Hearing God

JD Farag goes into the statistics on his most recent prophecy update about the percentage of pastors who don't teach prophecy. It's staggering. No wonder the church has been asleep. Here's the link to his video. Love Pastor JD and Amir Tsarfati. Two great men of God. 

linda,  there is a decent argument that jubilees should be calculated on a 49 year count.  This is because the 50th year is also the first year of the new jubilee period.  In my study, it seems that God does it both ways.

Also, the 40 years in the wilderness started at Passover.  So it was at least 53 (3 to first fruits - 50 to pentecost) days later that Pentecost took place.  This would say that we have 39 full jubilees and about a 6/7 portion of the 40th jubilee from Acts 2 Pentecost.  

I am not saying this is an exact science - but if we did want to pretend it was and we use the 50 year count, that puts us a 33 + 1950 + 42 = 2025.  But that would be compared to when the Hebrew children entered the promised land.  Which may relate to the end of the expected coming events - not the beginning.

When one considers the calendar issues, 360 vs 365.25 day years, etc. this adds more ambiguity.  But it becomes clear that we are in the time even if we don't know the exact year yet.  I believe the sign was meant to tell us this - the age is coming to a close.

Hey mike,

Me and my brother were just discussing this subject yesterday. Even the disciples had some trouble utilizing the power and authority of Jesus when they were sent out, and then Jesus had to step in. 

Here's a great video my brother showed me. Check it out.

Man’s Solution #2 - Deny Others from hearing the Word

The story of the old testament church continues in other biblical passages. As I mentioned earlier, the early kings illustrate another set of truths. Saul, Israel’s first King was given to Israel according to the idols of their heart. They demanded a king - and God gave them what they wanted, but not what was best for them.  This is a pattern also for those of us who want to hear God.  Often, He answers according the idols of our heart.  But that lesson is not for this module....

Let us look at this story for our next lesson in hearing God’s word. The kingship of Saul represents, again, the church during Pentecost. So it should be no surprise to anyone that Saul reigned for 40 years (40 jubilees). And because God is who he is, he made sure that Saul was appointed on which day?

Let’s take a look:

1Sa 12:17  Is it not wheat harvest to day? I will call unto the LORD, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking you a king.

The wheat harvest first fruits were gathered at Pentecost. This, among other things, allows us to attach the reign of Saul to the church during the Pentecost age. So let’s learn a lesson from Saul:

1Sa 14:24  And the men of Israel were distressed that day: for Saul had adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on mine enemies. So none of the people tasted any food.
1Sa 14:25  And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground.
1Sa 14:26  And when the people were come into the wood, behold, the honey dropped; but no man put his hand to his mouth: for the people feared the oath.
1Sa 14:27  But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in an honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened.
1Sa 14:28  Then answered one of the people, and said, Thy father straitly charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food this day. And the people were faint.
1Sa 14:29  Then said Jonathan, My father hath troubled the land: see, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey.
1Sa 14:30  How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely to day of the spoil of their enemies which they found? for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?

We need to come back to Jonathan again, because the story starts before this part of scripture. For now, we will focus on the fact that the “appointed” leader of the people insisted that the people not eat food until evening. In scripture, food represents spiritual hearing. Good food is the voice of God. So here we have the leader insisting the people not hear the voice of God and learn directly from Him. However, Jonathan didn’t get the message. - Ironically, the reasons he didn’t get the message is because he was already following the spirit in his life which brought him out of the hearing of his father, the appointed leader.

Because of this, Jonathan took the end of his wooden rod ( I hope you see the Cross here) and dipped it into the honeycomb and ate the honey by means of the rod. And then the bible says that Jonathan tasted it’s sweetness. NOPE. It says Jonathan’s belly was full. NOPE. Verse 27 - it says his eyes were enlightened! This is a confirmation that we are not looking at food here, but truth.  By means of the Cross, Jonathan heard the voice of God and his eyes were enlightened.  And guess what - He wants this for each of us!

Now of course, the natural thing to do is kill this person. They contradicted our instructions, our understanding, and, of course, the correct hermeneutic!  And so farther down in this passage we see that Saul prepares to kill his son for his “disobedience.” Today, we don’t so much kill each other - but we kill the spirit and we do what we can to stifle the truth that is revealed to individuals. In this case, the victory Jonathan achieved through the Spirit of God was so great that the people stepped in and prevented Saul from killing his son.

