How does God speak today? (part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

God Speaks Through His Word, Not New Revelation

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. This is Mike Abendroth, and today we're looking at how God speaks. Does God speak to you in an audible voice, through pictures, through whispers? How does God speak?

And by the way, before we get into that topic, think about the fact that God does speak to his finite fallen creatures. That's a pretty amazing act, how God so stoops, as it were, with love, the love of a father, to speak to his people, because he could easily decide not to do that.

That is a sovereign, decreed choice that God would reveal himself for his glory. And it is great to be able to know the mind of God. So the question is, though, how does God actually speak? And there are many, many people out there who are saying God speaks outside of his word, giving revelation.

They're not saying God illumines his word through the Spirit. They're saying that God is actually in the process of revelation. They're denying sola scriptura. They're denying that the Bible is exhaustive and authoritative, final, certain, sure, and reliable.

John MacArthur said, "'Once a congregation or a person sees Scripture "'as less than the final, complete, infallible authority "'for life and faith, it has thrown open the door "'to absolute chaos.'".

And then he repeats himself, "'Absolute chaos.'". End quote. And that's exactly what happens. People's lives are wrecked because pastors and clergy and books and other people denigrate the Scriptures.

And they leave, as Edward said, the guidance of the polar star to follow a jack-o'-lantern. 1689, London Baptist Confession said, "'The sum total of God's revelation "'concerning all things essential to his own glory "'and to the salvation and faith and life of men "'is either explicitly set down "'or implicitly contained in the Holy Scripture.'".

So if that is true, since that is true, you have everything that's essential and everything pertaining to life and godliness, salvation and faith, why would you go to some other kind of mystical thing?

Why would you follow, as we're looking at this blog post today by Rob Reimer, R-E-I-M-E-R, about God still speaking? God speaks, are you listening, February 11th, 2011. Revelation is a byproduct of intimacy of God.

God speaks in six ways. We looked last time at God speaks through an audible voice. Sometimes that's not true. God, well, no longer today at least, God speaks through a whisper and then God speaks through pictures.

This is a very common thing to be taught today and this desire to have more. I want to be intimate with God and he can speak to me personally and privately and I want the intimacy of God and I want to be close to him.

That desire for more actually turns into less. If the Bible is divine, and we believe it is, and if the Bible is sufficient for everything we need pertaining to life and godliness, which it is, then why would we or why would you go anywhere else?

This is some kind of spiritual Alzheimer's regarding the sufficiency of Scripture and how important it is. This is forgetting, maybe willfully, let's just give people the benefit of the doubt, ignoring sola scriptura, ignoring the exhaustive, authoritative nature of the Word of God.

It denigrates the Word of God and it makes you into a mystic. It gives you impressions and feelings and leadings and all that. And you don't need that. It's not good for you. It's not proper. It's not right.

It's like going back to Jack Hayford when he asked for a word from God before he met with President Clinton and he got an impression that there were no alligators here. And so he actually said it. I give him credit that he would follow his theology with his methodology, but he said to President Clinton, when Clinton walked in, there are no alligators here.

This reminds me of Pat Robertson when he was informed by God who the new president would be. Quote, God told me some things about the election, but I'm not going to say because some old man on 60 Minutes would make fun of me, so I'm not going to tell you who the winner's going to be.

Ay yi yi. Or how about James Ryle? God in a dream showed him amplifiers and then said the guitars and amplifiers belonged to the Beatles. The Lord said, I called those four lads from Liverpool to myself.

There was a call from God on their lives. And then Ryle said that God said, the four lads from Liverpool went AWOL and did not serve in my army. They served their own purposes and gave the gift to the other side.

I lifted the anointing for 20 years. I've held it in my hand and I'm about to release it again. I will release an anointing and music that will take the world by storm like the Beatles when they first came.

New, anointed music that will capture men's hearts. And then the Lord said the same kind of reaction that the Beatles extracted will come. Only this time the girls will not scream Ringo, John, George, or Paul.

They will scream Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. End quote, James Ryle. Well, of course God wouldn't say that because it would be John, Paul, George, and Ringo in that order of importance. What's going on? Once you open Pandora's dock, docks, box, you are in big trouble.

Once you want to see 900 foot Jesuses in your vision who tell you to build 60 story hospitals in South Tulsa, even though you've already got three hospitals in the South, not one in the North. Once you're like that with Oral Roberts, you're in big trouble.

