Ep. 5 Lysa Terkeurst's "Is God Speaking to Me?" Critique, part 3

The Purpose of Thoroughly Equipped and the Sufficiency of Scripture

Welcome to Thoroughly Equipped, a podcast for women where we compare the popular women's ministry teachings, books, conferences, bible studies, etc. to scripture. Our focus is 2 Timothy 3 16 to 17, that all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good.

Work. Welcome back! Today we are continuing our discussion about Liza Turker's book,.

Is God Speaking to Me? How to discern his voice and direction. We're diving into chapter 3, and it's the final chapter. Only 60 pages long, this is a handy little booklet containing the 3 crucial chapters from her book, What Happens When Women Say Yes to God.

In chapter 1, she presented to us the reason we should be learning to discern God's voice. She believes that we can miss God's divine appointments and cannot experience him unless we are hearing from him to direct us and guide us through our day.

To fix this, we must become women who say yes to God. We took some time to look through scripture and think about how God's sovereignty and his word bring us to a better understanding of him. Any experience we have can become uncertain, but scripture is more sure, and by the spirit, it can bring us to know him.

In chapter 2, Liza believes that God talks to us every day, but not audibly. He speaks in nudges, heart impressions, and inner inklings. So because God is not powerful enough to make his words very clear to us, we must learn how to discern these feelings or thoughts.

She gave us five questions to help in our discernment. We went through them, helping to show how we don't need questions like these if we hold to Sola Scriptura. If we believe that Psalm 119 and 2 Timothy 3 16 -17 says, then we can trust that scripture is God's very breath, teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training us to be thoroughly equipped for every good work, never missing a divine appointment.

The constant questioning that is needed to discern if our inner impressions are from God are not needed when we go to scripture. We also got to look at how she views scripture as a tool to interpret private revelations instead of the revelation that God has given her.

Perhaps you think we have enough critique to stop here, but I am a glutton for punishment, and perhaps so are you. So on to chapter 3, we will go and be prepared. It's a deep, deep wade through the law.

Radical Obedience and the Promise of Blessing

Chapter 3 is titled, Radically Blessed, You Can Experience the Blessing of Radical Obedience. Back in chapter 1, she had said, quote, radical obedience is hearing from God, filling his nudges, participating in his activity, and experiencing his blessings in ways few people ever do, end quote, page 19.

And this booklet is her invitation to you to say yes to God, to hear from him, and she wants us to respond. But before we look at what she says in chapter 3, I'm going to go back to quotes made in a paragraph back on page 19 in chapter 1, because they clarify how important she believes radical obedience is to the Christian life.

So we will look at what she says about this, quote, radical obedience, sentence by sentence, quote, you won't find the full blessing until you give walking in obedience your full attention. Obedience, however, is more than just not sitting sitting.

It is having the overwhelming desire to walk in the center of God's will at every moment. Don't stumble over fearing you won't be perfect, or that you are sure to mess up. Saying yes to God isn't about perfect performance, but rather perfect surrender to the Lord day by day.

Your obedience becomes radical the minute this desire turns into real action, end quote, page 19. So first, let's tackle what scripture says about blessings. Scripture tells us that we have been given every spiritual blessing in Christ, Ephesians 1, 3.

If we have every spiritual blessing, and in Christ the fullness of the deity dwells, Colossians 2, 9 to 10, then won't full blessings be given in Christ? Whoever believes in Christ will have eternal life, that's John 3, 16.

And he came that we may have life and have it to the full, John 10, 10. Does that not include the full blessings of God? Is obedience what we should give our full attention to, to receive full blessings?

Now, what does scripture say about walking in God's will? The desire to walk in the center of God's will and doing it is called righteousness. Scripture says there is no one righteous, not even one, that's Romans 3, 10.

Good luck having the desire to walk in the center of God's at every moment, the moment you don't have the desire to love God or neighbor you've sinned. But there's more, even our good deeds are filthy rags to God, Isaiah 64, 6, because there is always something missing in our righteousness.

What does scripture say about perfection and full surrender? Jesus tells us that unless our righteousness or obedience exceed that of the Pharisees, we will not see the kingdom of God, that's Matthew 5, 20.

Sorry, but yes, God requires perfect obedience and perfect surrender, and that's our problem. If we perfectly surrendered, we would not sin. How about that desire to obey turning into real action? Remember how the Pharisees added to the law to make sure they obeyed it?

Sounds to me like their desire was strong to obey, and yet it wasn't good enough to enter the kingdom. It's not few people experiencing God's blessings. It's nobody experiencing his blessings, if not for Christ and his righteousness, without which we cannot be justified.

But now that we are justified by faith, we can also be sanctified, made holy for his purposes. 1 Peter 1 .16, 1 Peter 2 .9, Ephesians 2 .10, Galatians 2 .20, Romans 12 .1. She believes that radical obedience is so important that it is what the whole of scripture is about.

Quote, his one requirement is so simple and yet so profound, whatever God says to do, do it. That's it. That's the entire Bible, Old Testament and New, hundreds of pages, thousands of verses, all wrapped up in seven words.

