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I feel the need to inform those of you reading that last week’s article, The Enemy’s Ministry, is by far the most difficult article I’ve written to date. This was not due to any particular issues with the material itself – I absolutely stand by the precepts I put forth in that article. It was due to the absolute war that raged within my mind as I went about preparing and writing the material. Every conceivable objection to every precept within came screaming to mind as I wrote.
Suffice it to say, I pressed through. While I’m sure I could have done a better job, I trust that I at least made clear the three fundamental points the article intended to convey.
I bring this up because it actually serves as an illustration of the theme of this article; hearing God… I didn’t write that article for any reason other than the fact that I was told to.
In the spirit of full-disclosure, I have to confess that I was one of those people. You know the kind; those who politely listen to “something the Lord told you”, but you know are secretly rolling their eyes?
Yep. That was me.
One day however, the Lord began speaking to me. Actually, He’d been doing so all along, the difference was that I could now hear him. The change wasn’t borne of a particular circumstance or some supernatural experience, it was simply that I started listening. When I did, I found He had no shortage of things to say.
Let me assure you that I’m not talking about a booming voice from the sky. I’m not even talking about a physically audible voice at all… usually. I’m talking about the still small voice, or soft whisper that speaks to our inner-most being.
You will hear a word spoken behind you, saying, “This is the correct way, walk in it,” whether you are heading to the right or the left.
Isaiah 30:21
God doesn’t yell or shout – He shouldn’t have to.
If you care about what someone is saying, you’ll take the time and expend the effort to actively listen. You won’t require the speaker to increase volume, you will seek to cut through the din and clamor in order to better hear what’s being said. If we recognize that the Divine Creator and King of the Universe is speaking, how much effort should we ply in order to hear Him clearly?
Knowing Who’s Talking
Firstly, we need to understand that, at any point in time, their are three “voices” speaking to us – who we are hearing depends greatly on who we are listening to. It’s also dependent upon which voice we recognize to be whom.
You
The first of the three voices is you. You are in your head 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and, for better or for worse, yours is the voice you likely listen to the most frequently. This can be a good thing, but all too often it isn’t. There is certainly no shortage of bad advice to be had from the world, and the ability to cut through the dross and get to grips with your own ideas, desires and thoughts isn’t inherently bad… but there is a problem:
“Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds,” says the Lord, “for just as the sky is higher than the earth, so my deeds are superior to your deeds and my plans superior to your plans..”
Isaiah 55:8 – 9 (NET)
Note that some translations render this a bit differently:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts…”
Isaiah 55:8 – 9 (NIV)
The point is that God doesn’t think like we do and it isn’t God who needs to change… it’s us. We as individuals may possess some measure of wisdom, and some even possess an extraordinary measure of it. If we lean on our wisdom and our understanding, however, we are destined to fall. Have a look at the life of Solomon for a profound illustration.
If we lean on the understanding of God, things may not make sense to us in a given moment, but we are leaning on and laying hold of a level of wisdom and understanding that exceeds our own, immeasurably. His is a far superior wisdom to anything any human being can muster.
Just sayin’.
The Adversary
The second voice in your head is that of “your enemy, the devil” (1 Peter 5:8).
To be fair, the odds of that other voice being the devil is pretty slim… he is a finite being and, unlike the God of the Universe, is not omnipresent nor omnipotent. He is limited, utilizing limited resources in a fight where he’s been outnumbered 2 to 1 from the start. The likelihood that he is personally speaking into your life is relatively minute.
His subordinates and mongrel offspring however, are plentiful. Know that there’s a difference between a “devil” and a “demon”, but that’s a another matter. They have the same agenda as their master, and none of it contains anything remotely resembling our best interest.
In order to get a sense of when you’re hearing the enemy’s voice, you need to understand a few things about the nature of the adversary and his minions.
Firstly, they will not point you to righteousness. They may encourage you to “follow your heart”. They may provide you with rationalizations for a lustful thought, or selfish act. They will ultimately encourage selfishness, materialism, hedonism and Godlessness.
They are lawless and, given the opportunity, will ultimately lead you into lawlessness as well.
