Listening for the still small voice

Nowadays, instead of increasing people’s interest and love for the sacred scriptures, churches are now more focused on extra biblical revelation.

This is the notion that we should be listening for a still small voice, paying attention to His promptings, nudging, impressions, intuitions, and hunches. Many now consider these as God’s primary means of communication.

Many believers are told that they should simply live their lives trying to figure out God’s plan for us.

The following are some of the commonly used expressions:

“You have to pick up clues and signs that He is dropping around you.”

“The Lord has laid it upon my heart to do this, or to tell you to do this.”

“I heard a still small voice telling me what to do.”

And so much more.

Failure to attain such impressions have lead many to believe that they are either not spiritually mature, not discerning enough, or not equipped enough, or at worst, that they are not even saved.

The truth is that God doesn’t whisper.

• He does not “try” to be heard.
• When He does speak He speaks clearly and understandably.
• God has already spoken to us through His word, and He wants His people to be obedient to what He has said.

Jim Osman in his book “God does not whisper” puts it well, where he said “If God is not speaking, you are not going to hear Him. If God is speaking, you are not going to miss Him.”

Consider this for a moment. If God wanted us to do something, He would surely tell us what we should and should not do, rather than hoping that we pick up hints from Him.

There is no discipline / skill / quietness level that we need to reach in order to hear from God. If He is not speaking, there is nothing to hear.

If we have to “wonder” if God (who spoke the universe into existence) has spoken to you then He probably has not.

More importantly, if there is a need for us to “hear from God”, then why are there no instructions given to us in the Bible?

In the Old Testament, when God spoke to Abraham, Moses, Elijah and Samuel, no one had any difficulty hearing Him. No one said “I think I heard God say”, no one said, “I sense or feel.” This kind of modern language attributed to hearing God’s voice is foreign to the Bible.

Some may also ask that since Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and Samuel did hear from God, shouldn’t we also? The answer is not necessarily, because we now have the more sure word of God that was unavailable to them. Moreover, those men were uniquely gifted in the redemptive plans of God, in the making of His covenant or the fulfillment of the covenant for His people.

Although God spoke in the Old Testament, these occurrences were rare, often separated by hundreds of years, such as the 400 years between Abraham and Moses or the 400 years of silence between Malachi and the New Testament. In the life of Jesus, God only spoke audibly to His only begotten Son three times in the New Testament.

R.C Sproul in his book “Now, That’s a Good Question” said the following on the subject of hearing God’s voice;

“I can’t think of anyone who has ever told me they actually heard the audible voice of “God, but if they did, I would be concerned about their mental state. I wouldn’t conclude immediately that they were crazy, but I don’t think it’s normal or expected in the devout Christian life to be hearing the audible voice of God.

What’s the difference between the inner voice of God and indigestion? God can speak to us (and he does speak to us—I want to emphasize that), but the principal way God speaks to his people is through His written Word. And sometimes we want to not have to go through all of the difficulty of studying the Word; that takes work.

People may just go by hunches and intuitions and feelings and baptize” “those feelings and intuitions as if they were a divine mandate from heaven. “So I urge Christians to be very, very careful before saying to people, “God told me this.” You may say, “I believe that maybe God is leading me in this direction.” That’s a much more humble way to put it.”

According to some Christians, if God does not speak to each believer individually on a regular basis, He must not really be imminent or involved. It is no surprise that they go to extensive lengths to defend their supposed revelations and prophecies, even though they are usually highly subjective, misleading, erroneous, and even dangerous.