End quote. Page 21. Let's set the record straight here. The entire Bible is about God's plan of redemption through the seed that would bruise the serpent's head, Jesus Christ. Genesis 3 .15. Jesus said to the Jews, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.

Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. John 5 .39. On the road to Emmaus, two of the disciples met Jesus who tells them how foolish they were not to believe all the things the prophet spoke of the Messiah to come.

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. Luke 24 .27. Jesus tells us that scripture is about him. Now that we see what she believes about radical obedience, we can look at chapter three.

The Traffic Light Illustration and the Call to Radically Obey

She reminds us that this little booklet is her invitation to say yes to God and she wants us to respond. She anticipates questions that may flood our minds in response to the invitation. Remember what saying yes to God means.

Listening to the inner nudges, discerning if it was from God by answering the five questions and then radically obeying. In the first part of chapter three, Lisa goes into a time when she came to a traffic stop that was broken.

It flashed red and green. It had caused chaos in the intersection. She says, quote, it was just as if God was showing me a picture. It's like when a person is indecisive in her obedience to him, end quote, page eight.

For her, we too can be caught in chaos by being indecisive. So the purpose of chapter three is to get us to obey these nudges and inner impressions so we can be blessed by radical obedience. She anticipates doubts and questions such as, what if I don't feel able to make such a commitment?

Or what if I say yes and then mess up? What if I have times when I just don't feel like being obedient? So let's look at her answers to these questions. Quote, you don't feel able? Good. Christ's power is made perfect through weakness.

Second Corinthians 12, 9. Ask God for the desire to remain radically obedient and to see the radical blessings he will shower upon you. End quote, page 49. I agree. It is Christ's power that causes us to commit to him despite our weaknesses.

But I don't think Paul was talking about being weak to obey God. Let's look at second Corinthians 12, 9 in context. All right. To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. That was second Corinthians 7 to 10. There are three things I want to look at here.

Number one, the weakness is connected to a physical ailment in the body of Paul, not a lack of ability per se. He then lists certain things to which he will be content with, all of which happened to him physically and mentally, namely weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

Number two now, we can know that most certainly the weakness is not in relation to a lack of ability to obey. Otherwise, he would never boast nor be content with a weakness to obey. P .S. Remember, this is all toward the goal of being able to radically obey the supposed nudges we receive from God.

While one who is in scripture can clearly know what God wants from us and be fully equipped to obey, this is part of the good news to come. Next, quote, what if you mess up? Grace. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. James 4, 6 to 8, 10.

But God doesn't expect perfection from us. He expects a person humble enough to admit her weaknesses and committed enough to press through and press on. End quote. Page 50. If we look at James 4, 6 to 8 and 10 in context, we can see James is not talking about merely messing up but sin that results in passions that are worldly.

In fact, these verses between 8 and 10 give us what it means to humble ourselves. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you devil-minded.

Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. That's James 4, 8 to 10. To humble ourselves is to not just admit we messed up but to acknowledge that our passions create wars within ourselves, a murderous heart fighting and quarreling.

If we behave in this way, it's because we are desiring things of this world to which we humble ourselves, repent, and turn to Christ. I commend her encouragement to grace here but I believe she should call out what she cavenderly calls messing up and call it out as sin because if God did speak to us and we don't do what he says, that is sin plain and simple.

God is loving and gracious but he still must be fully and completely obeyed and when we don't obey God, it's called sin and we deserve his wrath. The solution to this is Christ, his death on the cross for the failure to obey.

Her mention of grace here would have been a perfect time to go into the gospel especially if we're assuming God is speaking but we cannot discern or we think we get it wrong because to get it wrong when he has spoken is to sin and we then need Christ every time we get it wrong but she doesn't.

Instead, she says in essence that we should just get up and try again and press on. Think about the covenant God made with the Israelites. They would be blessed if they would just do it and obey and yet they continually transgressed the law.

They continually needed a sacrifice year after year, sacrifice after sacrifice but we have Christ and are under the new covenant where God himself sent his son to radically, fully, perfectly obey for us and Christ appeared as a high priest through the greater and more perfect tent who entered once for all into the holy places not by means of blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption and the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God will purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Hebrews 9 11 to 14. The beautiful thing she misses is the very good news of the sacrifice of Christ who purifies our conscience from dead work so we can serve the living God. If we mess up, we don't merely pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and just start being humble and submitting.

God does expect perfection and by his grace he provided that perfection in Christ so we repent and look to Christ who died for that lack of obedience. That is what humbles us and he is how we are lifted up to serve God.

All right, moving on. Quote, what if I just don't feel like being obedient? Choice. Obey based on your decision to obey not on your ever-changing feelings. It's God who works in you to act according to his good purpose.

Philippians 2 13. When we ask God to continually give us the desire to remain obedient, he does. End quote. Page 50. Again, not having the desire to obey is transgression of the first commandment to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

It should be acknowledged as sin. It should be repented of and placed at the cross of Christ. After that, if we ask for the desire to obey, he will give. Now, there's something I think I should mention here.

I can't help but think of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee thinks and praises God for the power to obey. He says, I thank you God that I am not like this tax collector, exalting himself.