“The heart is more deceitful than anything else and mortally sick. Who can fathom it?”
Jeremiah 17:9 (CJB)
Secondly, you need to know that they know the scriptures better than you do.
They do.
They’ll never call them to mind rightly, or point to context, clarifying meaning. No, if they call them to mind at all, they will do so in a manner that is out of context. They will distort the true meaning and encourage a pattern of thought that is twisted and perverse.
… Some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures.
2 Peter 3:16
The enemy uses our ignorance as a weapon against us. If we are ignorant of what scripture actually says and truly teaches, we are easy prey. What’s more is, if we fail to test these, seemingly bible-based thoughts against scripture, we’ll fall into a pattern of practicing lawlessness and thinking that we’re actually obeying God.
But examine all things; hold fast to what is good. Stay away from every form of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 – 22
The good news is that, while our ignorance is a weapon against us in the hands of the adversary, it is one over which we have control. By studying the Word, we shed our ignorance and deprive the enemy of this tool…
The Lord
The most important of the three voices is that of God, or the Holy Spirit (Ruach Ha-Kodesh) if you prefer. Sadly, for most of humanity, it also the least listened to or heeded. Complicating matters further is the fact that even among believers, many struggle with discerning when and what He’s saying.
There’s that word… discernment.
For many believers, the mere mention of this brings to mind the spiritual gifts. While there absolutely is a gift of discernment, we should note that it is specifically mentioned as the “discernment of spirits” (1 Corinthians 12:10). This isn’t technically the kind of discernment we’re talking about here.
Recall that, in last week’s article, I related that we are absolutely in a war. Although I mean that quite literally, I want to use it here as an analogy to drive the point home.
If you and are I soldiers in this war (and like it or not, we are), then we have to be able to receive orders from our Commander. This will be broadcast on a specific radio frequency. Moreover, it’s likely to be encoded. To have any hope of receiving these orders, we have to be tuned to the proper frequency and possess the ability to rightly decipher the encoded message.
Using this analogy, think of the Bible as the cipher through which we can decode any message sent to us from Command. If we have an accurate understanding of the cipher (the Bible), we will accurately understand these messages. What’s more is, we will be able to identify counterfeit communications for the frauds they are… If we have a corrupted (or a lack of) understanding of the cipher, we’ve failed before we’ve even started.
The issue that I’m driving at is that you need to read your Bible. You need to read it from the front, to the back and you need to do so repeatedly.
I’ve said before, and stand by the principle that, “until you come to grips with the front of the book, you can never understand the back of it”… and now, perhaps more than ever, we need people of understanding when it comes to scripture.
In my analogy, I stated that the Bible is our cipher; that is the key by which we accurately interpret the message. Here’s the thing, the enemy knows the scriptures better than we do… so we must strive to “rightly divide” the Word.
And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 11:14
God will not contradict Himself, therefore He will never contradict His Word – neither the front of it, or the back. If we encounter a message that contradicts the Word, or would direct us to action or behavior that is not in keeping with the Word, we can know with utmost certainty that it’s not from the Lord.
As we get to grips with scripture, we begin to ingrain it into our being. At a certain point, you’ll begin to know when a message is erroneous even before you have fully comprehended why, or what it is about the message that’s wrong… but that only comes from spending time in the Word.
The point is this – if you don’t know the Word, you have nothing concrete from which to discern the nature of a thought or message. You have no means by which to empirically distinguish between yourself, the adversary or the God of the Universe.
I used to bristle at messages like this – I really did. I’ve used every excuse that’s likely going through someone’s head even as they read this; “I don’t have time”, “I try but I don’t understand” and on and on.
The thing is, you do have time, but choose to give that time to other things. Moreover, you can understand, but this requires effort.
If you don’t read it, you will never understand it… not for lack of ability, but lack of effort.
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive from me what is mine and will tell it to you.
John 16:13 – 14
So God speaks. it’s a thing and if you want to learn how to hear what He’s saying now, you need to begin by studying what He’s already said.
שלום עליכם – Shalom Aleichem – Peace Be Upon You