Category: Christian Doctrine

Is God Relational?

Does God really care about me? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Something people ask me when they think I don’t think hearing the voice of God is normative today is if God really cares about them. Is God relational? Does He really love me?

It’s always interesting to see that we have 66 books and the coming of Jesus and yet we still ask about that. One can read the Old Testament and see praises of God even before the coming of Christ. One of our most popular hymns, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, comes from quite likely the saddest book in the Bible, Lamentations.

It’s also strange to me to say “Well, if God isn’t interacting with me the way that I think He should, does He really love me?” God loves you the way that He loves you. Who are we to say that the way He loves us is not sufficient?

That being said, let’s look at the question. For one thing, it would have to be explained what is meant by relational. If you mean God brings about a change in me and I bring about a change in God, then no, God is not relational. You cannot change God. You will not make God better if you live a perfect life. You will not make Him worse if you live a life of sin and rebellion. You cannot bring Him more joy than He has in the Trinity. Your sin cannot destroy the joy He has in the Trinity.

It is true that many times, the Scriptures describe God as emotional, but they also describe Him as physical too. Many Christians rightly see that the description of God as physical is not to be read literalistically, but suddenly switch when it comes to the descriptions of God’s emotions. I read them both as anthropomorphic language. I’m consistent.

Some will also point to Christ as being emotional, and He was and is, but He is also fully man. The Father and the Spirit are not human at all. However, Jesus’s emotional responses can still show us the kinds of things God loves and the things He hates.

However, God loves you. In fact, God cannot love you more than He does right now. That would be impossible. You will never increase His love for you and you will never decrease it either. Not only that, but God is outside of the timeline and is eternal and unchanging, so His love for you has always been and it will never cease. It is the most active love of all.

That being said, love does not mean everything will work out the way you want. We dare not set up standards to test the love of God to say “Well, if God really loved me, then He would do XYZ or He would not do XYZ.” It would be easy to say “If God really loved me, He would not let me go through divorce.” It would be easy to say, but it would also be wrong.

Could it perhaps be that our modern thinking has led us to have a sort of entitlement mentality with God Himself? “Well, I see the way God spoke to all these great saints in the Old Testament and surely God cares about me just as much to speak to me.” Evil has always been a question for Christians, but could it be worse in a time when people think they are entitled to live a good life? If God loves them, surely He would not let them suffer in such a horrible way!

You have no claims on God. The only things God owes you are things He has promised you in covenant. God does not owe you a moment of existing. God does not owe you a good life. He could have sent us all to Hell and He would have been just and right to do so. That means all He gives you is grace ultimately.

In any case, however you imagine God loves you and however I tell you that God loves you, it is still inadequate to describe it. No words can ever fully describe such because God cannot be contained even by words. The question we should ask is not if He really loves us, but if we really love Him.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Did God Reveal That To You?

Is it safe to say that God revealed X to you? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am going through a book by an advocate of Black Hebrew Israelite teaching. I know some students here at the seminary who asked me about it and so I figured I would get a book on the topic and see what I thought seeing as I had never really looked at that area. The book is full of nonsense and most every conspiracy theory out there.

Today, I am reading and I come across this quote:

God revealed to me things that were hidden from us; the truth about our history in relation to the bible and the Ancient Hebrew Israelites.  The theories I had about black people, the Curse of Canaan and the Curse of Israelites were right all along.  God also revealed to me how Satan is covertly deceiving mankind and we have no clue as to what is going on.

Dalton Jr, Ronald. HEBREWS TO NEGROES: Wake Up Black America (p. 1002). G Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.

The problem I have with a quote like this is so many of my fellow evangelicals use the exact same language. It would be easy to say “Yeah, but what this guy is revealing is crazy. I am not saying crazy stuff.”

Maybe you’re not, but your language is the same and why should I discount what he has to say and immediately accept what you have to say? The point is I discount him already because where I have looked at what he’s talking about that I already know something about, it’s nonsense. If I can’t trust him on the areas I am sure of, why trust him in the areas I am not.

But both of you speak the exact same language and both of you attribute your thoughts to God giving them to you.

Stop back and think about what you are saying.

“Friends. I want to tell you that this bit of information I am saying, this comes from God Himself.”

If you are saying that, don’t you think you had better make sure that you are right?

