Speaker 1 0:00 I know what you're thinking, and yes, I did shave, and also we're going to talk about misunderstanding God's voice today on the Whitey Christians podcast. Hey, welcome to the show. My name is Mark Dickey. I host the afternoon show on the Bridge Radio Station. My co-host, Pastor Bert and Pastor Josh, are here. How's it going, guys? Speaker 2 0:21 Excellent, great. Speaker 1 0:23 Have you ever thought you heard God's voice, and it turned out it was just something you ate? Speaker 3 0:29 Wow, if it's something that I ate, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure I've been wrong in my life where I thought the Lord had spoken and it wasn't Him. Yeah, I bet that's happened. Sure, Speaker 1 0:38 yeah, Speaker 3 0:39 not or not, not Josh. Josh is a legitimate prophet, like, right? Speaker 2 0:47 I never get it wrong in my own house, Speaker 3 0:54 correct. Mark, what we're talking about today? Speaker 1 0:56 Yeah, so misunderstanding God's voice, and that was our, you know, last week's episode was was very similar on the topic, and we thought, let's, let's dive into this a little bit more, Speaker 3 1:07 yeah, Speaker 1 1:08 and we specifically were talking about how we should get into like ways that God speaks, and you had actually suggested, well, how about how about we kind of do it the opposite way, like ways that we misunderstand what God is saying. Speaker 3 1:22 Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I've got some ideas with this, Josh. I know you got some things too. So, like, I think an area where we're united around the consistency with scripture. I don't know, maybe if you want to go, like, get the ball wrong with that, to maybe safeguard us. Speaker 2 1:39 Yeah, I think Jesus says in John 17 that the word of God is truth, that He calls for the Lord to sanctify us by His word, and His word is truth. So, the picture there is whatever aligns with the word of God is is true, it's coming from God. We can rest on it, we can be sure of it. So, anything that contradicts that would immediately be a problem. Anything also, I think that that, in a way, I guess you could say not mistreats it, but like makes it, may I can't think of the word off top of my head, but, but, but to like misalign it, to misuse it, to kind of put a half truth into it, what would also be a problem. Yeah, Speaker 3 2:25 I'll do, you know, so why with that. So, there's the story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness in Luke four, right, where what Satan does is he quotes him. Yeah, I forget the psalm, but like he literally, like he, he, he says, like, you know, you'll like throw yourself off the temple, because he'll give his angels charge over you pause, so that you don't strike your foot against the stone, and he literally, he cuts half a sentence, like, from that psalm, and it changes the entire meaning of the psalm. Speaker 2 2:53 Wow, Speaker 3 2:54 like, yeah, so that idea of taking Bible out of context might be the way to say that, yeah, like, you know, manipulating the text to serve an end that's not true to what the text means. Yeah, we would say it's not God. Yeah, Speaker 2 3:05 yeah. And I would say to add to that, too, is anytime that voice makes much of you and literal of Christ would be a way to identify, like, okay, maybe, maybe I'm not really hearing God, and by that I mean that the Holy Spirit will speak of Christ, will lead you to Him, will lead you to depend on Him, to trust Him, to hear His words, to to look for His direction in anything that would drive you to just be more of you, to give you what you want, to just make your life the best life ever, apart from glorifying Jesus, I would say is is not the voice of God. What would not be helpful for you? Speaker 3 3:46 I'd agree with that. I think also we should probably, as a courtesy to our listeners or viewers, I don't know which one I should call you guys. Hi, would be Speaker 1 3:59 ministers, Speaker 3 4:00 yeah, would be also just to acknowledge up front, like, you know, this is the Why do Christians podcast, and so this is bigger than one particular movement or branch denomination, what have you, and so we should be upfront with saying that Christians disagree on how God speaks to people, right? So there are large amounts of folks who will say it's only through the scripture that maybe there were times in the past where God spoke prophetically through visions, dreams, that kind of thing, but that doesn't happen anymore. I am not in that camp. Josh is not in that camp. So you're going to hear from us the perspective would be what we call continuationism, that like, we are, we believe this stuff has continued, and so I just want to be upfront with that, that not everyone is going to agree with what we say, but we're going to do our best to be charitable to those with whom we disagree, but also true to what we believe the scriptures teach. Speaker 1 4:55 Cool. Speaker 3 4:56 Yeah. Speaker 1 4:56 Okay, so you said there were some specific ways that. Kind of misunderstand, God, like, where would you start? Speaker 3 5:03 Well, I think the first thing is the misunderstanding that if God is speaking, it will always be clear. We, I understand, like, why