How God speaks to us Talk 21 Responding to God’s Voice (Part 1)
This series has been about how God speaks to us. In our last talk we were considering how to hear him. In this talk and the next – apologies for saying last time that this would be the last talk – we’ll be talking about how we should respond. It’s a wonderful privilege to know that the Creator of the universe has spoken to you, and our initial response may well be a mixture of surprise, disbelief, awe, excitement, gratitude, and worship. But after this initial reaction, two other things are absolutely vital. We must believe what God has said and do what he has said.
I mentioned disbelief as part of what might well be our initial reaction, because this was certainly the experience of many of the Bible characters God spoke to – Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for example. So, an initial reaction of disbelief, often caused by a very real sense of unworthiness or inadequacy, is quite understandable. But, if we are to do what God says, we must put disbelief behind us and trust that God knows what he’s doing! We really have no excuse. Faith comes by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:17) and if God has spoken to us, it’s our responsibility to believe it.
But, of course, believing is only the starting point. We must not only believe what God has said to us, we must do it. Four times in the Bible we read:
Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts[1]
which in the context relates to disobedience. If God has spoken to us we should not postpone our obedience to his voice. We should believe it and obey it today.
Of course, the specifics of what God says will be different for every one of us, but the things that God has said in his word he says to us all. And one of the great principles I see in Scripture is that God not only speaks TO us, but he also wants to speak THROUGH us. In earlier talks we showed how God can speak to us through spiritual gifts like prophecy, tongues and interpretation. And, of course, we could have also mentioned other gifts like words of wisdom and words of knowledge. But God can also speak through us by these miraculous gifts.
We said earlier that there’s a sense in which all God’s people are ‘prophets’. This doesn’t mean that we’re all prophets in the Ephesiams 4:11 sense (i.e. like Agabus), or that we all have the spiritual gift of prophecy, but we are all called to speak for God in one way or another. The Old Testament prophets spoke to God’s people, Israel. They also spoke to the heathen nations around them. In a similar way, as God’s people today, we Christians are called to speak on behalf of God, not only to our fellow Christians, but also to those around us who do not yet know Jesus. And through the infilling of the Holy Spirit we can receive gifts that will empower us to do that. In fact, without the Holy Spirit’s help, we are powerless. And that’s why I’m going to conclude this series by explaining:
- The value of spiritual gifts in encouraging other Christians
- The value of spiritual gifts in evangelism
- How to receive spiritual gifts (Talk 22)
The value of spiritual gifts in encouraging other Christians
In 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 Paul lists nine supernatural gifts that are given to Christians as the Holy Spirit determines (v11). In the following verses, using the human body as an illustration of the church and the parts of the body as its members, Paul makes it clear that, though we all have different gifts, we’re all needed if the body, the church, is to function properly.
Within the context of the church, the value of these gifts is determined by the extent to which they edify and encourage the members. They are given for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7). And in 1 Corinthians 14:5 Paul says that the person who prophesies is greater than the person who speaks in tongues, unless they interpret, so that the church may be edified. Similarly, in Romans 1:11 we read that Paul longed to see the Romans so that he might impart some spiritual gift to make them strong (Romans 1:11).
Now in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul makes it clear that, whatever gifts God may give us, they are useless unless our motive is love. He goes on in chapter 14 to emphasise that everything we do as we gather together in church must be for the edification of our fellow Christians (v26). Quite simply, if we really love people, we will want to bless them, and perhaps the best way to do that is to prophesy – to let God speak to them through us. That’s why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:1:
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire the gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.
How glad I am for the people who allowed God to speak through them in this way that have proved such a blessing to me over the years. This has usually happened during the course of a service at church, but sometimes it happens privately. In June 2016, totally unexpectedly, Eileen suffered a severe stroke which totally paralysed the right-hand side of her body. Although she made some improvement over the first few months, despite much prayer, six years later she is still unable to walk, and, after the many miracles of healing we have seen, we naturally were asking, Where is God in all this? Why has she not been healed?
