Does the Experience of the Old Testament Prophets Foreshadow the Way We Hear God's Voice? Can Christians Hear the Voice of God Part 6

After speaking on how to hear God's voice at a church where I was providing regular pulpit supply, an Elder contacted me the following week, furious about what I had said. "I can't believe what you said," he said, "that all we need to make decisions is the Holy Spirit and the illuminated Word of God." Another active member in the church said that my view on divine personal guidance amounted to "blasphemy of the Spirit," and that I should repent or be forever condemned. Yet, for some reason they continued to invite me back to speak. Yet no one was able to refute the points I was making biblically.

The Word of God is the voice of God. The scripture is clear, that God has given us His Word, the Bible, to be our guide and His Holy Spirit to empower us to live godly lives:

[3] His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, [4] by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3–4ESV)    

Peter is clear that God has given us the power to live godly lives, to partake of his very nature, and to escape corruption from the sinful world. This power comes through knowledge of his divine promises, which are the Word of God. He goes on to explain that not even an experience like he had on the transfiguration is a substitute for the confirmation of the prophetic Word (2 Pt 1:19- 21). Paul describes scripture as God-breathed and able to equip us for godly lives (2Tim 3:16). The Old Testament describes God's word as the hammer that breaks stony heart, as the breath of God that gives life to the soul, as the lamp that guides our feet. 

Yet for many believers the scripture is not enough. Patricia Shirer compares scripture to "the hand-me-down" clothes her grandparents used to give her as gifts saying the Bible promises fresh revelation of his voice to us privately. Does God promise private revelations? We've looked in this series at several passages the Experiencing God Movement (EGM) proponents use to argue that mature Christian will regularly have an experience which is in essence a direct message from God. They argue that as we mature, we learn to recognize God's voice and how to interpret it. We have the scriptures they use to support that view is a pretext taken out of context. We have shown that in every case where God speaks his voice is heard clearly, immediately understood, and that it is in the form of his prophetic Word. Nowhere is it taught that God brings individual messages through circumstances or confirming events. Quite the contrary the scripture always relates God's revelation to the prophetic truth, divine promises, and commands.  

The Old Testament decries private revelation. On an occasion when Moses' prophetic authority was challenged God himself discredited private revelation:

[1] Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. [2] And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. [3] Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. [4] And suddenly the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out. [5] And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. [6] And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. [7] Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. [8] With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” [9] And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed. (Numbers 12:1–9ESV)

Miriam challenge Moses's authority based on the belief that God had spoken to her. After the people had faced a number of challenges and difficulties in the wilderness (mostly as a result of God's punishment for their rebellion). Miriam and Aaron who were Moses's older siblings. Miriam had had been appointed by Pharoah's daughter (Moses's adoptive mother) to raise him in Pharoah's court (Ex 1:22-24; 2:5-10). She along with her brother Aaron became critical of Moses leadership. Moses, during the period of his exile, had married a Cushite woman (a dark skinned, Egyptian, gentile) which they felt had disqualified Moses to lead. They objected to his leadership claiming to have heard God's voice themselves. They claim that "the Lord spoken to us also" about how to lead the people. Miriam claimed that since the same Spirit was at work in her life and Aaron's that was in Moses's that she could hear God's voice as certainly as he, and that God told her that he did not approve of Moses leadership. 

Is this not the same argument we often hear from the EGM folk? All believers are priest. We all share in the same Spirit. God is the same God he was in the Old Testament; therefore, God can speak to me as certainly as he did Moses or Peter, or Paul. The problem with the argument is the scripture never says that the Spirit spoke to randoms individuals directly. Notice God's response to Miriam:

And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. [7] Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. [8] With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” [9] And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed (Number 12: 6 -9)."

God made it clear that though his relationship with Moses was unique that when God spoke, he spoke through prophets, to the people rather than through random private revelations. The New Testament itself affirms that that is the way God spoke in the Old Testament, "[1] Long ago ... God spoke to our fathers by the prophets," (Hebrews 1:1ESV) This passage which the EGM movement takes as evidence that God spoke randomly to individuals in the Old Testament, says that God spoke in the Old Testament through the prophets. We are told that since God worked miraculously and spoke audibly many times in the Old Testament. We can expect him to work and speak through any Spirit-filled believer the same way. Even this is a false premise. God rarely spoke or worked miraculously in the Old Testament.  In fact, miracles and verbal revelations were extremely rare, over the 4000-year-Old Testament history there are about 89 such events. Jesus himself pointed out that miracles and revelations were rare events that usually occurred to reveal a specific truth or confirm God's authority (Luke 4:25-28). 