we rationalize that. So, I mean, we think of, you know, God is all powerful, he can get whatever he wants to happen to happen. So, the rationale would be, well, if God is talking clearly, He wants us to realize that it's Him talking all the time, and therefore it will be a thing that you just can't question. My issue with that is that it doesn't seem to be universally the experience of those who hear from God in the Scriptures. It's certain there are times, absolutely, He speaks in a booming voice, and there's no questioning it, and then even there are other times where that booming voice is misunderstood. So, for instance, in the book of John, there's a moment in John 12 where Jesus prays out, and He says, "Father, you know, glorify your name. Right, there's this booming voice from the heavens that says, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again, but people disagree on that. So, some people go, 'Oh, it just thundered, and others go, 'It was an angel. Well, so what did God speak or not? Well, no, he did speak, but there's stuff with the heart condition of those who are listening that maybe prevented them from hearing. Another example, I think, and this wouldn't be more normative. You have this moment in Numbers 12, where there's this not rebellion, but there's this dissension between Moses's brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, and what they, what they're saying is this, like, you know, why are we listening to Moses, we're prophets too, right? And so God's, He calls the three of them to come forward, and this is what He tells them, is Numbers 12, verses six through eight. He says, "When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams, but this is not true of my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. Listen to this, he says, "With him I speak face to face clearly and not in riddles. He sees from, he sees the form of the Lord, so here's the differentiation between Moses and what God identifies as other prophets. All right, in 12, he says, all right, you know, I speak to prophets in visions and in dreams, and then the expectation of experiences, he says in riddles, okay, but he goes, I speak clearly to Moses, so what's the expectation there that this clarity that Moses is hearing from God with seems to be unique or rare. I mean, that's the Lord speaking to Aaron and Miriam, and so I think this is important to realize, because we develop this expectation that, okay, if God is talking, we're going to always recognize it. Again, no, Job 33 verse 14 it says, For God does speak now one way, now another, though no one perceives it. But this text was saying God's talking all the time, that people don't realize that He's talking, and the context there is dreams. So in verse 15 it says, in a dream and a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people and they slumber in their beds, so I think we have to allot room for the fact that, you know, as we wonder, like, Lord, have you spoken to me? I think it's okay to kind of wrestle and go, was that God or not? I don't think that's necessarily criteria to say that he hasn't spoken. Same way would be First Corinthians 12 to 14, you got this great passage on spiritual gifts and prophesying, and talk to this idea, you know, somebody prophesies, let others weigh what is said. Hey, let's discern together if that's been the Lord. So, I think that's a big misconception around hearing God's voice, that, hey, if God speaks, I'm going to know that it was God. Speaker 1 8:37 Yeah, so before we move on to another thing that we misunderstand, I have to ask, why would God speak if He wouldn't speak clearly? Speaker 3 8:48 I have thoughts on the unit, Speaker 1 8:50 like it seems like, and the Lord Speaker 3 8:54 says, Speaker 1 8:57 "My plan for you is, Speaker 2 9:01 I just off the top of my head, I could think that the problem would not be God, it would be us, it would be the weaker vessels in our hearts, being, for example, a practical example, I often will confuse my desire with God's will, right, that I have this desire, but God has clearly spoken. But I think what I'm feeling, what my heart is saying, is is is the right direction. And so I think that's part of it. God speaks to us, but we override because we, He's not really saying what I want Speaker 1 9:36 this. Yeah, right, yeah. Speaker 2 9:39 And even right now I'm going to First Timothy Church in chapter three. It talks about having this desire to be an elder, but then gives these qualifications, and so the desire is not bad, but you may not meet what the word of God has clearly said. And so that's one. So I think our hearts sometimes struggle with what He says. The other one is. Think we are just, we are like, we confuse what we hear from what we're used to, like kind of, kind of like our worldview, we've shaped, Speaker 3 10:15 yeah, Speaker 2 10:16 our ideas of how God is going to use me, how God's gonna talk through me or how God is what God's going to do, I think this makes sense. So, anything that opposes that or goes a different direction, clearly something's wrong. Something's wrong there. So, yeah, I don't think it's God, I think it's the human capacity towards sin, towards self-centeredness, towards