Hearing God's Voice

Henry T. Blackaby, Richard Blackaby

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9780805454697
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Based on classic Experiencing God principles, Hearing God's Voice is for those who are ready to listen. Beloved author Henry Blackaby and his son Richard help those who are listening to discern the voice of God, to identify ways He speaks, and to respond to His revelations of His will. God speaks to individuals in ways that are personal and unique to each person. God will never say anything that contravenes what He has said in the Bible, and usually He confirms what He has said. After you learn to listen to God, hearing from God will be as natural as communicating with a close friend.

THE QUESTION:
DOES GOD SPEAK TO
PEOPLE TODAY?

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CHAPTER ONE

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Does God Really Call People to Be
Missionaries in Africa?

Does God really have a specific will for everyone?” Doug¹ asked us, “If he does, how does he reveal that will?” Bewilderment was drawn like a curtain across his face. Then he shared his story. As a young man, Doug had been convinced God was calling him to medical missions. He had responded to God's Word by entering medical school. His educational achievements were exceptional, and he soon caught the attention of various medical research centers. As he was deluged with offers from major hospitals, he struggled to reconcile this new career direction with his call to the mission field. Friends and family assured him this was God's blessing. He could serve God at home in America as effectively as he could on the mission field. Maybe more so. Eventually, Doug became the director of immunology for one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the United States.

The years raced by. Doug achieved a life that surpassed most men's dreams. He and his wife enjoyed a loving, solid marriage. Their children were happy and healthy. They lived in a beautiful home. They were loved and supported by a solid church and a wide circle of friends. Still Doug could not deny the persistent uneasiness in his spirit. He was living a good Christian life. He was a faithful church member. Was it possible he was still missing God's will?

What about the call he received as a teenager? Was it real? He was convinced it was. But that was so long ago; did it even apply any more? Now he was a man in a responsible position with a wife and children. Asking them to transplant their lives to a remote, possibly dangerous country to fulfill a calling he received as a teenager seemed reckless and foolhardy. Surely God wouldn't ask him to do that. It didn't make sense. Perhaps he was just going through a midlife crisis. There was a poignant urgency in Doug's manner as he persisted with his questions. He had to know. Was God really speaking to him? Too much hung in the balance to make a mistake.

The Issue

Does God speak to people today? Doug is one of many, many people we have encountered who are urgently asking this question. In fact, this issue is at the heart of the Christian life. Christians want to choose the spouse God knows is best for them. They need direction with their careers. Baffled parents are desperate for God's wisdom in rearing their children. Every day numerous events magnify the awareness that Christians need a timely, specific word from God. Most Christians acknowledge their need for God's guidance. Many people regularly seek it. The problem is that they are not sure they recognize God's voice. In moments of honest reflection, they may doubt whether God actually speaks to anyone today, except perhaps to a select few.

Life can be aggravatingly complex. The best choices are not always readily apparent. Christians are regularly reminded by their own deficiencies of their need for divine guidance. The Scriptures assure them that God is all knowing and perfectly loving. Passages such as Jeremiah 29:11 talk about God's specific will for others, but does this apply to all Christians? Does it apply to them?

Even a casual perusal of the Bible reveals a consistent pattern of God speaking to people. However, some argue that biblical history does not necessarily translate into modern experience. Talking donkeys and burning bushes are not common, contemporary occurrences. Nevertheless, a closer examination of the Scriptures reveals that while God did indeed speak on matters of great significance through supernatural means, he also clearly communicated with men and women from all walks of life regarding matters of seemingly lesser importance.

What significance does this hold for Christians today? Does God give specific guidance to people? If so, how does he do it? Does he only use the words of Scripture? Does he still speak through dreams and visions?

Theories abound on how God communicates with people. If we were to list every view that has been advocated in books, seminars, and the media, we would need a book series rather than this one volume. However, we have observed at least four broad categories of thought on the subject.

God's Written Word: His Only Word

Some believe God rarely, if ever, speaks to people today. Proponents of this view contend that God perfectly revealed everything people need to know about himself, salvation, and the Christian life in the Bible. Regarding God's will, they argue that apart from what people can discern in the Bible, they need no further word from God. Since the Bible was divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, God has no need to supplement it with a fresh word today. For God to speak to someone today would be to “add” to Scripture. Rather than seeking personal communication with God, people should concentrate on following the teachings and commandments already found in Scripture. Advocates of this view tend to act as if the Holy Spirit spoke to inspire Scripture but he does not speak today to apply Scripture. As long as people are careful not to violate the laws and principles set forth in the Bible, they are capable of making their own choices and are free to do so.

In his 1980 book Decision Making and the Will of God: A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View, Gary Friesen critiques the “traditional” view that God communicates his specific will to each person. Friesen suggests that Christians should make decisions based on “The Way of Wisdom.”² That is, where the Bible presents a command or principle, it is to be obeyed. Where the Bible does not give specific instruction, Christians are free to make their own choices. Friesen claims, “Any decision made within the moral will of God is acceptable to God.”³ Friesen's position is that God treats people the way a parent treats a child. God's desire is not to guide his children to make the correct decision every time but to help them learn to make responsible, wise decisions on their own. The key, therefore, is not so much what is decided but how the decision is made. This approach would say, for example, that God does not directly reveal whom you should marry but he allows you to choose your own spouse as long as you choose wisely and do not violate biblical injunctions.