On my Facebook post where I discussed this, I was pleased to see one of my friends say that at their church, if someone says “God told me” publicly and they are wrong, they have to apologize publicly. That’s a good start, but isn’t that the problem? If this friend lived in Old Testament times, they wouldn’t just apologize. They would be stoned to death.

Yeah. God took it seriously.

Are we to think that God says “In the past, I took that seriously, but today, it’s no big deal.”

We can say God seems more gracious in the New Testament, which is false, but also, God can seem much more serious about sin on the other hand. The Old Testament says very little about Hell. The New Testament says a lot about it. The first two people to publicly lie to God in the early church were struck dead immediately.

Claiming God said something when He did not say it is a serious matter and we treat it all too casually.

Also, if you say that God told you something, unless it is something that is indisputable that could not be know any other way, I will not take it seriously. If anything, it makes your position look incredibly weak. It’s as if you’re saying, “I have no reason for you to really believe this, so I’ll just tell you that God told it to me.”

“But the prophets of the Old Testament spoke that way.”

Yes, and you are not them. Also, once again, if they were wrong, they paid for it with their lives. Are you willing to do the same?

If you say no, then don’t claim God revealed it to you or told it to you.

Sadly, I am convinced that many who speak this way do not really take the fullness of God seriously. I am convinced we have more of a concept of Buddy Jesus. God is not our king, but He is more of our friend instead. As a result, we treat Him in a way that is far too casual.

Again, I am NOT saying that God cannot do X. I am saying I do not expect it to be normative. I also hope that even if you disagree with me on that, you will still agree that we need to take such claims extremely seriously. God expects to be honored and spoken truly of in everything.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing The Voice of God Chapter 7

Are you in the right position to hear from God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So Newton gives a lot of the usual steps to hearing from God such as spending time in Scripture so you can better discern God’s promptings. (Geez. Maybe you could just study the Scripture so you can know what God has already said.) One step he takes is to say that if you need an immediate word, spend extra time in Scripture, prayer, and quietness. He then cites Psalm 46:10 with “be still and know that I am God.”

Which says absolutely nothing about hearing from God.

The passage is instead describing Israel being at war and when their tendency is to rush headlong, they are to wait. Be still. God is God. God will defeat their enemies.

He also says if you are unsure if God is speaking to you, ask for confirmation. Never mind you could just as well ask “How do I know the confirmation is from God?” The only person I can think of right off in Scripture that needed confirmation is Gideon and he’s not the best example. One could say Hezekiah, but that is because Hezekiah was told he will die and then told he would live. He needed to know for sure which word was going to take place.

If anything else is saddening in this, it’s that when you get to the end, you find out that Newton is a bishop. I cringe at the thought of what people in high authority are actively teaching in our churches. The idea of hearing the voice of God has become such an evangelical creed and it blows my mind as this is taught nowhere in Scripture.

Instead, what we have is a list of things you can do and not a list of how you can study the Scriptures and know them better. When this happens, people take their own impressions and ideas and dreams as if they have divine authority and wind up building a little canon in their own selves that is based on their experience. There is enough self-centeredness in our churches. We do not need any more of it.

For those who still think this is in some way even remotely biblical, I urge you to return to Scripture and do a thorough look and ask yourself some questions about what you are reading.

While God did speak to people, was it ever the majority of the people?

If not, then why do I think I am one of those exceptional people that

Why do I never see this commanded by Jesus or Paul?

Why do I not see anyone in early church history talking about this?

Why do the medieval thinkers stay silent on this?

Why did the Reformers say nothing about this?

To claim that God is speaking is a serious claim and I fear too many of us are making it far too lightly. It won’t affect our salvation from what I see, but we will be judged for it. Remember in the Old Testament that if a prophet wasn’t from God, they were to be stoned.

Should we take His word any less lightly?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 6

How else does the Spirit allegedly lead? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In a recent post, I said I goofed with chapter numbering. Turns out, I didn’t. I gave the benefit of the doubt to Newton. Instead, take a look at how the book is laid out from my Kindle app on my laptop.

Yep. Newton has chapter three listed twice and no chapter 5. Yes. That also extends to the chapter headings themselves.

So there is no chapter 5 review. There is one for chapter 6.

Newton starts by taking us to Acts 16:6-10 and notes that Paul was led by a vision to go to Macedonia. Therefore, God can speak to people in a vision. With that, there will be no disagreement. However, does that mean that we should expect that?

