Because of personal and selfish motives. Like Eli, who prided his position as a "senior priest" more than being sensitive to God's voice.
Because of iniquity in our hearts. Eli's sons were entrenched in iniquity. He stopped hearing from God because of his iniquity that he knows about, but yet he didn't get cleared.
Because we offer our services unworthily. Like Eli, who was still serving God while God was angry at Him, stopped hearing from God. Because God stopped speaking to Him.
Because we have forsaken our priesthoods. We cease to go to him as priests. We fail in our function to be the bridge between God and His people. Therefore, God stops speaking.
Because we are too rested in ourselves, not in God. Like Eli, who was found lying in "his usual place", was too comfortable to do things outside his comfort zone. Therefore, he dulls himself from what God has to say to him.
Because of disobedience to the Word of God. Like Eli, who knows the Word, but cannot hear the Word.
Because we are hardened to the judgment of God. We become nonchalant to God's abhorrence of sin, until we become "abhorred" by God. Hence the silent treatment.
A message that spoke to me, and spoke to me well.
* * * * * * * * * *
A thought that runs through my head, about hearing the voice of God. It can be a very tricky thing...
I have a friend in my university days. Numerous guys have pursued her, each one in search of a romantic relationship. So many, until I've lost count. And every one of them said to her, "God told me that you are the one for me."
The girl said how come God didn't tell her the same thing.
Having worked in an inter-denominational Christian Fellowship, I've heard claims about hearing God's voice during committee meetings too. Someone comes up and says, "God told me so and so."
When someone comes up to you and says, "God told me this" or "God told me that", we are left with very little choice. We either listen and obey what that person claims is "God's voice" or disobey "God's voice" and do something else. There's very little wriggle room, isn't it? There's nothing much to discuss then. Let's just do what "God said", and let us all go home. Why bother with committee meetings.
Let's say we go with "God's voice" for this one occasion.
Next meeting, we will have someone else coming up to say, "God told me we should do this." Well, let's be obedient again and just do it.
The following meeting, another person says "I heard God's voice too."
Another one says "I heard God saying something else."
Yet another says, "You are all delusional. God wasn't speaking to you at all! Come now... Let us reason together... Actually ha... God said to me..."
*Sigh*
One view is that God does not speak in the same way he spoke during the biblical times anymore. Upon completion of the canon of Scripture, everything God has ever wanted to say to us are already recorded in the inspired Scriptures. The bible is totally sufficient for us, for every occasion, for every need. We need not turn anywhere else to hear things from Him. Visions and dreams and hearing voices? They are just your imagination.
We find ourselves at one end of fundamentalism.
However, in the Bible, the apostle Paul sees and hears lots of things from God. Paul wrote that the Spirit of Jesus did not permit him to preach the gospel in Asia and Bithynia (Acts 16:6-7).
Later, God spoke to Him through a vision of a man of Macedonia. And that prompted Paul to go immediately to Macedonia to preach the gospel (Acts 16:9-10).
Paul also saw and heard inexpressible things in in Paradise, of which he was not permitted to tell (2 Corinthians 12:1-4).
In fact, the entire book of Revelation was written based on John's vision from God at Patmos Island.
Extending out from that, we also have local modern day prophets, who hold seminars and writes books on "personal prophecy". They help you discover what God has to say to you personally.
We also have David Yonggi Cho, who wrote a book "Heaven Is So Real". He says God showed him how heaven is like. And he describes heaven from a first-hand experience.
Elsewhere, he also writes about "the fourth dimension". Something that apparently the Holy Spirit taught David Yonggi Cho, but no one else:
Then God spoke to my heart, "Son, as the second dimension includes and controls the first dimension, and the third dimension includes and controls the second dimension, so the fourth dimension includes and controls the third dimension, producing a creation of order and beauty.
The spirit is the fourth dimension. Every human being is a spiritual being as well as a physical being. They have the fourth dimension as well as the third dimension in their hearts."
So men, by exploring their spiritual sphere of the fourth dimension through the development of concentrated visions and dreams in their imaginations, can brood over and incubate the third dimension, influencing and changing it. This is what the Holy Spirit taught me" (Cho, The Fourth Dimension 1979:p40).
And we find ourselves on the other end of liberalism.
Hearing the voice of God is not an easy thing. On one end, we may purpose ourselves to hear nothing at all, because it is "not correct theology" to be hearing things from God. On the other end of the spectrum, we open ourselves to the idea that God still speaks today, and get ourselves confused with every wind of deceitful teaching.
I believe God speaks to us. I am not referring to supernatural revelations or hearing clear voices in our heads.
The bigger problem with us is not so much in determining which voice is authentic and which is not. Any child of God will experience God speaking to him or her in one way or another. Just that we are too stubborn to admit it.
Our bigger problem is we do not obey Him even when we know it. And we may sometimes try to explain God's voice away by sounding strictly theological.
Albert Chew speaks good messages. I've heard him twice. And I've heard God's voice from him twice.
2 comments:
I agree with you that God may communicate with creation by whatever means and at the times He chooses. I disagree that God is "always" communicating with us, and that such communication may be misunderstood by our own stubbornness.
As to the second point, the Bible offers numerous examples of exceedingly stubborn and self-willed individuals, both believers and pagans, who attempted to plug their ears and ignore God: Jonah, Saul, Balaam, Saul of Tarsus, Belshazzar, David. God managed to make Himself clearly understood, despite their lack of cooperation.
It's the first point that causes more concern, however. Again, while it may be that God is communicating with modern believers, this purported communication is too often -- in my experience -- a manifestation of individual ego rather than Divine revelation.
You alluded to this in your post, noting that individuals preface statements with some variant of "God told me the following... ."
The "prophet" then expects others to act upon this "prophecy" as though the words come directly from God's lips. Noticeably absent from nearly all of these pronouncements is Paul's wise counsel to "test all things," which, of course, includes modern prophetic utterances.
By contrast, when God speaks in the Bible through a prophet (Elijah, Moses, John, Peter, etc.), there is always some means of proving the words spoken by this prophet are authentic. When that prophet claimed, "God told me..." that claim was clear, readily understood, and accompanied by unequivocal evidence that the message was from God. Further, God decreed death for any prophet who spoke falsely.
Modern believers may have compelling counsel and useful wisdom to offer others, but it seems to me that they are sometimes a bit hasty in offering Divine revelation. Perhaps those who are inclined to say "God told me..." should more judiciously consider the source of their words.
Hi, very interesting post, greetings from Greece!
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