185 God speaks in so many different ways - a podcast by Dr David Petts - Pentecostal preacher, former AoG Bible College Principal

How God speaks to us

Introduction

As I look back over 70 years of Christian experience, the most exciting thing I have discovered is that God has a plan for my life. Notice, I did not say God had a plan but that God has a plan, because although I am now 83 years old, God still has a plan.

 

And he has a plan for you too, and the most important thing you can possibly do is to find out what it is. God loves you. He wants what’s best for you. He knows you better than you know yourself. So it only makes sense to ask him for guidance. Besides, if you’re already a Christian and love Jesus, you’ll surely want to do what God wants you to.

 

This series is about how God speaks and how he guides us. It will help you to recognize his voice, to know when he is speaking to you and when he is not. I’ll be telling you what I have learnt from personal experience. I’ll be telling you how he spoke to me through a book that I found on top of my parents’ piano on the very day that I been told it was out of print. I’ll be telling you how God spoke to me in the middle of the night in January 1972 and radically changed the direction of my life. And much much more.

 

But more importantly I’ll be sharing with you from what the Bible teaches.  The Bible is God’s inspired word and it’s the Bible itself that is the main way God speaks to Christians today. Everything we experience must be judged by what the Bible has to say on the matter. God won’t contradict himself by saying something through our experience that is not in line with what he’s already said in the Bible. So when I share my experience of how God has guided and spoken to me, I’m just using it as an illustration of what the Bible teaches.

 

Today we’ll begin with a summary of what the Bible teaches about the many different ways God speaks to us. Then in the talks that follow we’ll expand on the things we’ve outlined today.

 

 

 

Talk 1   God speaks in so many different ways

There are so many different ways God speaks to us. In this talk we’ll give a brief outline of what the Bible has to say on this important subject. We will see that:

 

• God speaks to all humanity through his creation
• He spoke to Israel by the prophets
• He has finally spoken through his Son, Jesus
• He speaks through the Bible
• He speaks by his Spirit
• He speaks through other people.

 

God speaks to all humanity through his creation

The Bible is very clear that God speaks to all of us through his wonderful creation. Nowhere in the Bible do we find an argument for the existence of God. Bible writers simply assumed it. The world we live in and the heavens above are clear evidence that a wonderful designer has been at work.

 

Psalm 19:1-4

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

 

Notice the words declare, proclaim, speech, voice, words. As he looks into the night sky the psalmist sees the stars and planets as speaking to all humanity, to people of every language. They declare the glory of God. They pour forth speech. They are shouting at us that they are the work of his hands. No doubt the apostle Paul had this passage in mind when he wrote in Romans 1:20

 

…since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

 

There is no excuse for not believing in God. The creation itself provides abundant evidence that there must be a creator. And today we see more and more television programmes showing how wonderfully designed the creation is. As a Christian I find myself praising God for his skill, his genius, his creativity. I hear phrases like ‘this is designed to…’, and I rejoice because I know the Designer.

 

But I groan inwardly when and the credit is given to ‘Mother Nature’ or ‘evolution’ or even the animal or plant itself rather than to God. In today’s society the creation is being applauded rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). ‘Mother Nature’ has become a substitute for Father God! Evolution, a blind force, is said to have a purpose! And a plant is described as having a strategy[1], implying that it has made a conscious decision to equip itself with an ability to grow in a certain way! No wonder the Psalmist said, The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’ (Psalm 14:1).

 

For us who believe, on the other hand, the creation speaks eloquently not only of God’s existence but of his great and glorious power, his wisdom, his faithfulness, his beauty and his love. God not only speaks to us through creation, he shouts at us!

 

God spoke to Israel by the prophets

The Bible is very clear, then, that God continually speaks to all people, everywhere, by his wonderful creation. But that is not all. The Bible also reveals that God spoke in Old Testament times to his chosen people, Israel, by the prophets he sent to them. We often think of prophets as people who foretell the future, and it’s true that the Old Testament prophets did foretell in great detail the coming of Christ. But that wasn’t their primary role. Their main purpose was to tell the people of Israel how they should live and to give them direction as to what they should do[2]. They did this as they were led and guided by the Holy Spirit. The people needed the guidance of prophets because in Old Testament times (and in the New Testament before Pentecost) very few of them had a personal experience of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was given only to specific people for specific purposes[3], but the day was coming when the gift of the Spirit would be made available to all. Through the prophet Joel God declared:

 

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days (Joel 2:28-29).

 

This prophecy was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost when Jesus’ disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4). The disciples spoke languages they had never learned and, when the crowd asked, What does this mean? Peter replied:

 

…this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel, "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy (Acts 2:16-18).

 

The ability to receive God’s Spirit, to hear what God is saying and to speak to others on his behalf was to be no longer restricted to a few. As from Pentecost all God’s people have the Spirit. We’re all called to speak for God. We have no need of prophets to tell us what to do! But does this mean that there are no prophets in the New Testament church? Are there no prophets today? There most certainly are. As we’ll see in a later talk, prophets are one of the ways God speaks to us today. It’s just that their role is not exactly the same as that of the Old Testament prophets.The need for that kind of prophet ceased with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. In fact the New Testament is clear that the role of the Old Testament prophets was over[4]. Once Jesus had come, God has finally spoken to us by his Son.

 

God has finally spoken by his Son, Jesus

The letter to the Hebrews begins with this statement:

 

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son

(Hebrews 1:1-2).

 

What does this mean? As we’ve just seen, one way God speaks to us is through the Holy Spirit. But this verse says that God has spoken by his Son. At first sight this might look like a contradiction but in fact it is not. Firstly, it’s because Jesus came and died for us that we have the Holy Spirit. He died for us, rose again, and 40 days later ascended into heaven. Notice what Peter says when preaching to the crowd on the day of Pentecost:

 

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear (Acts 2:32-33).