If we go to Acts 28, Paul is bitten by a viper and the people of Malta think he is a murderer because he survived a shipwreck and yet justice came to him. However, Paul simply shakes it off into the fire. Nothing happens. The people then decide he is a god.

Since Paul suffered no ill will from a viper bite and went about his day normally, this shows that God can save us from a viper bite. Therefore, if you find yourself bitten by a viper someday, there is no need to get to a hospital. Just follow the example of Paul.

Or maybe you should realize you’re not Paul.

Newton says if we study the Bible, we will find that God led many people through visions and He still does for He is not the same. I do not rule out all dreams and visions. I certainly think they are happening in the Muslim world. I do think that these are for getting people to salvation and not personal decision making.

Also, saying God is the same doesn’t matter unless Newton is going into his backyard at night and offering animal sacrifices because God is still the same. Hebrews says that in the past God spoke in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken by His Son. Why is it that Newton is so eager to return to those past days instead of the days where the Son is how God has spoken?

Also, Newton will spend time talking about his personal experience. The problem with these people often is that they go to their personal experience and say “This experience must match what is happening in this passage.” Then they will interpret the Scripture in light of that experience and say “Therefore, this is normative today.” Instead of interpreting Scripture in light of our experience, we should interpret our experience in light of Scripture.

Newton also says some matters about prophets claiming to speak for God and there’s an easy way to avoid falling into believing a false prophecy. Unless you hear someone say something that is absolutely from God and can be shown, such as if someone called out a secret sin you weren’t telling anyone as a possibility, then don’t believe them.  Go about your day the normal way.

Next time we’ll see what Newton say about positioning yourself to hear from God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 4

Should your conscience be your guide? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Newton tells us that God speaks to us through our conscience and that if you carefully study the New Testament, you will see this. Unfortunately for him, only if you read it from a Western individualistic mindset. For those from the biblical mindset in which the book was written, conscience was the mindset of the group, not the individual. You did not do anything that would violate how you appeared before the group.

No. Ancient people didn’t go by feelings.

Consider King David. He knew in the law it was wrong to sleep with Bathsheba, but he did it. When does he repent? When he is called out on it. Then he knows he has violated the standards and then does he pen Psalm 51.

Newton talks about one time he heard foul language in his mind and he began to bind the devil to make him leave. (Yes. Because the #1 way the devil will take you down is by using words that are deemed dirty.) Never mind that Scripture tells us to take every thought captive and not bind the devil, but Newton is told the Spirit told him it wasn’t the devil but him because of content he was watching with foul language.

Look. I never use profanity, but I don’t think it’s a big deal if others do provided that not every other word is what is deemed a curse word. I find it strange when I talk about Diehard as a Christmas movie and some Christians say they won’t watch it because of profanity. Never mind that there’s a lot of other reasons I can think of that some people probably shouldn’t watch, but yeah, somehow profanity jumps up there to the top of the list.

Our attitude towards profanity could sometimes be a bigger problem than profanity itself.

But ultimately, the problem is Newton just takes a few references to conscience and then equates that with the voice of God, which is dangerous territory. It is going incredibly beyond the text. Not only that, but some people have damaged consciences. Some people are overly scrupulous about matters when they shouldn’t be. Some people are way too lax when they shouldn’t be.

Our personal emotions are often not very good at telling us hard and fast rules.

Now if only when it came to making moral decisions we had some sort of guide that we could use. If only there was something like a book or something like that that contained general principles of wisdom that could be useful in helping us know how we ought to live.

This brings us back to one of the big problems with this movement. I am sure it is not the intention of the people who are teaching this, but generally, Scripture takes a backseat to whatever the person is thinking or feeling at the time. We are already a culture of narcissists. This just makes us more so.

Next, we’ll look at other ways the Spirit leads according to Newton.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 3.2

What about nudges?

So I goofed a little. I apparently got ahead of myself with chapters and one section was the introduction so I am calling this 3.2. Awkward, but what am I to do? I make mistakes.

So Newton now says the second way God speaks to us is by an inward nudge, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. He turns to Romans 8 and at least this time gives some surrounding context to verse 14. Unfortunately, none of this addresses the point.

He talks about being in services where he knew something was not being said right and he couldn’t show it, but that little nudge told him what was being taught was wrong. The problem is, I can’t exegete an experience like this. I have no context and then what about the times that nudges come and everything is actually right, or at least right enough? There might be something wrong, but it’s not heretical. Newton gives no measure for this. It is easy to accept a test when you accept all that agrees with you. Mormons do it regularly with the burning in the bosom.

