Hearing the Voice of the Lord - Theology Throw Down of Christian Podcast Community

Welcome to Theology Throwdown

Welcome to Theology Throwdown! We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity. This is a ministry called Striving for Eternity.

Alright, welcome to another edition of Theology Throwdown. We're glad to have you with us. My name is Andrew Rappaport, and I am the host of this podcast and the executive director of the Christian podcast community.

This is a podcast where the different podcasters from the Christian podcast community, we get together, we discuss different theological topics, where we disagree, we try to do so in love and charity.

So far, this is the third episode and we haven't had that much disagreement. We'll try to work on that. But I'm going to let everyone first introduce themselves before we go and introduce our topic. So we'll go in this order.

I'm just going to look at the list of how it is on my list. So if you guys go in this order, so we know. We'll start with Justin Peters, Andy Olson, Colleen Sharp, Eve Franklin, Keith, and then Prescribed Truth.

Oh, that's Jamal. Alright, so we'll go in that order. Just introduce yourselves and your podcast, and then I'll go last.

Okay, my name is Justin Peters and I host Didache, which is the Greek word for doctrine or teaching. 30 minute podcast twice a week. And so that's me.

I'm up. I'm Andy Olson. I am with Echo Zoe Radio. I've been doing podcasting for coming up on 14 years, 13 years, and I do a monthly show. And I usually shoot for about an hour and I always interview somebody different.

I've actually had Justin on a number of times and Andrew's been on a few times and just pick a theological topic and just discuss it for about an hour. And I try to let them, my guests, be the expert.

I'm really there just to try to draw out, ask some questions, draw out the theology of it all. But it comes out once a month. I just posted a January episode on the first and shoot for the first, but anytime of the month, I'll put on an episode.

You can find that at echozoi .com.

I'm Colleen Sharp and I host Theology Gals podcast. And we focus on various theological topics and the Christian life and connected primarily to reform theology.

And I'm Eve Franklin and I host Are You Just Watching with my co-host, Tim Martin. And we discuss movies or television from a Christian worldview, not just doing reviews but actually getting into the agendas and talking about scripture in relation to the movies.

This is Keith Helmsley, host of Quests for Truth. We try to address worldviews that are both in the Christian worldview and outside the Christian worldview to see what's true about them and where some logical fallacies may lie in certain conditions.

We try to do a podcast every week. It's not always the same thing. Once a month, we do audio drama and we have all those parts done. Once a month, we try to do a deep dive expository look at a book of the Bible.

Keith, did you mention the name of your podcast or did I miss that? Quests for Truth. I thought I did, but maybe I didn't.

All right. My name is Jamal Bandy. I am the host of the Prescribed Truth podcast. I host a YouTube channel as well, Prescribed Truth. That's where I actually started. I'm actually coming up in my first year of podcasting.

It will be in April when I actually started podcasting. Thank you for that. I host a podcast weekly for the most part.

All right. I am Andrew Rapaport and I host several podcasts. I have the Rap Report, Andrew Rapaport's Rap Report, which is a weekly show about roughly an hour sometimes. Not the most recent one that just came out, but usually it's about an hour.

I have a daily two-minute Monday through Friday show called Andrew Rapaport's Daily Rap Report. Do a two-hour live show Thursday nights, 8 to 10 Eastern Time. That's called Apologetics Live. You can go to ApologeticsLive .com.

Get the link to join there. Any questions you want, if you have people that want to challenge us, we set up debates, things like that. And let's see, Colleen and I both co-host a show called So You Want to Be a Podcaster, which is supposed to at least be every other week.

But we've both been kind of out of commission. So we're working on that. But that is there. And then there's this one. So Colleen is the chief administrator for the Christian Podcast Community. And if you want to check out all of our podcasts, the ones mentioned here, but we have over 20 others or 20 of them.

And you can go to ChristianPodcastCommunity .org to check them all out. So with that, our topic tonight, and I guess we came up with this from last episode based off of Eve's podcast, Are You Just Watching?, with talking about the Harriet movie.

And I haven't seen it. That surprises Eve, I'm sure. For those who don't know, Eve busts on me because I don't watch movies much. You bust on yourself. I don't bust on you. Oh, that's true. I do have a movie here, though.