wanting what we want, I could think of a couple of verses. I mean, I Speaker 3 10:43 think that's absolutely true. In the negative, if I were to go maybe on the positive end with it, I think it can also draw us deeper into your relationship, right? So, there's something about.. I think sometimes what we do is we view any kind of involvement of the Lord's power or Him speaking, or whatever. We treat it almost like we're Jedi. We're like, you know, like, think like Jedi, you know, in Star Wars, which I love, they're not Christian spirituality, they're, you know, fictional adaptation of Eastern mysticism, right? Eastern spirituality, where you know the force is not something to be followed, it's something to leverage, right? Versus, okay, like God, the God, the Bible, He's not an impersonal force, He's a person who you listen to, who you follow. Jedi, they, they function with, you know, what's the line like, they're strong in the force, right? And so kind of the same, they drum up within themselves, but the Christian relationship with God is much more about dependence. So, think about there's this great story in Acts three where Peter and John, they're going into the temple, they see a lame man who's begging, and Peter says, "You know, silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Stand up and walk. Right, and people see this guy, they know is lame, and they're marveling at this, and Peter and John go, "Why do you look at us as though by our power or godliness this man stands healed before you? It's no, it's God who did that. Right, so I bring this up to say, like, when it comes to hearing his voice, what can the lack of clarity do? It forces me into prayer more. Lord, is that you? It brings me into more counsel, because we as Christians aren't meant to do life alone, right? I mean, that's a big thing with any kind of spiritual gift, but also just a Christian spirituality, like we are meant to be in community. So now, hey, I'm feeling this thing, would you guys pray about it with me? Like, what? What do you think about this. Can I ask you for honest feedback? I think it also creates humility. Lord, I don't know, and I need, I need clarity. And just relationally, there's, there's also that follow-up. Lord, is that you? And what does it mean? Would you, would you speak to me more? Would you give me clarity around these things, and so I think the positive end of it can be humility, but also greater capacity and relationship, both with God and His people. All Speaker 1 13:11 right, so the first one is that we believe the misunderstanding is that God speaks clearly, that if God's speaking, it's always clear. What's what's another misunderstanding that we have. Speaker 3 13:22 Yeah, so I think another thing that we get wrong is the idea that, okay, if a person sincerely believes that they've heard from God and they're wrong, that makes them a false prophet. Now I know why we get this. We get this from their passages, like in Deuteronomy 18, where it says it's first starting, verse 21 says, and if you say in your heart, How may we know that the word the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word has not come to pass or come true, this as a word Lord has not spoken, that prophet has spoken presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him. Okay, so the thought goes, well, you know, like maybe you've heard it quoted this way, you'll know a prophet by whether or not what they say comes to pass. Okay, the problem is here in Deuteronomy 18, what Moses is talking about is a person who's trying to lead people away from God as a messianic kind of prophet, in same way like Moses has been over all of God's people, he's prophesying this future prophet that will, we would say, that ultimately is Jesus, right? Jesus is prophet, priest, and king. He's all of those things, but so what happens is, people go, "Well, gosh, if I said it wrong, if I got it wrong, that means that I'm outside of the faith. The New Testament doesn't really treat it that way, and I would argue the Old Testament doesn't treat it that way. So again, the thought goes, well, listen, the other person prophesies something wrong. What you are to do is to stone them again. I would argue that's for one who's trying to influence the people of God away from Lord. In fact, in the New Testament, the term false prophet is used universally, talking about someone who is outside of. Faith, like, not a Christian at all. So, the idea is that there can be somebody who's prophetically empowered. They might hear something, but it ain't God, and they leave you with.. that's actually what.. why the first thing that Josh just said there was so important today when we was talking about this idea of, like, if it draws you away from Christ, it ain't, you know, it ain't God, right? But there are plenty of passages in the Old and New Testament where people get it wrong, and there's no stoning them. You know, you go to Second Samuel, where Nathan said, like David goes, you know, should I, should I build this temple to the Lord? He goes to David, who functions as the nation's prophet. No, David asked Nathan, yeah, and Nathan, yes, do whatever you want, like the Lord's with you. This is