The answer came through our good friend Barrie Taylor. Barrie and Sandra are the parents of Richard, our daughter Sarah’s husband. We only see them about twice a year as they live at quite some distance from us. On one occasion, after a pleasant lunch in a restaurant near our home, Barrie said, Today I asked the Lord to give me a word for you, and he gave me this:
My Father is at work in your lives and situation, which he is using as a platform to display his sustaining grace.
It was just what we needed. Despite appearances, God was and is at work in our lives, and although we would love the Lord to heal Eileen – and I still pray that he will – we see regular evidence of his hand at work in ways that would not have been possible if she were fit and well. Each week we have some twenty different carers come into our home and with many of them we have had great opportunities to share the gospel.
But that leads us to the next reason why we should ask the Lord to speak through us prophetically. When we do so, it is not only of great value in encouraging our fellow Christians. It is also a vital component of our telling others about Jesus. And, as we shall see, the message of the gospel is best proclaimed, not only with words given to us by the Spirit, but also by miraculous deeds performed by his power.
The value of spiritual gifts in evangelism
Once we have heard and received the good news about Jesus, it’s both our privilege and our responsibility to share that good news with others. In John 3:36 Jesus himself gives this warning:
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.
It’s our privilege to spread the good news that by believing in Jesus we can have eternal life, but it’s our serious responsibility to warn people of the dangers of rejecting him. Paul took this responsibility so seriously that he could say in Acts 20:26-27 that he was innocent of the blood of all men because he had not hesitated to proclaim… the whole will of God.
To use words like these, Paul must have felt his responsibility very strongly. No doubt he had in mind what God had said to Ezekiel when he told him that if he did not warn people of the danger they were in he would hold him accountable for their blood (i.e. their lives)[2]. And it’s surely right that we should take our responsibility just as seriously. If someone is lost, don’t we need to show them the way? If someone is in danger, don’t we need to warn them?
If we genuinely feel that sense of moral responsibility, we will surely want all the help we can get from God to enable us fulfil it. And once we realise that powerful spiritual gifts are available to assist us in this vital task of evangelism, we will surely want to know how to receive them and use them.
The value of spiritual gifts in evangelism is demonstrated very clearly in the Book of Acts. In Acts 2:41 we’re told that about 3000 people became Christians in a single day. This was in response to Peter’s preaching, but what had brought such a great crowd under the sound of the gospel was the miraculous gift of tongues (vv4-6).
In Acts 4:4 the number had grown to about 5000, which was the result of the healing of the man who had been lame from birth (Acts 3). In Acts 8:6 we’re told that crowds of people in Samaria paid close attention to what Philip said when they saw the miracles he performed, and as a result believed the gospel message and were baptised (v12).
Events like these were a direct fulfilment of Jesus’ promise in Mark 16:15-20 where we read:
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up Iinto heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
Here Jesus promises that we can expect spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues, healing, and miracles to accompany the preaching of the gospel. The Christians in the early church recognised this when they prayed in Acts 4:29-31 that God would stretch out his hand to heal and that signs and wonders might be done in the name of Jesus so that God’s servants might speak his word with boldness.
And in Romans 15:18-19 Paul could speak of what Christ had accomplished through him in leading the Gentiles to obey God, by what he had said and done
by the power of signs and miracles through the power of the Spirit,,, So from Jerusalem all the way round to Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ
which suggests that the gospel is not ‘fully proclaimed’ unless it is attested by signs from heaven.
Illustrations from WFP Burton, Reinhard Bonnke, Aimé Cizeron.
And although the New Testament largely records miracles that were performed by apostles like Peter and Paul, we should not assume that it’s only apostles who can expect to see miracles confirming the word. In the passage we’ve already quoted, Jesus said,
These signs will accompany those who believe (Mark 16:17).
As believers we are all expected to spread the gospel and we can all expect the Lord to work with us in some way, backing up what we say. As we allow the Lord to speak through us as we tell others about Jesus, we can expect him to work with us confirming the word through whatever spiritual gifts he chooses to give us.
Next time: How to receive spiritual gifts
IF YOU’VE BEEN ENJOYING THIS SERIES, PLEASE LOOK OUT FOR MY NEW BOOK ON THE SUBJECT: The Voice of God – How he speaks to us today
I hope to make it available before Christmas. Check my website for details:
www.davidpetts.org