Saul represents the church of the Pentecost age, and this church has has not truly learned to walk in Pentecost. We will see that throughout Saul’s life hearing God is a constant issue. But Jonathan, the offspring of Saul, lived in the fullness of Pentecost, heard the voice of God, and walked in the spirit with an eye toward Tabernacles.

Why would the church want to keep people from hearing the voice of God? There are some pure reasons. But there are also some impure ones.
1. It can cause confusion. People may hear the word of God but may not be interpreting or translating it correctly and without discernment, people might do all sorts of “ungodly” things. They might teach “errant” ideas. This can confuse the body. Often we hear the verse “God is not a God of confusion.” as an answer to this situation, but then we forget that God did confuse the language at the time of Babel and that Jesus spoke in parables so that the people could not hear and believe. Clearly, a little confusion is not the worst situation in the eyes of God. He’d much rather have confused people walking in faith, then certain people stagnating in death. This is especially true when we consider that many spiritual leaders - like Saul - are “authorized” to hear and speak for God, but their messages are no more pure than those to whom they are preaching.

2. If people are able to hear the voice of God themselves, they may disagree with the leader. They may discover that the leaders are teaching in error. This is simply not acceptable and it is very difficult to build churches this way. It is much better to keep the flock babies in Christ. No meat for them. You see meat will begin to reveal the much needed spiritual discernment ( a later topic) that will reduce the confusion and solidify the truth. Often this truth will differ than the current church / denomination teaching.

3. Some denominations don't prevent their people from hearing, or even imply anything negative about hearing.  Instead, they have gone to the completely opposite side of the coin and insist that if you aren't hearing from God you aren't saved.  This also is a shame and forces a skewed hearing of God that is so convoluted by the idols of the hearts of the people desperately trying to hear God so they can claim their salvation. 

Notice the common thread of all three of these scenarios - fear.  The same issue the Hebrew children dealt with.  The same issue king Saul dealt with.

Now, I will be coming back to this, but I need to inject this comment at this point - we CAN hear the voice of God through teachers. This is one way that God does communicate with us and I will be coming back to this in a later section. But the key is to hear the voice of God in the teacher - not the voice of the teacher. See the difference? The voice of God comes in many ways, teachers are one of them, but they do not replace our own hearing of the voice of God. As a matter of fact, I hope you are hearing Christ through my words in this thread. I don’t want you to hear my voice. Now how can you know if it is my voice or the voice of God?

We will be covering that in the future section on Spiritual Discernment. I can give you a hint - it has nothing to do with using your mind to decipher day counts, your knowledge of history, the talmud, jewish tradition, or the early church. It is not even determined by how much of the bible you know, have read, or have memorized.  Understanding the stars and the astronomical tables will not help you discern spiritual truth.  It is not a method of the mind at all. It is not dependent on being a pastor, priest, or missionary.  But we'll save this bit for the Spiritual Discernment module.

The only way we can grow through our Pentecost experience is to hear the voice of God, let it burn off our flesh, destroy our idols, grow our faith, and rest in Him to bring us to Tabernacles!


I'll take another break....

Man’s Solution #3 - Insist on the “proper” way God speaks

Warning: this module has the potential to stir the pot a bit. So far we could have said Amen, as the modules dealt mainly with leadership. This one gets much closer to home as we all find ourselves saying many of the things that I will bring up in this module. Also, on the surface, many of our “excuses” or “tests” seem valid, or even necessary, but they are devices that prevent us from knowing Him, hearing Him, and walking in faith. To clarify, I will be illustrating common “objections/requirements” to hearing God. Some of those are used by us every day and have even been used on this forum - but I am not thinking of any particular person.  Please don't take this personally - as I said before, if the shoe fits, then hold it up to the Lord and let him convict or confirm your position.

How many times have we heard people say something like, “If God is real, why doesn’t He show himself?” Or, “If I could only see a miracle, then I’d believe.”, or “If God audibly spoke to me then I would listen and obey.”  Of course, Jesus contradicts this saying, “neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”

As the Pentecost church “matured”, it began to find ways to control the hearing of the word of God. We have already covered a couple of these: appointing a leader to hear for them, insisting that the flock not eat / hear. But these solutions did not really control the situation. There were many pesky scriptures that implied that we would hear the voice of God and there was also the experience that some people continued to hear God and confuse the flock. The church couldn’t outright deny the idea that God speaks to His people, so they came up with much more subtle ways of controlling it. It should be mentioned, that some denominations do outright deny that God still speaks to his people. They believe and teach that the gifts are finished and no longer required. Scripture is all we need.

