Greetings to you, dear friends! Kingdom blessings you on this wonderful day! I thank the Lord for giving us daily His Word on a daily basis to strengthen us and help us move forward. Yesterday we began talking about how we can discover the will of God for our lives. In order to do that, we must learn to hear His voice. God speaks to us but we need to learn to discern and hear His voice. We discussed the meaning of two Greek words – LOGOS and RHEMA – which are both translated as ‘word’ in the Bible. The word LOGOS reveals the general idea about God’s will and His principles, but the word RHEMA speaks personally into each person’s situation. For example we read in the following passage that:
«Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai…» (Jonah, 1:1).
God’s Word came to Jonah. God spoke to Jonah personally and specifically. God still desires to speak to every one of us in the same manner; He wants us to hear RHEMA word from Him and to receive personal message from Him. There are many voices in this world that are calling for our attention. The following verse of Scripture speaks about this: «There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in this world, and none of them is without significance» (1 Corinthians, 14:10).
This verse tells us that the world is filled with languages and voices that try to get us to do particular things. It is very important for us to learn to discern these voices, otherwise we will easily make mistakes or get distracted from God’s will in our lives. One of the signs of this age that is called ‘end times’ is deceit and increased activity of false prophets: «And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. (..) Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many» (Mathew, 24: 4-5, 11).
If this is true, then we really need to learn to discern God’s voice. Let’s look at some other voices people listen to. Ú Voices of other people are something easily discerned. Sometimes a person can give you good advice. But if this person opposes God’s voice, then we must choose God’s voice: «But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: „We ought to obey God rather than men”» (Acts, 5:29).
Ú The voice of Satan. This voice was first heard in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis, 3:1, 4-5). Satan is a liar and the father of lies, that is why his voice is always deceptive and always leads to sin and away from God and His will. Demons also have voices: « For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed» (Acts, 8:7).
«Now in the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, saying, „Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are – the Holy One of God!”» (Luke, 4:33-34).
Ú The voice of an individual (‘’me”) – when a person talks to himself he expresses his own thoughts and hears them (see Luke, 16:3; 18:4; Jonah, 4:8). The Bibles tells us that a human being is not able to manage his own life: « O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps» (Jeremiah, 10:23).
Ú The voice of God. Jesus says that believers can know His voice and distinguish it from the voice of a stranger who tries to lead away from God’s will: «To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings ot his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no mean follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers» (John, 10:3-5).
Believers are a lot like sheep that do not always know where they are going. Sheep are creatures that need someone to lead them. Jesus says that He is the Shepherd and His sheep know His voice and follow Him and not a stranger. Sheep are not led by voices of other people or their own thoughts (voice of reason etc.); they are led by the voice of their Shepherd. Sheep also are not led by the voice of Satan, but they seek God and rely on what the Lord tells them. I must point out that God can speak to us directly or through other people. No matter what manner He chooses His sheep know His voice. «I will hear what God the LORD will speak…» (Psalm, 85:8а).
«However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come» (John, 16:13).
God speaks, and there are no problems with that at all. The only problem is this: do we hear His voice? Do we know His voice? That is the problem we will try to deal with in the next series of our „Daily Word for Spiritual Edification”. We will continue tomorrow! I wish you abundant God’s blessings! Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