This is the reason EGM teaching is dangerous. It undermines biblical authority. It places personal experience as the litmus test for God's truth. Blackaby list confirmation by scripture as one of 7 tests of the veracity of what we hear from God. When actually the Word of God is the truth, the remaining 6 items must stand in conformity to it. So, when someone argues that we can expect God, who never changes, to act the way he always has we can agree. Because when God spoke in the Old Testament, he spoke to the prophet, who then brought revelation to the people. There is no biblical expectation that private personal revelations from God have ever been normative. If God still acts in the same way he acted in the Old Testament, then he speaks to his covenant people through his prophetic Word not phenomena like impression, dreams, or circumstances.

The prophet Jeremiah warned about being quidded by dreams visions and phenomena. When we think of the Old Testament prophets, we often have the impression that one prophet usually confronted a King, but that is not what usually happened. The ancient Kings had hosts of court prophets. Moses' prophecy and miracles put him in conflict with Pharoah's prophets. Elijah opposed the prophets of Baal in Ahab's court. King Ahab had nearly 1000 false prophets in his court (1 Kings 18:19). Many prophets in the Old Testament claimed to be the voice of God to the people but proved to be false.

[16] Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. [17] They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’...[25] I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ [26] How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, [27] who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?” (Jeremiah 16–17,23:25–27ESV)

Jeremiah warned about private revelations, from the mind and dreams of false prophets, saying they came from the heart of the prophet rather than the Word of God. Those who relied on them "despised the word of the Lord. He went on to defend his prophecies as being handed to him by God himself.

The King Jehoiachin's prophets condemned Jeremiah to death, because he refused to accept their words as being the voice of God, and because his prophecy was unpopular (Jeremiah 26: 7-10). Jeremiah was spared from death because his prophecy did not come from his heart, or an impression, or the popular will, but was handed to him by God (Jer 26:1-5). The people and officials of Judah came to Jeremiah's defense because what he had heard from God he delivered to the King, and because it was consistent with what prior prophets of God had spoken, and recorded in Scripture: 

[16] Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve the sentence of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God.” [17] And certain of the elders of the land arose and spoke to all the assembled people, saying, [18] “Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and said to all the people of Judah: ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “‘Zion shall be plowed as a field. Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.’  [19] Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and did not the LORD relent of the disaster that he had pronounced against them? But we are about to bring great disaster upon ourselves.” (Jeremiah 26:16–19ESV)

These passages are very damaging to the EGM model of hearing God's voice, because it belies their claim that looking around and seeing what God is doing in our experience and joining him is the way we hear God's voice. In the Old Testament God delivered his Word to the prophets by various means, and the prophets declared God's word to the people. The voice of God in the Old Testament was always heard in the Word of God delivered to the people through the prophet. Moses said, "[1] And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. [2] And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God." (Deuteronomy 28:1–2 ESV)

So, a survey of how God spoke in the Old Testament makes it clear that there is no pattern or expectation of God giving private revelations to individuals to guide them. God's Spirit delivered his commands to the prophet who spoke to the people. The Bible calls the Word of God, it's promise, commands, and blessings, delivered through the prophet "the voice of God. We hear the voice of God as we obey His Word. Yet, we know God's Spirit works differently in the New Covenant believer.

 Is there an expectation of hearing God's voice among Spirit-filled believers, does the New Testament support private revelations? That question we will answer in our next post. But the next time some says to you, God speaks to me, just like he spoke to people in the Old Testament, remind them that the Old Testament is clear about how God spoke to the people. God spoke to the Old Testament believer through the commands and promises of His Word delivered through the prophet. There was no expectation of private revelations under the Old Covenant. The special relationship God had with prophets in the Old Testament was not normative for the believer, nor did it create an expectation that the New Covenant Christian would be able to "hear his voice."