Is God a baritone or a tenor? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Shirer begins this section with Scripture. Yay! Let’s see what she says!
Psalm 62:11-12
11 One thing God has spoken,
two things I have heard:
Wait. That’s only one verse you quoted! Indeed, because that’s all that Shirer quotes. Now why would she do that? Let’s look at the rest of it and see if we can figure it out.
“Power belongs to you, God,
12 and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”;
and, “You reward everyone
according to what they have done.”
If you look at the passage, this is not about God speaking to an individual person. It’s about the Psalmist trusting in what he has heard about God in his difficulty. This is the way Hebrews talk, but it looks like Shirer doesn’t care about that. Just look for where it says God has spoken and throw a personal idea on to it.
She says Revelation 3:20 can be applied as a call to salvation, but these are people who already trust in Jesus. Fair enough, but at the same time, she misses the point. She says it is about persistence, and it certainly is, but the persistence is apparently that God is trying to speak to you individualistically and you need to hear it.
Which is why this is in a letter read to churches from someone taking the role of a prophet. Got it.
Never think that the circumstances in your life have nothing to do with God’s will. They have everything to do with it! When you’re seeking His guidance, you should always reflect on the events the Lord is allowing to occur in your life. Persistent, internal inklings matched by external confirmation is often the way God directs believers into His will.
Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (pp. 81-82). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
This piece of advice is backed by the Scripture of….
Oh wait. There’s nothing here.
Nope. Shirer thinks that every single bit of events in your life is arranged in a specific way because God is trying to give you a specific message. I am not denying that God works everything according to His will, but I am against trying to approach reality with a decoder ring.
Here’s my suggestion. Try to interpret Scripture as what God is telling you instead of your circumstances. For your circumstances, see how according to Romans 8, they can be used for your good if you love the Lord. They’re not about God trying to give you a message.
She then quotes Ecclesiastes 5:1 asking where this verse had been hiding all her life. I dealt with it before, but I will do so again.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
This is about going to a worship service or to offer a sacrifice and to be stingy with your words. Heed what your priest says. Speak too much and you can bring judgment on yourself. If this was about God speaking individually to you, why do you need to go to the House of God? Can’t He do that just as well anywhere else?
Even when you hear incorrectly, God knows your heart well, and He honors the person whose sincere desire is to know and do His will even in their imperfection. “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God” (John 7:17 ESV).
Shirer, Priscilla. Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks (p. 88). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
So if you think you heard from God and you heard wrong, God knows you are trying to do right. Look! There’s a Scripture to back it!
Except this is Jesus talking about Himself and how people can know His teaching is from God and that He is from God.
How reliable can a teaching be if you have to mishandle Scripture so often to get to it?
So in the end, I still see nothing here. Next time, Shirer will tell us how God communicates impersonally. We’ll pick this up next week.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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