But even outside of these denominations, we find restriction after restriction placed upon hearing of the word. We claim "Certainly God speaks to His people, but...".  There are certain acceptable ways of hearing and other unacceptable ways. Certain times are ok, other times are not. God is allowed to speak certain words, but not others. God must only speak with a certain tone or quality of voice. We’ll get into the particulars, but first let’s look at some scripture:

1Ki 19:5  And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.
1Ki 19:6  And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.
1Ki 19:7  And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
1Ki 19:8  And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
1Ki 19:9  And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
1Ki 19:10  And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
1Ki 19:11  And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
1Ki 19:12  And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
1Ki 19:13  And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

Here we have a man of God who has heard the voice of God many times, has called down fire from heaven, has been fed by angels and yet still needed to learn how to hear God. Once again, this is a Pentecost story - as a matter of fact, Elijah is on the same mountain where God visited Moses during that first Pentecost. It is possible he is in the very cave that Moses was in when God passed by him. There are other hints of Pentecost in this story, but that would be covered in a more detailed writing.

Notice the similarity to our current day - Great and Strong wind (hurricane), earthquake (earthquake), fire (fires out west), but the voice of God was not in those things - instead it came in the form of a still small voice.

Now the parallel to our modern church is that we determine the proper way for God to speak.  We expect that if God is going to talk to us (which we can't deny) then it better follow a certain pattern.  I am going to list our modern day “earthquakes, winds, and fires” and if someone hears outside these parameters - then it was not from God!

1. Must confirm scripture - everything we need to know is contained in scripture already
2. Must be balanced
3. Must be confirmed by many witnesses 
4. Must sound a certain way
5. The person hearing must have certain credibility
6. Must be accompanied by true results
7. Must be taken very lightly - should not be used to form doctrine

I will say right up front - all of these are 100% false. They seem very logical and even spiritual on the surface. I would even say that a huge part of the church teaches or enforces or insinuates these as necessary elements to applying the word heard by individuals. And, I would guess that some of you reading these words right now are thinking - “well now you’ve gone too far!”

These precepts, and others I have not listed, are our earthquakes, winds, and fires. Each of them comes from a heart of fear. I know that as you read this you can easily say, no - it is wisdom not fear. But remember, the wisdom of man is foolishness to the Lord.

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

You should read all of 1 Cor 2 at this point, but I won’t paste it all into this module.

What seems like wisdom to us - even Christian wisdom - is not. Only spiritual wisdom is relevant in the interpreting of God’s word. And that does not come from our human understanding, but is revealed through hearing the word of God, and confirmed in walking in the light of that which is revealed.

I see this module is getting long already. I had planned on dealing with all 7 of these areas in this module, but perhaps I will break them up into their own modules.

Man’s Solution #3 - Insist on the “proper” way God speaks - Must be balanced

There are many concepts that sound great on the surface and are meant in the purest sense by the people speaking about them. Some of these concepts, though, are abhorred by the Lord. One such concept is balance.

There are a few things God says he hates, one of them is the state of being lukewarm. He would rather us be hot or cold. He is an "all in" type of God.  He never asks us to be balanced. He asks us to give every last penny, to deny ourselves, come in last, turn the other cheek, love our enemies, be a sacrifice, love him with our whole everything, be foolish before the world, and downright die for his name's sake.

There is nothing further from a walk of faith then a balanced person. 

Now I accept the fact that people mean different things when they use the word balance. And there is biblical evidence that we should not to be overtaken by every whim of passion. Zeal without knowledge is not the way of the Lord. So from that stand point, balance may be a way of expressing this. But the word brings in so many modern hidden attachments that I think we should avoid expressing our walk with God by use of the word “balanced.”

Our hearing must be accompanied with discernment. If that is what is meant by balance, well, ok. But then let’s just say discernment instead of balance.

The God I know has a glorious history of keeping us off balance.

Trying to keep Pace with you here SK but you're starting to lose me. What comes to mind in "confirming through scripture" section is not the loaf of bread example but things more serious.

I'm of the persuasion that this tread can be taken wrong by some. I'm inclined that this is for those who can handle meat. For example someone could say, and unfortunately have said things like "God told me to kill that person" or "God told me to rape that woman" giving us all a bad name/rap sheet.


I'm trusting that your getting to something with all the backstory here.
(I feel like that should say "I'm trusting that your getting to something with all the backstory here, counselor" like I'm a judge 😁)