Nathan's pronouncement as a prophet, but that then says later on the Lord came to Lord's word came to Nathan, said, "Don't, don't do that. So Nathan had to go back to David and go, "Hey, you know, I got it wrong, right? David doesn't stone him for that. You can see in the book of Acts, there's a guy named Agabus who is a prophet who prophesies that Paul is going to be captured and taken to prison, right, but the way that he delivers it is wrong, in terms of he says, like, you know, like the Jews will bind Paul and hand him over to the Romans, that's not what happens, what happens is actually the Jews try to kill Paul, and the Romans have to intervene to take him out again. There's this language in First Corinthians about how you know I wish to discern what's said, you know, with let two or three weigh what is said, but at no point is there protocol for, hey, if somebody misses it, take them out. I think this is important to realize, because when we treat it with this kind of black and white, what ends up happening is we are afraid to listen at all, because we're terrified that we're going to get it wrong, so therefore remove ourselves from the faith. But I don't think the scriptures talk about it in that way. Speaker 3 16:51 Now, to be clear, that doesn't mean that, hey, if you think it's God, it doesn't matter, like nobody should be flippant with trying to discern whether or not it's the Lord's voice. Well, you know, just say it. If it's not Him, it's not Him moving on. Like, no, we want to, we want to be careful with trepidation, because the Lord is to be revered. But I do think there's a lot more grace than perhaps we tend to realize. Speaker 1 17:14 Okay, Josh, do you have anything to add on that point? Speaker 2 17:19 I mean, I could, yeah, yeah, the way, just listening to you, where what would I think of is a maybe a difference, and maybe, maybe you could correct me here, between like a genuine person who like thinks that, oh, you know what, I think I think I really feel the Lord is leading towards this direction, they genuinely believe it, versus someone who's being manipulative, someone, yeah, I would say there's Speaker 3 17:41 a difference between a false prophet, whose aim is to draw people away from God, whether that be to themselves, false theology, or whatever, and a sincere believer who has made a mistake. Speaker 2 17:53 Okay? Speaker 3 17:54 Right. So, same way, that's First Thessalonians 519 through 22 I think it says, do not quench the spirit. What's the application? Do not despise prophecies. So, we, I would say, we have a New Testament command to not get rid of hearing the Lord's voice, and it says, but test them all, hold fast to what is good, reject every form of evil. Speaker 1 18:17 That's pretty condemning is the wrong word, but like, do not despise prophecy. That's just really interesting to think about, as there's a lot of Christians who just kind of are like, oh yeah, that's like that's my faith's weird uncle, like we just keep him over there, we don't talk about that. Speaker 3 18:37 Yeah, and okay, but also like, let's let's take this for precedence. Why would Paul in the first century have to give a command to a church about not despising prophecy? Probably because they have encountered a lot of things that we encounter. If something, how many of us, if somebody just walks up to us and is coldly like, 'God told me, we're like, 'Oh, great, right, Speaker 1 18:59 checked out Speaker 3 19:00 the other person, okay? Well, they experience that kind of stuff too, and you know, same way in First Corinthians 14, when, like, Paul's responding to abuse around the gift of speaking in tongues, and his response is not, 'don't speak in tongues, in fact, he says, 'don't forbid speaking in tongues, but here's how we're going to do it the right way, right? And so, you know, I think that we said on the podcast before, and I would just repeat here, and I didn't come up with this, I've heard it from a bunch of friends, and that is, we don't replace bad theology with no theology, we replace bad theology with good theology, we don't replace bad practice with no practice, we replace bad practice with good practice, and so that's, I think, kind of the framework that you would see this idea of hearing God functioning among His people. There's a lot more space for grace. Speaker 2 19:51 I mean, that's that's really encouraging to know, because I could think of when I was like a teenager headed to Bible college, my. First thought was missionary, Speaker 3 20:01 that's Speaker 2 20:02 why I felt led to go into, and you know, genuinely, that's where I started headed into. Took a couple missionary courses and realized I was genuinely wrong. This was not for me, but yeah, and had you know, I spoke to some people about it, but right without that graciousness, someone could have shut me down, would have just been like, "Oh, look at you, you were so wrong, like, how can you trust anything else? Speaker 3 20:25 Yeah, Speaker 2 20:25 but no, no, it was in that process of prayerfully talking to other people that, and mercifully coming to the conclusion, "Oh, no, this is actually the direction God wants me to go. Yeah, yeah, so what I hear you saying is, we