Naturally, the next passage he goes to is the still small voice of Elijah. Do you know how many other passages refer to the still small voice?

None. Not a one. No other prophet says anything. Jesus says nothing about it. Paul says nothing. No apostle speaks anything about it.

But this movement has banked so much on this verse.

Never mind that in the very passage, the still small voice says NOTHING and later God speaks to Elijah in an audible voice as he had just as when the narrative of the aftermath of the showdown with the prophets of Baal started. This is not to be taken as a normative passage. It is our modern hubris that insists that this event that happened to Elijah is supposed to be just like what happens to us. Strangely, that never includes having food be miraculously prepared for us.

He then goes to Proverbs 20:27

The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord
    that sheds light on one’s inmost being.

Newton then says this means the Lord will use your spirit to give you guidance. What? Does my spirit know something that it is not telling me? The idea really here is that God is capable of searching us and knowing our inmost hearts. It is not about God giving us guidance. It is a message of warning that God knows our inmost being.

I wish these people who spoke about how we need to treat the Scriptures so seriously would follow their own advice.

Now this next part is amusing really:

But someone may say, “How can I know when I am being led by the inward witness? Can you give me an example?” Well yes I can. One very specific experience I remember along this line happened when I was a younger minister of the Gospel, just learning some of these things. I was at a church service on one of our family islands. A minister had preached, and afterward walked to the back of the church. This particular church had wooden pews. The minister slowly walked up to the front of the building touching each pew as she walked up. Then she said something to this effect, “If you did not feel anything when I touched your pew, something is wrong and you need to come to the altar.” Immediately, somewhere down on the inside of me, it seemed like someone was ringing a doorbell. I heard something, not with an audible voice, just a strong inward knowing, an inner witness. I heard, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Newton, Sheldon D.. Hearing The Voice of God: Discerning God’s Voice From All The Other Voices (pp. 16-17). Sheldon D. Newton. Kindle Edition.

He then goes on to say that

When I got back home, the Spirit of God, through the Word of God showed me that He never judges His relationship with us based on physical feelings. Our walk with God should be based upon His Word, not upon how we feel. Feelings change. The Word however, remains the same.

Newton, Sheldon D.. Hearing The Voice of God: Discerning God’s Voice From All The Other Voices (p. 17). Sheldon D. Newton. Kindle Edition.

And yet, what are we judging what God is speaking with here but an inward nudge? Also, I would not need such a nudge myself to know that what this preacher was speaking was nonsense. You just had to know your Bible.

He then tells a story about how a man was waiting at a red light and when it turned green had a nudge that told him to not move. At that point, a car sped through running the red light. The problem is again, I can’t exegete an experience. Even if I accepted this, why should I take it as normative? My claim has never been that God cannot speak. It is that it is not to be normative.

Next time, we’ll see what Newton has to say about the conscience.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 3

How does God speak? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This chapter comes with the heading of the #1 way God speaks. Now if you asked me, I would say God has spoken best by Christ and we see that revelation revealed to us in Scripture. We don’t have the incarnation among us now, but we do have the account of His journey on this Earth.

Let’s see what Newton says.

At the start, he says this:

Hearing God’s Voice accurately is a must in these trying times. To not know or recognize His leading can cost a person his or her life, literally.

Newton, Sheldon D.. Hearing The Voice of God: Discerning God’s Voice From All The Other Voices (p. 11). Sheldon D. Newton. Kindle Edition.

A must? Well, I seem to be doing just fine so far. Meanwhile, I know plenty of people who make disastrous decisions that go against the path of wisdom because they are convinced God is telling them to do something. You know, what would be really good is if we had some one source that was a depository of the wisdom that God had for us, maybe like a book….

Not a shock, but Newton goes to the passage of “My sheep hear my voice” immediately. Let’s see. If I went to that time period, I’m pretty sure everyone there who was in the audience heard Jesus speaking. Thus, everyone who was in the audience was one of His sheep because they all heard His voice. Right?

“But it’s not a literal voice!” you say.

Correct. The voice is the call to salvation. It is not a still small voice of the heart. Jesus never says anything like that and this text has not just been ripped out of context. It has been taken in a stranglehold and beaten relentlessly until the text will confess what HVG teachers want it to say.

Newton then goes to Romans 8:14 about being led by the Spirit. Of course, he doesn’t look at the text. He just wants to find out what the key saying is in the text and then put his idea of what it means to be led by the Spirit in there. I suggest we look at the surrounding context.