Hey, I do got a movie. Look, I was watching PBS's The Presidents. Does that count? I got it from the library. That counts. So tonight's topic is going to be hearing the voice of the Lord. That's not how we word it.

How do we word that? I got to look it up. Hearing God's voice? Hearing God's voice is how we word it. That's right. Thank you. Because that was, well, before we get into it, Eve, why don't you explain with Harriet how that went on in your podcast that brought that up, and then we'll get into it.

Yeah, well, Harriet Tudman is historically known to have said that she had visions of God and that God was instrumental in helping her escape and bring all of the slaves on the railroad that she was a conductor for through safely.

She always got warnings when there was danger, and God supposedly told her to go down safe paths and escape traps that were laid for her. So she gave God the glory for her escaping slavery and bringing others out of slavery.

Now I'm just curious with that. Did anyone know? Did she ever run into, I mean, because if she was saying that God always led her to safety, was there times where she ran into trouble?

Does anyone know? From the best I could see, it seemed from, because I didn't just watch the movie, I watched a bunch of documentaries about her, and those seemed to be actual claims that she would fall into these trances and have visions, and she would always say that it was God that was keeping her from going down the wrong paths or whatever.

She had some close calls, but she was never caught. Okay.

Because that would be bad if she credited it all to God and then got into trouble. So here's the key verse that we always hear with this, and in 1 Kings 19. 12, it says, and after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper. This is the ESV. But in some translations, that would say a still small voice. And so what a lot of people, and this in context is dealing with Elijah, and people say, well, they hear a still small voice, I guess like, you know, Harriet in the movie would claim.

So the topic we wanted to deal with is how do we hear from God? So, you know, do we hear from, we're going to have some clear ways we hear from God, but what are the ways that we can hear from God?

I came on here not knowing that Justin was going to be here, and I was just going to plagiarize all of his stuff.

So you're saying we should just get Justin to give his famous quote, eh? Justin, if we want to hear the word of God, how do we do that?

Well, you want my, you want my quote unquote famous quote now? Yes. Yes. Well, I said this one night, it kind of off the cuff at a seminar. Oh, gosh, I don't, 10, 10 or so years ago, and somebody wrote it down, put it up on the internet, and it just kind of took off.

But anyway, what I say is, my only famous quote, if you want to hear God speak to you, read your Bible. If you want to hear God speak to you audibly, read it out loud. And so, yeah, that is, that is my only famous quote.

But it's, but it's true. And I stand by that. And there's all kinds of theological issues that we could go into, issues with the canon of why this must be true. But, but God speaks to us in his word, period.

God is not speaking in a direct, quotable sense today, outside of Scripture. Now, since you brought up 1 Kings 19, you know, the still small voice, it's the King James that renders that, that way, the still small voice, literally in the Hebrew, actually the ESV gets a pretty close literal rendering in the Hebrew as the sound of a quiet whispers, the closest literal rendering in Hebrew.

But, you know, people take that all the time. There's two, two verses that are most often misquoted, misused, dealing with this issue. One of them is a still small voice, 1 Kings 19. The other one is John 10, 27, which hopefully we can get to later on in the program.

My sheep, hear my voice. But dealing with this one, notice when you read this passage, okay, for context, Elijah had just called down fire, destroyed the false prophets, fled from Jezebel into the wilderness, found himself in a cave.

This is summarizing, of course. So he's in this cave and verse 11, it says, there was a great and strong wind that rent the mountains, break the pieces of the rocks before the Lord. The Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, still a small voice. And people always take that as this inner impression that we supposedly get from God or the Holy Spirit, this inner impression, a hunch, a feeling, you know, still small voice in our heads.

But just read the next verse, verse 13. It says, right after the still small voice, and it was so when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering end of the cave.

In other words, the entrance, I'm reading this from King James, the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and says, what doest thou hear, Elijah? So this still small voice was not some inner impression.

This was not an internal voice. It was an external voice. Elijah was deep inside this cave. He heard this voice coming from outside of the cave. And so as verse 13 says, when he heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and then he went out to the entrance of the cave so he could hear the voice.

The voice was not internal. It was external. So, you know, when I teach on this, I ask people, can we please do away with the still small voice thing? Let's look at it in context. It's not an inner impression.