Once you have Benny Hinn saying that God has told me in the future that Castro would die in the 90s, the homosexual community in the U .S. would be destroyed by fire before 1995 and before 2000, a major earthquake on the East Coast would happen and that Jesus would show up in person at his healing crusades.

Once you open that box up, you are dust. Now, those may be some extreme examples, but they are indicative of what happens when you say it's the Bible plus. The Bible plus feelings, the Bible plus emotions, the Bible plus anything is going to give you trouble.

And so here on No Compromise Radio today, we're going to look at part two. Is God still speaking outside his word? And Rob Reimer gives us three more ways God allegedly speaks. And I just like to talk about that and dissect it a little bit.

And of course, if you are one of those who freaks out if there's any public examination or public critique, you ought to just say to yourself, if someone writes an article and sends it out on the blogosphere or does a radio show, they should expect to be critiqued.

I gladly will accept critique. And if I teach something that's wrong or improper or I didn't dot my I's and cross my T's properly, then I am to welcome that. Certainly those who write things in the public arena can be critiqued publicly.

So please don't do this whole, you know, have you talked to Rob yet? I'd be happy to talk to Rob. I don't know if he'd be happy to talk to me, but that's not the issue. Public teaching deserves public critique.

Emotions Are Not Revelation

At least it invites it. Number four, Rob Reimer, quote, God also speaks through emotions. Hmm, okay, I didn't know that. That's interesting. He says, Ephesians four, tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit.

That part is true. Okay, Ephesians four tells us not to grieve the Spirit. I think that would be 1 Thessalonians. I think that is what he's referring to, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Grief is an emotion, true.

Sometimes the conviction of the Spirit comes to me and I feel it. Well, I think we can feel conviction of sin. We experience it. I feel uneasy. I feel unsettled. Romans five tells us that God pours out the love of God in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

True. I don't know what that has to do with anything else. Many times God speaks to us through love. Often I will begin to feel God's love for a person right before God gives me a prophetic word to encourage a person.

Well, now we have a prophet. We have a prophet who then encourages a person. Well, today's not going to be on the prophetic office, although that is done. Let's talk about how God speaks through emotions.

So all the stuff that he's given has nothing to back up his claim God speaks through emotions. If he means to say that you get convicted by the Spirit of God because of sin, and your conscience is racked and tormented and feeling guilt, I get that.

But that is not the revelation of God. See, here's the thing. If you're a pastor, you ought to know better. You ought to understand what revelation is, what inspiration is, what illumination is. And if you don't understand the differences between those things and the conviction of the Spirit of God due to sin via the conscience, then you have no right to stand up and preach anything because these are basic things.

These are basic to the Christian faith. And so how do you lead people to understand who Christ is and who God is when the most simple things are not cleared? These are things that the congregation should all know.

I'm not saying if you first get saved, you need to know the definition of all these. I'm saying if you're a teacher, you ought to know better than to say God speaks through emotions and say he is giving revelation through emotions.

And you say, well, that's not fair. Well, the blog post says God speaks, are you listening? Subtitled, Revelation is a byproduct of intimacy of God. Well, here's how God speaks. He speaks through emotions.

No, he does not. Where is that? Find me that in the Bible. Your emotions are fallen. Your emotions should follow your convictions about the Word of God. What the Word says you do, and then the emotions will follow.

They don't lead you, they don't direct you, they don't guide you. They are a good fruit to basically what you've done and you've said. So if you do the right things and believe the right things, God grants you all kinds of wonderful emotional fruit, as it were.

Love and joy and peace and happiness, all kinds of things you can feel. I want you to feel things. Anger, righteous anger. We're not emotionalists, we're not robots. But once you start saying I'm gonna lead with those and determine things by those and mistake emotions for the revelation of God, you are teaching things that are not proper.

It's not good. God does not speak through emotions. God convicts sin and you feel the sting of that through your conscience. But that is not the same thing as God giving revelation through your emotions.

If he would, what a wreck we would be because our emotions are fallen. Our emotions can't be trusted. As Luther said, feelings come and feelings go and feelings are what? Deceiving. My warrant is the word of God.

Nothing else is worth believing. We need to have a source outside of ourselves so we don't fall into the trap of following our emotions. That is the problem with society today and the church today. If it feels good, do it.