should be more gracious. Yeah, Speaker 3 20:39 absolutely. Yeah, well, I'm Speaker 2 20:41 also more careful. Oh, 100% Speaker 3 20:43 Yeah, like none of that. I think again, maybe we're treading into uncharted waters for maybe many of the folks who are hearing this. What I don't want to communicate is a flippancy towards listening for the Lord, right? I think the attitude of, and there are some movements who I just personally would disagree with, who will say, you know, hey, you're trying to figure out if it's God, just throw it against the wall and see what sticks, right? Speaker 2 21:16 Yeah, Speaker 3 21:16 I think there needs to be a lot more reverence and prayer involved, but I do think that he is so compassionate and gracious that as we learn, as we experience, you know, he's just.. he's kindly. Okay, okay. Mark, you asked us at the beginning of show, have you ever have you ever had time where you thought it was God and it wasn't? Well, it just sprung to mind right now was when my mom died, you know, so my mom died of ovarian cancer a few years ago. I remember going into what was going to be her last birthday, praying, and, you know, Lord, please heal my mom. Is I'm excited, like, we're gonna do a future episode on, like, when do you stop praying, which I'm excited for, but, and you know I felt like in the moment God told me that she had another year, okay? She didn't, wasn't him. What was it? It was my desire for my mother to live, right? I think people who have that, I don't think God chastises them for in their desperation, hoping maybe they've heard from the Lord about something that they haven't heard from Him about, and that's a more extreme example, but, but yeah, that would be a take on I would give. Speaker 1 22:37 I keep coming back to this image, I love thinking of, like, ways to describe, you know, points in our podcast with illustrations, and I just keep thinking of, like, you ever seen a flexible mirror where, like, it could be a straight, like, perfect mirror, but if you just, like, flex it just the tiniest bit. Well, now, now the picture is completely warped, and it is just totally screwed up, and it's almost like our job is as a reflection of God is to try and remove as many warps as possible. Yeah. Speaker 3 23:17 Well, okay. And one of those warps that we should just be aware of is personal investment, is and maturity, cynicism. I'm not sure you were Speaker 1 23:27 biased because it was your mom, exactly. Speaker 3 23:28 I assume that, like, if I'm listening and I am personally invested in something, I have to at least entertain the notion that it isn't the Lord, right? Because if it's something that I have to gain or lose, now can he faithfully, absolutely he can, but I just assumed that could be there same way personal fears or biases, another one that are like I think colors things for people will be political leanings or pressure Speaker 2 24:01 from just pressure, yeah, family from friends from church, you, this is pressure for you to be this thing. I've met a lot of young guys who from their, from their families, it was a pressure to be, oh, like you're godly, God's calling you, and they, and they started going down that road until they hit college, and I was like, that's not my road, Speaker 3 24:20 yeah, Speaker 2 24:21 but there was that pressure that led them to believe maybe this is the voice of God, maybe He is calling me here, and that that was wrong, yeah, Speaker 3 24:29 yeah, and you have to be aware that there's things, they're deep traumas, personal wounds, you know, we find this in pastoral care, where How many people do we meet and talk with where? Okay, you know, maybe they've got an issue with their earthly father, like, you know, an example where they like, for the earthly father, no matter what they did, it was never good enough, right? Okay, even though they might theologically and biblically know that God is not like that, they still find themselves. I was returning to this sort of feeling-based gut level of, have I really, you know, have I let God down? Is He secretly disappointed in me, that kind of thing. And so, like, we have to be aware that our earthly experiences can color the way that we listen when we are trying to figure out if God is talking to us or not. It's just theirs again. It's not, it's not saying that He isn't, but we have to know that that certainly can influence the way that we listen. Speaker 2 25:22 Yeah, Speaker 1 25:22 yeah. All right. I think I got to cut us off there. Should we do a second part of this episode? Speaker 3 25:27 Yeah, man, I'm in. Speaker 1 25:28 I think there's a lot more for us to dive into. So we're going to do a part two of this episode, part three down, right? Because we're part three. They don't know that. Speaker 3 25:39 Okay, they Speaker 1 25:39 don't know that. But this is really good. I'm glad we got to really expand these first two points of several ways that we hear God wrong. So that's coming up in next week's episode. And if you have ideas for future episodes, as always, put them in the comments or email them to podcast at We Are The bridge.org Thanks for watching. Unknown Speaker 25:58 Bye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai