it was your own intuition or imagination. Perhaps it was the enemy. The bottom line is that everything we say we hear from God must be vetted by Scripture
When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness Jesus quoted Deuteronomy and said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
In Genesis 1, God spoke the world into being. "And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light." God spoke. Then it came to pass. Over and over again, the passage gives the account of when God spoke and the different aspects of the universe were created.
When God spoke to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus 3, it was a holy event. So holy was God's presence that Moses was instructed to remove his shoes. He hid his face in fear and reverence.
Fast forward a few thousand years or so when Isaiah writes in chapter 40 verse 8, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever."
Regardless of how seasons change, the weather is fickle or our gardens waver, God's word stands constant FOREVER.
Toward the end of the great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is recorded in Matthew 7:24 saying, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock."
But what if what we claim to have heard from God does not line up with what Jesus preached there on the mount, or any other things recorded in Scripture? We have a problem.
If this is the case, what you claim to have heard was not of God. Perhaps it was your own intuition or imagination. Perhaps it was the enemy. The bottom line is that everything we say we hear from God must be vetted by Scripture
When Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness Jesus quoted Deuteronomy and said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
When you say that God has said or spoken something to you, you are claiming revelation. You are elevating whatever you claim to have heard to the revealed word of God.
If what you say is true, and God SPOKE to you, then we need to tack that onto the Bible and call it Scripture. Scripture is God's revealed word.
I understand that the Holy Spirit leads and convicts us, even burdening our hearts with truth, or reminding of Scripture that we have learned. But that can never and will never contradict Scripture.
It will always be consistent with what God has already said in His word - the Holy Bible - which He has chosen to reveal Himself to us through.
*All Bible passages are from the English Standard Version (ESV) *all bold mine
It will always be consistent with what God has already said in His word - the Holy Bible - which He has chosen to reveal Himself to us through.
*All Bible passages are from the English Standard Version (ESV) *all bold mine
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