Oh, I'm not in love with my husband anymore and I feel like God wants me to be in love. Sandy Patty, Amy Grant, anybody else. I want happiness versus holiness. God has spoken clearly. Once you're married, till death do us part.

And if you're not happy, well, buckle up because you've made a promise before God and the other person. Try working on your holiness and I think God will grant you the emotional fruit of happiness. God does not speak through emotions.

God does not grant new revelation through A, an audible voice, B, whispers, C, pictures, or D, emotions. It's just not true. You can have all kinds of, I had this experience and I had that experience and so far that's been the paradigm for Mr. Reimer.

I had this happen, therefore it's true. And it is not the right way to look at scripture. It is not the right way to look at life. MacArthur's right. This kind of teaching leads to absolute chaos. Number five, God speaks through a word we see in our mind's eye.

The Inner Light, Experience, and the Sufficiency of Scripture

See, once you abandon Sola Scriptura, anything goes. This is pure mystic Quakerism. You need to study Quakerism. This is all inner light stuff. The problem with inner light is we believe in the depravity of man.

We believe in the fall of man. We believe Adam was a real man and he was our federal head and he fell and we all in Adam fell, see Romans 5. And that means our minds fell, our wills fell, our emotions fell, everything about us, we as one human being are fallen.

We're tainted by sin and when you go to inner light, you're going to the inner torqued, depraved, perverted light. You're not going to some kind of divine light. We have the divine spark in us. We are made in the image and likeness of God and we are still image bearers after the fall, but we are fallen creatures.

And even as Christians, those who are redeemed, regenerated, set apart, justified, washed, still have a sin hangover. You don't have to pay the penalty of sin anymore as a Christian because Jesus thankfully paid it all.

You don't have to be enslaved to the power of sin, Romans 6. You have the ability by the Spirit of God dwelling in you to say no to sin, whereas as an unbeliever, you always said yes to sin, but you are not freed from the presence of sin until you die, when you're glorified, or the Lord comes back.

And so to say that God speaks through a word we see in our mind's eye, what does that mean? Let's find out if we have any experience here, we have any Bible verses, or how is this proven? Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to have you prove this to me.

It is like a cartoon caption. We see a word spelled out. For example, sometimes I have seen the word forgiveness when praying for someone. See, here we go again. How do you prove this? Well, it happened to me.

I say shame on pastors that say, this is a doctrine, A, it's unbiblical, but I'll try to make it biblical because it's happened to me. This is not Captain Crunch for cereal. This is rocks. This is glass.

This is stuff that you ought to run from. This ought to make you embrace the word of God as final and sufficient. And this is exactly what 2 Peter 1, 16 was alluding to, for we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

That's exactly what's happening here. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

2 Peter 1, 18. And we ourselves heard, they not only were eyewitnesses, they're earwitnesses. We heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. So that actually happened.

Peter, James, and John saw Jesus, heard the Father. And now what does he say? And so we have the prophetic word made more sure. Made more sure than what? Made more sure than our experience. Here, Jesus shows up and Peter says, I put scripture not under experience, but over experience.

It is over the experience. It is more reliable. It can be verified. This is more important. So I ask you the question, when Rob Reimer says, it's like a cartoon caption, we see a word spelled out. For example, sometimes I've seen the word forgiveness when praying for someone.

I say, I see the word forgiveness. Does that mean anything to you? It has often led to a breakthrough. Again, that's shamanism. That is going to the tarot card reader and they pick out something that's very general.

That's like going to the astrology thing, the horoscope. And you know, I'm a Taurus, so I'm kind of bullheaded and I'm stubborn and very likable. It's just generalities. That's exactly what that is. If you talk to anybody in this entire world and say, forgiveness, does that mean anything to you?

I mean, please, what is this? This is kindergarten stuff. This is stuff that any good Awana teacher, our youth group teacher, should know better than to teach. And there are people out there gobbling this down.

Why? For good motives, maybe? I want to be closer to God. I want to hear from God. I want to obey God. It could be a good motive, but it's through the wrong method, through the wrong means, through ill-conceived methods, because it denigrates the word of God.

It ignores Sola Scriptura and it completely obliterates 2 Peter 1, where you can experience things, but it's the word of God over that. Is the Bible sufficient or not? If it's sufficient, then what are you doing running around looking for more?

More is less in this particular case. You don't see words. Where is that in the Bible? Find me one verse. Here, it's the typical thing. I've experienced it, therefore it must be true. And you say, Mike, you seem to be hot under the collar about it.