People who hold this view generally contend that biblical heroes such as Abraham, Moses, Peter, and Paul are not meant to serve as models for modern Christians. God did speak directly to them, but that was then. God needed to speak to them in order to write the Bible. However, now that the Bible is in place, God does not need to speak directly to people as he once did. The example of Jesus is discounted with the disclaimer that he was the Son of God; therefore his example is not normative for mortal Christians. People who are of the opinion that God's written Word is his final word conclude that modern believers can and should make prudent decisions on their own. They do not need God's direct involvement in their decision-making process. If their decisions are biblically sound, they are perfectly pleasing to God.

This decision-making approach has proven appealing to many because it aligns with two widely held assumptions about God: (1) God is too busy managing a vast universe to bother with the personal lives of billions of people and their comparatively minor issues; (2) God made people in his image, so we must be capable of making good decisions. After all, he gave us our brains.

On the positive side, this approach points believers to God's Word. Certainly Christians should always make their decisions in conformity with biblical injunctions and teachings. In that regard Friesen's decision-making approach is preferable to nonbelievers' methods, which run the gamut from strict human logic (drawing up a list of pros and cons) to pure emotion (if it feels good, do it). This view falls short, however, because it fails to consider the full richness of relationship God intends for the Christian life. The Scriptures tell us that God wants to be involved in the lives of his people! That is why he created us—for an intimate relationship with him. Moreover, the truth that God made us in his image should not be erroneously extended to imply that he made us his equal. God is all-powerful and all-knowing. We, obviously, are not.

Friesen argues, “Most of the time, our five senses are reliable interpreters of reality, for God designed them to be trustworthy.”⁴ However, Isaiah 55:8–9 indicates the best human thinking is far below God's wisdom: “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (NIV).

People who make decisions based merely on what seems most advisable to them will inevitably choose something inferior to God's best. History's overwhelming testimony is that the most brilliant human reasoning has proven inadequate to save humanity from its own frailty. To claim people can determine the best course of action apart from God's guidance is to ignore Scripture's clear teaching concerning humankind's degenerate condition (Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:9–18). Numerous warnings throughout the Bible advise against making decisions apart from God's involvement: The writer of Proverbs warned: “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12). The apostle Paul speaks of God as “able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think—according to the power that works in you” (Eph. 3:20).

It is no secret that God's ways are vastly superior to our ways. It is inconceivable that God would ask his children to make independent choices that robbed them of the good he knew they could experience. While God does allow people the freedom to make their own decisions, Scripture clearly demonstrates that God also lets people know what his will is.

Jesus, the ultimate model for the Christian life, did not rely on his own best thinking, but depended completely on his heavenly father for wisdom in everything: He acknowledged, “I can do nothing on My own. Only as I hear do I judge, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30). The sinless Son of God, the only Person who perfectly fulfilled the Father's will, did not make decisions independent of the heavenly Father's personal direction. It seems absurd to think that anyone else should.

Some people are understandably wary of any talk about hearing a direct word from God because of the rampant, exaggerated abuses of this claim, both now and throughout history. People can recoil from talk of God speaking to people because they think this can refer only to God's audible voice. In response, some argue that God's Word in the Bible is sufficient for us today and for every age. Some may see the concept of God speaking today as a threat to the Bible's authority. Is the Bible the only means God has at his disposal for speaking to people? Is prayer a one-way conversation where we do all the talking, or does God also speak to us during our communion with him? Does God speak to us through godly friends or through our circumstances? While there certainly have been abuses by some who claimed to hear from God in nonbiblical ways, does that discount the legitimate avenues through which God speaks? While the Bible is God's definitive, authoritative word to us, is God not capable of applying that word to our lives in numerous ways?

There always have been and always will be those who justify bizarre actions with the claim they are acting on direct orders from God. Such perversions of God's name demonstrate the inherent dangers in a second approach to decision-making wherein God's fresh word is treated as superseding God's written Word.

Christian Experience: A Preeminent Guide

Montanus was a pagan priest who converted to Christianity in A.D. 155. Soon after, he pronounced that he and two prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, had been possessed by the Holy Spirit. Those who followed them, he said, were the spiritual elite. The trio prophesied that their movement was the beginning of history's final age leading to Christ's Second Coming. Montanus based much of his theology and practice not on the Scriptures but on revelations he claimed he received directly from the Holy Spirit. Not surprisingly, though the movement attracted many followers, the official church condemned it as heretical.

During the Protestant Reformation, numerous radical reformers attracted large followings. One such enthusiast was John Matthys, a Dutch baker who, in 1534, gathered a revolutionary following in the German town of Münster. Local authorities assembled an army to suppress Matthys and his followers and besieged the town of Münster.

After Matthys was killed in a military skirmish, John Beukels took control of the movement. Beukels claimed to receive regular visions from God. Citing these visions, he justified harsh discipline on anyone who questioned his leadership. Beukels would not tolerate those who said they had a word from God that contradicted the messages he allegedly received. Many of Beukels's visions refuted Scripture's teachings. One such revelation allowed people in Münster to practice polygamy. Beukels assured his followers that God had given him a promise of victory for the people of Münster, but the besieging forces captured the city, killing Beukels and many of his cohorts.⁵

As a young boy, Vernon Howell was a devout follower of God. His grandmother reported often seeing him praying tearfully by his bedside for hours. Being reared in the Seventh-Day Adven...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Notes
• Scripture Index
• About the Authors
• Henry Blackaby Ministries