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

If you do this, you see that being led by the Spirit is being put in contrast to living according to the flesh. This is not about hearing a voice to help you make decisions. It’s about being faithful to what we know in Christ and living a moral life.

Newton then rightfully says the #1 way God speaks to us is by His Word, but then looks at John 16L13 saying that the Spirit will lead us into all truth and then John 17:17 with “Thy Word is truth.” He then says the Spirit will quicken the Word inside of us so that we can live as we ought. If that is what he wants to say is the work of the Spirit, I have no problem with that.

The problem is that Newton doesn’t do what he says. He points us outside of the Bible to the idea that God will still speak to us today. If God is saying something to us today like that, then should that not count as Scripture?

Newton rightly says that any leading that goes against Scripture is not of God, but I have to ask why do I have to take something completely subjective like this and compare it when I have something that I do know comes from God? Why do I have to take a practice never done by anyone in Scripture and follow that when I have the Scriptures themselves? It’s as if Newton is really just paying lip service to the Bible but his main emphasis is on the experience. It would be better to write a whole book on how to better read and understand the Bible, but alas, more people think it’s preferable to just have God give you the answers.

Next time, we’ll see a problematic way God allegedly speaks with inward nudges.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 2

Does God speak to us today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So now, Newton says that since we have reasons why we should hear from God, let’s see what the Scripture says. Of course, having reasons why does not mean that it will happen. I can think of plenty of reasons why a lovely young lady should want to marry me. So far, I still remain divorced.

To make his point at the start, Newton’s first passage of Scripture is from Psalm 115:

Not to us, Lord, not to us
    but to your name be the glory,
    because of your love and faithfulness.

2 Why do the nations say,
    “Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven;
    he does whatever pleases him.
4 But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them.

Unfortunately, this proves too much in Newton’s case. He has looked at one part in verse 5 and tried to say that this is a statement about YHWH. It is not. It is about the idols. The Psalmist is saying that based on all the characteristics the idols have, they should be able to do what fits those characteristics. They can’t. That does not mean in itself that YHWH can.

However, while YHWH is certainly omnipotent, if Newton interprets this passage to be about YHWH, then he needs to be consistent. He needs to say YHWH has a mouth and can speak, eyes and can see, ears and can hear, a nose and can smell, hands and can feel, feet and can walk, and a throat that can make sound.

Which is actually materialistic concept of God that would be more akin to Mormonism. Yes. I know about the incarnation but God in His essence does not have a body.

The next passage is Hebrews 1:1-2.

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

Yet once again, we have a problem, The text says God has spoken by His Son. First ,the soken is past tense. Second, it does not say God is speaking by a still small voice or dreams or internal nudges or feeling a peace or anything like that. That has to be added to the text. Newton even says about this text that God speaks to us through His Holy Spirit, but the Spirit is NOWHERE in the text. It is only the Son.

Next is John 16:13-15.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

This is said to the apostles. Does Newton give any warrant for applying it beyond them? None. It is just assumed.

The last is John 14:26 where the Holy Spirit will teach you all things. Newton adds we need to establish this fellowship by spending time in the presence of God. The problem is Jesus NEVER says anything like this. Not a single Biblical author says you need to learn to spend time in the presence of God to learn how to hear His voice. This doesn’t mean I am opposed to time in prayer and Bible study. Far from it. I am opposed to doing so for the wrong reasons.

So thus far, nothing I have seen establishes the claim and more argues against it.

Next time, we will look at what he says about the way God speaks.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Hearing the Voice of God Chapter 1

Why do I do this? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I had recently finished Priscilla Shirer’s awful book on this chapter and figured I could read another one when I found one on sale in email notifications. So I downloaded it to my Kindle and found lo and behold, it was only 32 pages. Good thing I got it on discount. You can read this easily in an hour or so, and it will be time horribly wasted. Anyway, the book is available here if you are interested.

I realize I am a lone voice in evangelicalism saying something like hearing the voice of God is not meant to be a normative practice, but I will say it. I must stand for what I see as biblical truth and against what I see as a dangerous threat to biblical truth. It is mind-boggling to me how such a movement as this has caught in with people who claim the Bible as their sole authority.

