How Do We Know We are Hearing From God?

If you haven't read our earlier blog entry titled "Who wants to talk about the things of God" please take the time to go back and read it as the initial story in it is also related to this post. You can click through to it here: http://likeflint.blogspot.com/2011/10/who-wants-to-talk-about-things-of-god.html

Now allow me to share a brief story which I heard from someone else so I am taking it at face-value and I have no reason to disbelieve it. There was a Christian man who while driving his car thought he heard God telling him to close his eyes, let go of the sterring wheel, and put his faith in God. I am sure most readers will know what the outcome was; he had an accident. Was he foolish to do that, was he lacking in faith or is there something else going on?

I think this story and the one from last week demonstrate that there are a number of believers in the Church today who have little understanding of God and clearly do not read or understand His Word. Sadly, I could have chosen a number of other stories to demonstrate this but I think these will suffice. Also, as it appears to be the norm with our blog, there is so much we could discuss here, but with a view to keeping things short, lets look at just one issue; How do we know we are hearing from God?

How do we know we are hearing from God? How could our car-driving fellow-believer have avoided an accident? Well to begin with, believers are cautioned to test the spirits (1 John 4:1-3) to see whether they are from God. When we are dealing with anything of a spiritual nature we must use some caution. So many people (authors included) have foolishly followed after false teachings/teachers without consulting God's word and have ended up in "spiritual car crashes". I strongly urge readers to become "good Bereans". This means that after you listen to your pastors/preachers/speakers/friends or whoever, or when you read this blog/that book or whatever, you will search the scriptures to see if what is being stated is true (Acts 17:11). We ignore this advice at our own peril. It is that serious.

Now what about my friend (from earlier post, see above) who told me he doesn't need the Word because he follows the Spirit? He only has part of the truth. Jesus said "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come" John 16:13 (See also John 15:26). Now we know that Jesus is both the Truth (John 14:6) and the Word (John 1:1 & 1:14) so it is my contention that the Spirit of God will lead you to both Jesus and His Word (The term translated 'word' here can mean both 'word' or 'the indpendant personified expression of God' see BDAG, 'logos', or any decent Greek Lexicon). It is my belief that God's Spirit will guide you to the truth that is to be found in Jesus and the Scriptures (see 2 Tim 3:15,16).

So how do we come to an understanding of how the Spirit of God operates in our lives? How do we know we are hearing from Him? We turn to His Word; "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" 1 Peter 2:2. We believe God does speak to us via His Holy Spirit today, but We also believe He will absolutely not contradict what is written in His Word. So for us to avoid spiritual deception or even physical harm, we must study His Word. What advice did Paul give to young Timothy? He wrote "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" 2 Timothy 2:15. Shame on us if we ignore this exhortation. If we do, we will wind up making foolish statements like my Christian brother did when he told me he has little need for God's Word. Not only that, but we disrespect our Lord Jesus who said "Heaven and earth will pass away. But my words will never pass away" Luke 21:33.

We all need to seek God through his Spirit and His Word. We believe that if we seek God's Spirit, He will lead us to His Word. We also believe if we seek God in His Word, His Word will lead us to His Spirit. What do you think?

Who wants to talk about the things of God?

Sometime ago I was discussing a piece of Scripture or two with a Christian brother who part way into it cut me off and explained that he didn't need to know too much of the Word because he just went by the Spirit. Following this, he abruptly changed the topic. At first I was a little taken aback because this was a man who had been a Christian for some 20 plus years, but I soon came to realise in this Post-Modern era, that this is not such an abnormal position for fellow believers to hold. Now there are a couple of things going on with this attitude (one being whether we are to be led by the Spirit of God, or to follow His Word, or both. I plan to address this issue in an upcoming blog so check back soon for that) but what I would like to focus on here is the willingness or otherwise of believers to discuss the things of God.

With this in mind, take a little time to consider how many of your fellow-believers willingly discuss the things of God with you. Do many of them have only a surface understanding of the Scriptures? Do others look at you blankly if you talk about God, Jesus or the Scriptures, especially outside of the church setting? Do they change the subject? Are many of them more comfortable discussing sport, movies, music, celebrities or anything but the things of God? Does this type of shallow believer describe people you know? Yourself?

Anyone that knows me personally will tell you there was a time when it described me, so I have been as "guilty" of this type of attitude as anyone, which is partly why I feel qualified to discuss it. Now some reading this might think "So what? I've said the 'sinners prayer', I have my ticket to heaven, that's all I need to know". Well if that's you (or me), we need to go to the Word of God and see what it says. Perhaps some of us need to take the time to check our hearts.