Why? Because it gives chaos to the lives of the people. It absolutely destroys them. And they run around looking for inner light stuff, their own gizzard stuff, their own belly stuff, and it's going to trick them because we need a word that's already been said, finalized.

And what does Hebrews 1 say? Hebrews 1, 1 to 3 should seal it for the ever. How does God speak today? In his Son. And his Son then sent the apostolic messengers. And so we have Matthew through Revelation.

Specifically, if you want apostolic stuff, you can go from Romans to Jude and then Revelation. We have already been told what to think, say, and do. God does not say in some cartoon caption, pow, zam, yow, or any other kind of Batman thing, or even the word forgiveness.

God Speaks in Christ, Through Scripture, and by the Spirit's Illumination

Number six, and finally, blog post Rob Reimer under the title of God Speaks, Are You Listening? Revelation is a byproduct of the intimacy of God. God speaks to our, quote, knower, end quote. Well, I have quite a few degrees and now I gotta figure out what the knower is.

Sounds like it's some kind of movie thing. All right, let's find out. God speaks to our knower. I'd love to be proven wrong. Here we go. Sometimes we just know something. God speaks to us Spirit to Spirit, capital S to small s.

And we just know something. For years, my wife, Jen, struggled to believe the goodness of God. She knew it, but she struggled with it because of the evil in the world. She wrestled with this for years, and then one day she woke up and she just knew God was good.

God revealed his goodness to her deep in her spirit, and she doesn't struggle with that anymore. Sometimes we just know something. Well, isn't that special? We have one more case of trying to prove a doctrinal point with somebody's experience.

I am not saying that God cannot, by his Spirit through the word, illumine someone's mind and let them know in a deeper sense how good God is. Of course that's true, but that doesn't have anything to do with God giving more revelation and God speaks to our knower.

God speaks to our knower. No, he doesn't. Actually, for those of you who are not in New England, I feel like, you know, when somebody pronounces Noah, N-O-A-H, in New England, it's knower. So maybe God does speak to knower, and he said, build an ark, get the pitch, get the gopher wood.

He does speak to our knower. Yikes. So anyway, here's the problem. Blog post, you get on there and write whatever you want, anytime you want. No editors, no theological cogitation, no biblical reflection, you just write it.

And so maybe that's what's happened. But here we have six ways that God doesn't speak. That would have been a better way to put this article. Six ways not to rank experience over scripture. Six ways not to say it happens.

It's happened to me, therefore it's true. It's not true. These are the last words in the blog post. These are ways God speaks. Whatever we, and interesting, not one time does he say he speaks through his word.

These are the ways. These are the ways, and not one of these is scripture. Not one of these is the sure, reliable foundation called the word of God. None of these about the canon, nothing here about the authoritative word of God.

It's all experience, experience, experience. Whatever we receive, we need to humbly test. Well, that's true, except it's not whatever we receive, but we just need to humbly test. But the story of the Bible is the story of God speaking to his people.

That's true. He wants to speak to you in the word. That's true. How is God communicating to you these days? Answer, he's communicating to me natural revelation that he's powerful and wise, Romans 1 through creation.

He's also speaking to me specifically about Christ's great atonement, Christ's great death, propitiation, redemption, satisfaction, and the like, and Christ's great glory on earth, and his transcendent holy glory through the word.

Then it says, are you listening? Well, the better question should be, are you reading? Are you listening is the wrong question. Are you listening to God? That implies he's going to somehow speak to you out loud, and he has spoken, and he has spoken with authority, Hebrews 1, one to three.

Take time to listen right now. That's bad advice. This is bad advice from a pastor who ought to know better, who needs to understand a basic bibliology class, a Bible class to teach about canon, inspiration, revelation, et cetera.

We don't need to listen for God's word. We need to read God's word. And so the moral of the story is this. You need to grab your Bibles and begin to read it, and God will speak to you. He'll speak to you about how he deals with nations like Israel.

He'll speak to you how he deals with sinners like you. He'll talk to you about how he deals with a great atoning sacrifice named Jesus Christ. He will speak to you through the word, and only through the word, because once you open it up to anything else, you're in trouble, and you're going to find that outside the Bible, things aren't reliable.

So get back to the Bible. Read it, study it, memorize it. Take heed to pay attention as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. 2 Peter 1 .19, nocompromiseradio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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