The first chapter is about why Sheldon Newton wrote this book. The first is that God is our creator and since He has a perfect plan for our lives, we should want to know what it is. That God is our creator will receive no pushback from me. That He has a perfect plan will. This is stated nowhere in Scripture and frankly, since we’re all sinners, if there was a perfect plan, we would have all blown it already.

The second reason he wrote this is because there are so many prophets and prophetesses out there and we need to know who is of God and who isn’t. Well first off, if we can all supposedly hear the voice of God, why should I need to listen to anyone else? Is God’s voice insufficient?

The next point is I discount anyone immediately who puts a title on their name like that. Call yourself an apostle or a prophet or something similar and I don’t listen. Send me a Facebook request with those titles on there and it will be a hard pass.

He then says with mediums and physics running around, it would be good that we are not deceived. No. That is not a typo. He says physics. That being said, again, I have to ask. Is Scripture insufficient?

The fourth is that we need to stay focused on Christ and what is good for our lives. Again, I agree. The problem once again rises up. Is Scripture insufficient? It’s amazing that Protestants who are to have a high view of Scripture discount it so easily with this nonsense.

The fifth reason is that many children of God have not learned to hear the voice of God. Thank God for that one. Maybe these people will do something radical like, I don’t know, read the Bible more? Maybe focus less on what they’re feeling and everything around them and focus on Scripture? We couldn’t have that could we?!

The sixth reason is that Newton has seen years of people being deceived by erroneous doctrines. Geez. That is a problem. If only we had something like a book that God had left us that we could know came from Him that we could study and learn what we needed to learn. Pipe dream. Right?

The final reason he gives is that many people are running to prophets and others to get what they think is a real word from the Lord. Again, it sure would be nice if we had a sure word from the Lord that we could count on. If only there was some work like, again, maybe a book, that had stood the test of time and could be trusted as the Word of the Lord.

Well, those are his reasons for why Scripture is insufficient, I mean, why we need to hear the voice of God. Let’s see in the next section how well he does at arguing for that position.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: God Doesn’t Whisper

Is God whispering to His people? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Buy this book!

Seriously! What are you waiting for? Buy this book!

As I kept going through this book, I was thinking “I wish I could put this in the hands of every evangelical Christian out there!” The problem pastor Osman is speaking about is one that is present throughout the church. It is the idea that God has a will for your life and He is trying to tell you what it is and you need to be listening for it.

Osman goes after this entirely and he has done his homework looking up the claims of people who teach this and reading their books. I have read books like this here as well and every single one of them is just awful in this area. Pastor Osman is much more thorough than I am in this.

Bonus too! This guy is a pastor! I treasure that because so many pastors seem to fall into the groupthink on this. So many people are making disastrous decisions with their lives and not following proper wisdom for following an unbiblical pattern of decision making.

It puzzles me even more when my fellow Protestants do this. Aren’t we the people who claim that we are people of the book? The Bible is our final authority? We only go with what the Bible teaches? Despite that, we have bought into an idea that is not even taught in the Bible and is our own form of extra-biblical revelation that is to each of us and has us playing a guessing game with the will of God.

It reminds me of what my ex-wife used to struggle with as she would have a dream and the next day be thinking about it all day. She would ask me “What do you think it means?” I always said the same thing to her. “Honey. If you spent as much time trying to understand what Scripture means, which you know comes from God, as you do trying to understand your dreams, which you don’t know come from God, how much better off you would be.”

What does Osman deal with? Still small voice? Yep. Feeling a peace about it? Yep. Being led by the Spirit? Yep. Open doors? Yep. My sheep hear my voice? Definitely. Every biblical distortion out there, he interacts with.

At the same time, there seems to be nothing personal against the people who hold to this methodology often. There is no doubting that many people who hold to this are sincere Christians and think they are doing good. However, sincerity is not enough.

The only section I really disagreed with him on was Muslim dreams. I am entirely open to Muslims having dreams that lead them to Jesus and the difference I think is that these are dreams that are JUST for that purpose. They are not meant to help the Muslim in day-to-day decision-making. Osman and I can debate that hypothetically, but we do agree on the general premise of day-to-day living.

Also, Osman is a cessationist, but that is not necessary for his position. I am not one. I think Craig Keener has presented tremendous evidence that miracles are taking place today. I am open to the possibility that God can speak today if need be, but it needs to be tested and checked and it won’t be something done subjectively. If God speaks, it will be clear. We won’t have to wonder if it’s Him speaking.

Please. Buy this book! Read it and learn it!

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)