By Elizabeth Prata
Can we detect whether a prompt from the Holy Spirit is legitimate or if it’s your own imagination? Many lady ministries focus on this, offering in their videos, essays, and books, certain steps to determine how to sort out whether internal promptings, whispers, or allegedly divine conversations are from the Spirit. Do these steps work? No.
Beth Moore wrote,
Yes, the Spirit does warn us via the conscience when we sin, He pricks our conscience as to moral decisions and wayward thoughts. And sometimes the warning doesn’t persist, because our conscience becomes seared. But this isn’t that discussion.
We do not rely on the timing of mystical feelings in order to make decisions. We don’t even have to wonder if it is our imagination if we read it in the Word of God. Here is what she should have written-
“Take caution not to override a command of the Lord in His word. Pray persistently in seeking the strength from the Lord you need to obey what is written. Mind the Lord.”
Nothing in the Bible says what she said or many of these other women-owned and led ministries say. Priscilla Shirer wrote a whole book on the subject, “Discerning the Voice of God” which is “about learning how to recognize when God is speaking and how to respond with confidence”.
Shirer wrote: “I can completely relate to that. I know exactly what it’s like to hear nothing but silence after I’ve prayed and prayed about something, or to be so confused by flying thoughts and voices that I couldn’t pick God’s voice out of the crowd. I know the kinds of feelings and attitudes that go along with not really expecting Him to show up and leave directions. … I mean, come on, do you really think He loved you enough to die for you, but not enough to talk to you?“
After Prophet Malachi finished speaking God’s word to the People, God was literally silent for 400 years. No Prophets. No scriptures. No pre-incarnate visits from Jesus. Total silence.
So let’s rephrase Shirer’s question. Do we really think God would rescue his enslaved Hebrews, send a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke, part the Red Sea, give plagues to Pharaoh’s Egypt, and never speak again to His People? He was silent for 400 years until He sent John the Baptist to speak for Him again.
Shirer used the verse from Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever and unpacked it to say if He is the same, and He spoke directly in the past, He is still speaking now.
Hers is a wrong explanation. God IS the same. But He varies His methods. We see the verse which confirms this in Hebrews 1:1-2:
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world.
In the past, He spoke many ways. Now He spoke (past tense) one way- through His Son. He does not speak through a donkey, He does not send angels to directly give messages. He has not lit a bush on fire to speak to passersby.
What solid and credible Bible teachers do is teach their pupils to go externally and seek the source of all truth from the Word of God, which is where God spoke through His Son. Lady ministries like Moore’s and Shirer’s and others teach women to go internally and rely on mystical warnings, feelings, and prompts. What they are actually teaching is the insufficiency of scripture and the sufficiency of ourselves to parse personal feelings, prompts, and internal suggestions.
I replied to the screen shot of Moore’s tweet above. I received several comments, one of which asserted that I’d misunderstood the tweet. The tweet was plain enough in what it was saying.
Another commenter tried to to convince me that there was room for direct revelation. She knows there’s room, she said, because though 99% of the time scripture is enough, sometimes God speaks “very clearly” to her and she knows it’s Him because what He says comes true according to her wishes and wants at the time.
If scripture isn’t sufficient 100% of the time, it is not sufficient at all. God is not speaking to anyone in any form, not in…
…because the Bible says that God has spoken through His Son, who is the Word. (Hebrews 1:2). And what is the Word? The Bible.
Peter said personal experience is never a proper validation of God’s authority, because the word is more sure. (2 Peter 1:19). I notice in these kind of discussions that people assert that it must be God is telling them stuff because what they wanted is coming true.
However, do you notice it never seems to be the case that ‘the Lord told me very clearly I will die from cancer’, or ‘the Lord told me very clearly that I will never have children,’ or ‘the Lord told me that I should stop sinning via pornography.’ No, the direct leading of the Spirit people claim they receive are never that kind, the type that brings bad news against their wish list, or commands the person to mortify their besetting sin.
Worse, women who claim “He told me very clearly that…” means the woman is claiming prophet status – which elevates her to a position she does not have, because prophecies have ceased and no office of prophet now exists. Again, the Bible says God has spoken through His Son, the Word, which is the word as written in the pages of our Bible.
Moreover, it discourages other women who have not had the so-called experience of “hearing directly from God”. They begin to doubt their salvation when they aren’t given such personal, clear commands and it seems to them like that is what happens if you believe in Jesus.
It’s not only women who claim to hear from God. Praying to God then ‘listening’ for His response is not a viable way to communicate. Here, Todd Friel explains what prayer is and what to do after we pray (and waiting to hear His voice isn’t part of it).
One commenter did ask a good question, which formed the basis for this post. She asked, “Where does the Holy Spirit come into it?” Her question is a good one. An entire generation of women have been taught by the Beth Moores and Sarah Youngs and Joanna Gaines’ and Jennie Allens etc. that we should expect to be directly (or audibly) led by God in making career choices, moment by moment mothering decisions, or even where to go to buy your turkey for Thanksgiving, that they do not know what to be led by the Spirit actually means. So tomorrow will be the second half, a post on what it means to be led by the Spirit.
Further Reading-
Dave Mathis unpacks the Hebrews verse: “So, in the past, God spoke (verse 1). And in these last days, God has s”poken (verse 2). This is the kind of God he is. He is a speaking God, a communicative God. We might say God is talkative. In verses 1–2, God’s speaking is cast into two eras: “long ago” and “in these last days” — a past era, an old era, and then a later era, a new era.
Justin Peters video: Inigo Montoya series- The Still, Small Voice
Justin Peters video: Inigo Montoya Series: My Sheep hear my Voice
the-end-time.org 