Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
Roland is asking, since Christ resurrection, God no longer communicate. God no longer communicate directly with us. Formally and in particular in the Old Testament, his voice was constantly heard giving warnings and instructions.
Speaker 2
Right, I definitely have a quick answer here, but it’s a great question, Roland. Definitely. It’s worth a lot more time, but abrews one. Starting at verse one, it says god, who has at various times, in various ways, spoke in spoken time, passed to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things. So God has already spoken to us through Christ. We have the writings recorded in the Bible. This is first and foremost how God has spoken to us. Jesus is the word the word of God. And then John 16. Starting first, let’s go to verse seven. Jesus says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. So here Jesus is talking about, hey, guess what? I’m going away. But it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing I’m leaving. Why? Because he’s sending the Holy Spirit. And Jesus gives more insight about that. Verse twelve he says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
Speaker 2
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. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you. I don’t believe Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit is only going to speak to those disciples that were in the room with Him at that time. I think this is a promise, jesus saying The Holy Spirit. Jesus left so that the Holy Spirit can come, dwell within all of us and speak to all of us. And it’s almost as good as if Jesus is standing right next to us, because the Holy Spirit is listening, hearing Jesus and transmitting it straight to us. And we can have a more intimate relationship, more connection, and God can be with all of us, rather than just occupying one space at a time. And this carries over now to One Corinthians two.
Speaker 2
Starting at verse nine, it says but as it is written, I has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him and love us. Read this verse and stop there. Okay, so we have no idea, no eye, no ear, we have no clue. Next line. Or next word, chapter ten, it says but, and this is the best but to me in the whole Bible. But God has revealed them to us through his spirit. God has revealed it. His spirit is revealing things. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we again we we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God and that’s key there. The natural man does not receive receive the spiritual things, sorry, the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
Speaker 2
So take spiritual discernment to really get God’s truth. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he Himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct them. But we have the mind of Christ. I mean that’s even one up better than just even hearing God listen to him. We also have the promise of the mind of Christ. There’s no indication whatsoever that God has stopped speaking to us and never will speak to us again. It’s just a matter of how fallen we are as a church, how far we’ve departed from God. We have plugged our ears and God saying, hey, I really want to speak to you. So I have three quick practical tips. One, read the Bible every day because as I indicated, that really is the primary way God has already spoken to us. Second, I recommend watching sermons instead of movies. Listen to audiobooks instead of audiobooks about the Bible, and do that instead of listening to music. There’s so many things you could do to be filling yourself with spiritual things. And this just rapidly accelerated my spiritual growth, just completely immersing myself in all things God Bible, Biblical.
Speaker 2
And then number three, spend time in silent prayer, earnestly listening. Too many times we want to tell God everything, but we never really spend time to actually pause and give the Spirit time to speak to us. And God says Psalm 46 ten, just be still and know that I am God. That’s a part of the spiritual experience that in a rushy, busy life we tend to forget and we really need to slow down. And unfortunately, so many of the other religions are all about the pausing, slowing, listening, meditating and the way they do it. I’m not saying do that, but even we as Christians need to give God opportunity to speak to us in stillness and quiet. So Tina, anything to add to that?
Speaker 3
I think that’s really good and definitely spot on. We can definitely hear God’s voice today, 100%. We’re having our spiritual ears open and having that spiritual discernment. And like you’re saying, definitely spending time in prayer in the Bible and surrounding ourselves with spiritual things, I think that’s super helpful and important. And I think so many people miss out on that deep spiritual experience because they don’t do those things and they wonder why God’s not speaking to them. It’s like, well, because your spiritual ears aren’t open. God says in Jeremiah 29, I think it’s verses twelve and 13 where he’s talking about that if you seek the Lord with all your heart, you will find Him, but you have to seek Him with all your heart. He will draw nigh to those who draw near to Him. So if you want God to speak to you, be close enough to speak to you. You need to come close to God, and you need to do that because God’s not going to force Himself on you, because he’s not that way. He’s a God that we approach Him because he’s a gentleman. He doesn’t force Himself, he doesn’t push Himself.
Speaker 3
And so as we draw near to God, he promises that he will draw near to us, and we definitely are going to hear his voice through, like you’re saying, all these different ways. And the other thing I did want to point out, as far as the question says, it seems like God was always warning and always think the Bible spans a very long time frame. And there’s actually a lot of time that passed in the Bible where there was no prophet and there was no warnings, there wasn’t, you know, those kinds of things. So it might seem like, oh, well, it’s like back to back to back. Like God’s always speaking to his people. There’s all this stuff. Some of these are like hundreds of years in between. Like, look at the book of Daniel and Micah. There was hundreds of years between when there was a prophet until Jesus came. There was not a lot of prophecy going on for many hundreds of years before the coming of Christ. Just understand that while it seems like there’s a lot of direct messages to God’s people, there was definitely long periods of time where there wasn’t a prophet necessarily.
Speaker 3
But God did always keep a lineage and those who sought the Lord God did have a people, I mean, come down to know his time. It was him and his family. So there is definitely a lapse in a lot of people getting a lot of warning and messages in biblical times as well. So just keep that in mind.
Speaker 2
Thank you.
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BibleAsk Team