When writing to the Corinthians, Paul said "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?" (2 Corinthians 13:5). This is very good advice, but if you are going to take this advice, keep in mind the following: Every man's way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts (Proverbs 21:2). God knows our hearts, so whereas we might be able to deceive ourselves into thinking we are fine, God cannot be fooled. Perhaps we need to adopt the attitude of the Psalmist who said "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

It is our prayer that you will be encouraged to examine yourself and that you might invite God to examine your heart as well. If we know more about our favourite sports team than we do about Abraham, or if we can discuss the intimate details about our favourite celebrity but we cannot discuss our Faith, then it is well past time to stop and take stock. It is my belief that when we do this, we will have the opportunity to demonstrate a more effective witness to the people around us, both to believers and unbelievers. Please take the time to let us know if this encourages you to do so.

One Word That The Church Needs To Learn Again

Our rendition of a 5th Century Byzantine Church

Do you ever wonder why the Church is in the state that it is in today? Do you ever read the Word of God and wonder why the Modern Church seems have so little in common with that of the New Testament?

There are a number of reasons for this, for example, in our desire to see people saved, we have become too seeker friendly. We want the unsaved to feel comfortable around us so we use different language, we arrange "non-threatening" events and we do our best to be culturally relevant. Now all of these things of themselves are not necessarily "evil", however, when they become the "norm" then we are at risk of losing our "flavour". We need to heed Jesus' warning in Matthew 5:13
"You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless".

Now if we accept Jesus' warning about "remaining salty", we can not only perhaps avoid God's discipline in this area (Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Revelation 3:19) but we can also avoid having another's blood on our hands (When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself. Ezekiel 33:8-9).

So what is the word the Church needs to learn again? What is the word that we have an obligation to share with the unsaved, even at the risk of  being shunned by them; even at the risk of having fewer people in our buildings; even at the risk of being misunderstood or condemned by the Post-Modern Church? Have you deduced by the Bible verses I have offered so far that the word is "repent"?

What does repent mean? In a literal sense it means to "change one's mind". It also means turning about, feeling remorse (with regard to sin) and it means to be converted.
We need to once again add this word to our vocabulary. When we are sharing the Gospel with seekers, it is absolutely not good enough to preach forgiveness without warning about repentance. We need to follow the example of our Lord & Master Jesus Christ who early in his ministry demonstrated for us how it is to be done (Matthew 4:17).

When we are sharing the Gospel, we need to keep in mind that telling people their sins are forgiven goes hand in hand with their need to repent of them, that is to turn from them and be converted, ie. stop sinning. Only when a person truly has a change of heart and lifestyle can we rejoice like they do in Heaven.

"I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent" (Luke 15:7).

The Post-Modern Church Ignoring History & God

If God is the same, not changing, where has the fear of God gone? "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Peter 4:18).

Psalm 102: 27 shows us God is eternal and doesn’t change -  “But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end”. With this in mind as I have been reading through the Old Testament (OT) lately, I have been reminded that God cannot stand, and punishes sin. The thing that struck me was that the people who where being punished were not only the nations surrounding the Israelites, but the Israelites as well. God punished his chosen people. If we consider that the OT provides a history of God’s chosen people, then shouldn’t God’s chosen people of today (the church), be learning the lessons of history?

History is studied at school for students to understand the circumstances that led to particular events occurring, particularly those with devastating consequences eg World wars. It is hoped that from looking into the past, we can prevent a repeat of history as we are better equipped to realise the circumstances and intervene, and thus prevent the devastating consequences. It is with this attitude that we delve into the history lessons of the OT, to be better equipped to prevent the consequences, in this case, God’s punishment of his chosen people.

There are many cases where God does punish the Israelites the most obvious one being: after God saved His people by having them miraculously cross the Red Sea, (Ex 14: 13-31) not all of them entered the Promised Land (Josh 5: 6).

So if God punished His chosen people then, and He remains the same, what is to stop Him from punishing His chosen people today? Some have answered me, “That’s the Old Testament, we are under grace now. The price Jesus’ paid covers all my sin.” This is true, we are under a New Covenant through the blood of Jesus Christ, however, this does not give us a licence to sin or be blasé about the circumstances that lead to the punishment of God’s people (Disagree? See the New Testament verses 1 Peter 4:17-18 & Jude 5-7).

1Corinth 10: 1-12 warns us against such an attitude.

1 Corinthians 10

Warnings From Israel’s History

 ¹ For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. ² They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. ³ They all ate the same spiritual food ⁴ and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. ⁵ Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

 ⁶ Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. ⁷ Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” ⁸ We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. ⁹ We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. ¹⁰ And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.

 ¹¹ These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. ¹² So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (underline emphasis added).

Too many of today’s Christians respond to the word of God the same way King Jehoiakim did… Jer 36: 24a “ The king and all his attendants who heard all these words showed no fear”, resulting in his death and the Lord saying, “I will bring on them (him) …and on the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened. (Jer 36: 31b)

In conclusion, let us learn lessons from the OT, and pay attention to His word and His warnings and “work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12b).

Today's blog entry (as most are) is a combined effort with my wife & fellow servant in the Lord's service.