 

It was Jesus who poured out the Spirit and it is through his Spirit that he speaks to us today.

 

Secondly, Hebrews 1:2 says that God has spoken by his Son. The Aorist tense the writer uses here indicates that he is referring to a specific period in history – the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The writer is saying that God’s final word to the human race has been spoken in Jesus. There’s a sense in which God has nothing more to say! There’s nothing more to add. The message of Jesus is enough! And God is still speaking to us by it.

He speaks through Jesus’ teaching, his example, his character, his death and resurrection. Perhaps that’s why John’s Gospel describes Jesus as the Word:

 

John 1:1- 2,14:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

We use words when we speak. They’re our primary means of communication. And God speaks through his Word, Jesus who became flesh and lived among us. But he also speaks through his written word, the Bible.

 

God speaks through the Bible

If God speaks to us through Jesus, it’s obvious that he will speak to us through the Bible which tells us about him. The Old Testament law and prophets pointed forward to him (Luke 24:27). The New Testament Gospels record what he said and did while he was here on earth. The book of Acts records how he continued to work through his disciples by the power of his Spirit. And the letters written to the churches that were formed through the preaching of his disciples give us wonderful teaching about Jesus himself and the kind of lives we should live as his followers. The Bible is God’s word first and foremost because it tells us about Jesus.

 

Later on in the series we’ll talk in more detail about how God speaks to us through the Bible. We’ll see how the word of God reveals to us the way of salvation. It’s evangelistic. It also teaches us what we should believe and how we should behave. It’s didactic. What’s more, it reveals amazing things about the future and the second coming of Christ. It’s prophetic.

 

But the Bible can be prophetic in another way too. There are times when a verse of scripture seems to leap out of the page. The Holy Spirit is drawing our attention to it, and through it God speaks very directly and specifically into our immediate situation. There have been several occasions when God has spoken to me in this way, and I’ll be sharing some of them with you later.

 

God speaks by his Spirit

There are several verses in the New Testament that tell us that the Holy Spirit speaks[5]. As we’ve just seen, one way he speaks is through the Bible. But at times he speaks independently of scripture. A good example is found in Acts 13:1-3:

 

In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers… While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

 

You’ll notice that what the Holy Spirit said was giving a specific instruction. He wasn’t on this occasion speaking through a verse of scripture. No Bible verse would be that specific. He was telling the church leaders at Antioch to set apart Barnabas and Saul (or Paul) for a particular ministry they already knew he had called them to. After more fasting and praying, they did this by laying hands on them and sending them off on what was to be Paul’s first missionary journey.

But how exactly did the Holy Spirit speak to them? The answer is, we don’t know. Did he speak with an audible voice? That’s certainly a possibility. It seems to have happened that way in Acts 10 when Peter was on the roof top in Joppa. Peter falls into a trance and sees a vision of something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners with all kinds of animals in it. (This included ‘unclean’ creatures that Peter as a Jew was forbidden to eat under Old Testament law). Then in verses 13-16 we’re told that Peter hears a voice:

 

Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."  "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."  This happened three times…

 

Peter immediately identifies it as the voice of the Lord (v.14) and verse 19 tells us that while Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Simon, three men are looking for you…

 

So the Holy Spirit does speak sometimes with an audible voice and it’s possible that that is how he spoke to the church leaders in Acts 13:1-3. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that in Acts 10 Peter heard the voice while he was having a vision and we know that dreams and visions are one of the ways the Spirit may speak to us. It was through a vision God gave to Paul that the gospel first came to Europe (Acts 16:6-10) and Acts 2:16-17 makes it clear that dreams and visions are to be expected as a result of the coming of the Holy Spirit:

 

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

 

But this passage, as well as mentioning dreams and visions, also mentions prophecy. So in Acts 13 the Spirit could have spoken through a spiritual gift like prophecy. The passage mentions that there were prophets in the church at Antioch and perhaps that is the most obvious way to understand it.

 

So the Spirit may speak with an audible voice, through a dream or vision, or through a spiritual gift like prophecy. But these are not the only ways that God may speak to us. For example, he may speak through what is sometimes called an inner witness or prompting and we’ll be saying more about this in a later talk. And finally, we need to remember that very often God speaks to us through other people.

 

God speaks through other people

From what we have seen so far it’s clear that sometimes God speaks to us directly, without anyone else being involved. This is the case when he speaks to us through creation or when he speaks as we read the Bible. The same is true when he speaks through an inner prompting or through a dream or vision. However, very often he uses other people to speak to us. When we first believed the gospel it was because someone else told us about it. This could have happened by a variety of ways – by witnessing or preaching or writing or singing for example. In fact, this is the main way that God intends the gospel to be spread[6].

 

And the same is true throughout our Christian lives. He often speaks through other people. If we had Christian parents, God probably first spoke to us through them, although we may well have not realised it at the time! In church we should certainly expect God to speak to us through preaching or teaching or through someone exercising a spiritual gift like prophecy. And it’s not just in church! A casual conversation while travelling in a car or on a country walk can turn out to contain a very real word from the Lord.

 

In all these examples God is using someone else to speak to us. He speaks through them to us, and they may not even realise that he’s using them that way! And, of course, he can use us to speak to them. But that’s something we’ll talk about in another time. In fact, throughout the series we’ll be developing in greater detail many of things we’ve said in this talk. And there will be some new areas too. Today I have concentrated mainly on how God speaks to us. But God also guides us sometimes without speaking. As the children of God is our privilege to be led by the Spirit[7]. But that too is a subject for another day.

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