Matthew 10:20 - For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father
which speaketh in you.
God still speaks today by the
Holy Spirit through His written Word, through His anointed servants, and
through such supernatural means as dreams, visions, inward assurance. Divine
Providence, or circumstance. God never speaks to us in any subjective
experience in contradiction to His written Word.
All such experience
must be judged by and agree with Holy Scripture. We need to open our hearts
to receive the word of the Lord not only from the Bible, but through the
other channels by which God speaks.
a) Listen To His Voice
The seven times repeated warning in Revelation 2 and 3 is for us to heed in this
day: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the
churches. "Note the use of the present continuous tense saith, meaning "to
hear what the Spirit says and continues to say."
How Does The Mustard Seed Grow? This same tense is used by Jesus in Matthew
4:4: "...Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth [present continuous tense] out of the mouth of God. " We live not
only by what God said in His written Word, but by the word that (present
tense) ' proceeds and continues to proceed out of the mouth of God. " We
walk in life by hearing and obeying the proceeding word of the Lord by
whatever means He chooses to speak that word to us. When we refuse to accept
that God can speak to us through other than the written pages of the Bible,
we may cut ourselves off from communication with Him, and spiritual death
begins to set in.
b) Don't Refuse His Voice.
When God spoke to the
Israelites, Hebrews 12:19 points out that "...they that heard [the voice of
words] is treated that the word should not be spoken to them any more... "
When they rejected the voice of God, they lost faith and they were shut up
under law.
Hebrews 12:25 therefore warns: "See that you do not refuse him who is
speaking [present continuous tense]. For if they did not escape when they
refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape if we reject
him who warns from heaven. " Many today are bordering on this very danger of
refusing " Him that speaketh " (the suffix "eth" means "speaks and
continues to speak"). Some teach that the days of miracles are past. They're
trying to live by what God said, and refusing to hear what He is saying. So
they've rejected the God of miracles. Such as these will abide in
undeveloped faith because they try to bring the Scriptures down to their
experience rather than their experience up to the Scriptures. If we are
going to grow in faith, our hearts and our ears must be open to Him.
We must believe that the word of the Lord can come to us today. We must
accept guidance by the Spirit's voice, and in accord with the Scriptures
which communicate His will to us. If we do not refuse His voice (like the
children of Israel), but hear it and obey it, faith will be increased in our
lives.
c) Be Ready For His Voice.
Now we needn't strain
to hear His voice. We need not go through all kinds of ritual and ceremony
for God to speak to us. God can and often does speak to us when we are least
expecting it. One of the most important words of the Lord to me came one
morning in New Mexico. It was in a restroom, while I was bending over the
basin to wash my hands and face for breakfast! Suddenly, God's voice came to
me. On another occasion I was leaving a Sunday morning service. My mind was
thinking about the trip home. Unexpectedly, God gave me a "word of wisdom"
for a member of the church which resolved
a serious problem in her life.
d) Tune In To His Voice.
There is the capacity
in God to speak to us through His Holy Spirit direct from Heaven. And there
is in us the capacity to hear through our spirit when He speaks. Paul refers
to man as spirit, soul and body (I Thes 5:23). The spirit is that inward
part of man that is God-conscious. The soul (intellect, will and emotions)
is that inward part of man that is self-conscious. The body (responding
through the senses) is that part of us that makes us world-conscious.
So, then, because we are a spirit
and God is a spirit, we can have communication. For example, a room is
filled with hundreds of sound signals beamed out from radio and television
stations. But we can't hear them unless we turn on a radio or TV set. As
soon as we tune the set to the station, those sounds are transmitted into
something audible or visible. In the same way, we can "tune in" to God and
receive His signals, some of which are audible and visible!
Faith comes by hearing God's word, obeying what you've heard out of a heart
of love for him. Let us stir up our faith , and make it grow by continually
practicing these principles: HEAR! OBEY! LOVE! SAY !
By Ralph Mohoney
World MAP
For all
occasions....