While the tax collector prays for God's mercy because he is a sinner, I fear sometimes that there is this prevalent exalting of ourselves and what God has given because we do not first acknowledge our deep sin and need for Christ's sacrifice.

Instead, we're like the Pharisee, thanking him for his grace to bring us to obedience and not seeing that our righteousness is filthy. Isaiah 64 6. We should be like the tax collector and daily understand our need for the perfect righteousness of Christ to please God.

We avoid this by humbling ourselves, identifying our sin against the holy God, looking to Christ, and then praying to make us more like him. And this is where we look to Christ. He fully and perfectly surrendered to God's will every minute of every day.

His righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees because it was perfect. And we are found in him not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.

Philippians 3 9. And as our love abounds more and more with knowledge and all discernment, we may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of Philippians 1 9 -11.

The Apostle Paul said that through Christ he had received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles, that's you and me, to the obedience that comes from faith. Romans 1 5. Faith in what or whom? We are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

Romans 3 24 -25. We not only receive justification through faith in Christ's work, but also obedience. We are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

1 Corinthians 1 30 -31. It is God who sanctifies us wholly, so that our spirit and soul and body may be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who called you is faithful, and he will do it.

1 Thessalonians 5 23 -24. By these verses we know that by faith we are saved, and by faith we obey. God in his grace sanctifies us, brings us more and more into obedience to him. Our full attention should be on the one we have faith in, Christ Jesus.

The more we focus on him, the more we will obey. She says, quote, If you answer to this invitation as yes, then get ready. You have not only signed up for the most incredible journey you can imagine, you've also just given God green light to pour out his radical blessings on your life.

End quote. Page 51. I am saddened that she thinks blessings come from listening and obeying the impressions in her heart instead of the word in which we find Christ who gives us every spiritual blessing.

And it saddens me that Christ's spiritual blessings are not enough. And I want to talk about this for a little bit. In the first chapter, she had described how her travels allowed her to meet Christians from all over the place and was saddened by the idea of people missing out on their Christian experience.

Quote,. As I've traveled around the country speaking at conferences, I'm amazed and saddened by the number of people missing out on the most exciting part of being a Christian, experiencing God. Over and over, people tell me they want something more in their Christian life.

They want to recognize God's voice, live in expectation of his activity, and embrace a life totally sold out for him. I suspect that tucked in the corner of your heart is the same desire. And I've discovered that the key to having this kind of incredible adventure is radical obedience.

End quote, page 18. How can what God gives in salvation not be the most satisfying, joyous, most wonderful thing? In Christ, we have salvation. And in the spirit, we have sanctification. What more could we want?

Is this not transgressing the first commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? To want more seems to say that what God has given, his son, his sacrifice, his spirit, his gifts, his word, and the promise of a new body, new heavens, and earth, and the eternal presence of God, that that is not enough.

If our hearts want more, it's a sign of discontentment. But more in this case, a sign that perhaps these people do not have a true understanding of all that they have been given in Christ. To sum up all she's gone into, discerning our heart's impression as God's voice, saying yes to him, and radically obeying, quote, will give you a feeling of acceptance and significance that you can't get any other way.

End quote, page 51. Yes, scripture doesn't bring acceptance and significance, and neither has Christ. This is why she has written this booklet, because scripture is insignificant to provide these things.

I'm sorry, my sarcasm is starting to get the best of me, so I think it's time we conclude this critique. There were other statements I could include in this critique, but I feel enough has been said to make the point, more than enough even.

Christless Law Versus the Gospel of Christ

In conclusion, I want to lay out two equations. Here's her belief in equation form. Hearing God's voice, plus getting out of our comfort zone, plus radical obedience, equals the incredible adventurous Christian life of experiencing the fullness of God.

All of this is law. Just like she says in the chapter title, whatever God says, just do it. This whole booklet is law, each and every word. It's prettied up with piety and talks of desires for God, but it's a noose around your neck and a burden on your back.

Why? Because it's Christless, with no gospel in sight. So here's a different equation. Christ, plus faith, equals Christian life. Reconciliation to God, a receiving of the Holy Spirit, sanctification, and eventually glorification.

Christ's sacrifice on the cross and his life of righteousness, given to us by faith, will result in life, period. We don't need an adventurous life. We need to be raised from the grave and given new life to live unto God.

The adventure comes when we are glorified at Christ's return. On this side of eternity, we may get times of adventure, but there also will be trials and tribulations, pain and suffering. And even in those troubled times, we can learn the secret to being content in any situation, whether full or hungry, rich or poor.

We can do all this through Christ, who gives us strength. Philippians 4, 12 -13. And guess what? There's no need to discern scripture in any of it. No questions to ask, no signs to look for, no doubts that he has spoken to us in his word.

In them, we find all we need for life and godliness. It thoroughly equips us for every good work. What a difference! If you have made it all the way to the end here, perhaps you're like me and need a shower for your brain.

I suggest John MacArthur's sermon on the sufficiency of scripture in Psalm 19. May it bless you like it has really blessed me. Until next time, let's stay in the word.