God Speaks - 4

My wife Theresa and daughter Kristin

In our study of listening to God, the Bible has examples that are not as common today.

He spoke through angels in Matthew 2:13 After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

God spoke through dreams. Matthew 2:13, 19, After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.

And Through a burning bush. Exodus 3:2-4 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4 When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied.

A more frequent method of God’ speaking is through other people. The obvious person is St. Paul and his numerous New Testament books. My godly wife often has a word from the Lord for her husband. Friends can be used by God to have a word with you. Words from other people though should be sifted through the seive of Scripture. If they are in any way a violation of the Bible, the words wouldn’t be from God. Of if the expressions contravene the code of community – be detrimental to you or those close to you, the words wouldn’t be from God.

God speaks directly to my wife, Theresa. Her explanation: “sometimes His words sound like my own self talk. At times it is a message from Satan. As I measure the words, I ask myself if they are congruent with Scripture? Do they bring life or do they bring death? God’s words are sometimes convicting but are always embedded in love and are tender, nurturing like being enwrapped in a blanket, bringing life. Satan’s words are pushy, hard and bring some type of death, especially shame and accusation.

John Eldredge experimented one year listening to God’s voice and wrote the results in an interesting book, “Walking with God.” He is a strong believer in hearing God’s voice personally.

We’ll look more tomorrow at how God speaks to us through other people.