It's not a hunch. It's not intuition. It's not some voices whispering inside your head. The still small voice with Elijah was an external, audible voice, not internal. And that should put it to rest.

Can I say that that's really good to bring out and draw from that passage, Justin. I've heard explanations about that. But just to bring out the simpleness of it, the fact that it was an external voice, an external sound is really good to tear down that argument.

Because, you know, I've come from a circle, a background like that, where we believe that we can hear God's voice this way. And it's this very small voice. You know, just you got to be quiet so you can listen to it because he comes in a still small voice.

And man, that just it seems so simple. When you read the passage and you're looking at it, it's like it's clear as day. Just even after Elijah came out of the cave that God spoke to him again. Now you hear his voice again, audible outside of himself.

And just like in other passages where God speaks from heaven to Jesus saying, this is my beloved son and everybody hears it. You know, it's not just one person who can testify that God is speaking. So it was just very good to bring out there.

I just want to say that. So I would say I agree with that. And I like what you did was because I'm not personally theological church, theologically trained, but what you did was you showed the simplicity of just reading that verse in context and that you don't need to have fancy seminary degrees or it'll be a pastor of a megachurch to understand what that scripture is saying.

And you brought up John 10, 27, which is the other big verse that people use. And I've personally dealt with friends that bring that verse out. And it's the same kind of thing. I mean, that's not an audible voice in the case of John 10, 27, but just walking somebody through the context and say, okay, let's not just read John 10, 27, let's read John 10 and let's see what's going on there.

And it becomes crystal clear within just a few verses what is going on there and what this voice is that Jesus is speaking about.

Well, let me disagree with you a little bit there, Andy, because I think you said that it's not an audible voice in John 10, 27. And so let me read that verse. It says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

However, I think that this is actually is an audible voice. Let me explain why. What he's giving here is a picture of a sheep in a sheep gate. And so for folks who may not know how shepherds would care for their sheep and the sheep gate, when you're out in the wilderness, people would have different areas where they would take their sheep to graze.

And at night for protection, many of them, you'd have different people bring all their sheep into one sheep gate and they would have their sheep there. And the sheep know the shepherd well enough that the shepherd would call them out, call the sheep out.

They'd hear the voice of the shepherd audibly and follow that voice they know. And that was a common practice. So, so I think the reference, I actually, I think it's an illustration, but that illustration on that does happen.

That would be an audible voice in that case.

That's the illustration. But when we, we realize that, that really the sheep that Jesus is talking about is his elect. We understand you and I, you know, we're his elect where you and I presumably are both saved.

And I didn't hear an audible voice of Jesus calling me that when I was saved. And I presume you didn't either.

Yeah, I did. The guy was, Chuck was reading the Bible to me. You heard Chuck's voice, right? So according to Justin, I heard the voice of the Lord audibly.

I agree. I agree with both of you. The illustration behind it. Yes. An audible voice when you're dealing with a literal shepherd and literal sheep. Of course, we're not four legged animals with wool. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a picture of this is the effectual call.

So as Jesus is using it, when his sheep, us, his elect, hear the effectual call, we hear the voice of the shepherd that he is calling us to salvation. This is regeneration. This is the new birth. And verse 28 makes it abundantly clear.

Just like with first Kings 19, all you gotta do is read the next verse. And I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So that, so the picture here is before our conversion, we are all sheep.

Now we're lost sheep, but we're sheep. We've been sheep for me. Sorry.

Yeah. Did you, did you see that? You guys wait, did you guys interrupt that little furry thing that really, really small little furry thing behind Justin that was that a lamb or was that a, yeah, no, it was too small for a lamb.

That may have been a rodent.

It takes a, it takes a real man to be secure, to have a dog. Like any, any man can have a big German shepherd or a lab, but have a little fruit fruit dog and still be secure in your manhood. It takes real men to do that.

We're just glad that Andy brought it up this time and not me. That was not a sheep.

So, so yeah, this is before our conversion, we are sheep, but we're lost sheep. We've been our election secure from before the foundation of the world. We're lost sheep and we're wandering around out there in the pasture of life, grazing, minding our own business, head down to the ground and all of a sudden we hear a voice.

We hear the shepherd and we perk our heads up. We see the shepherd and we go to it. That's the picture. This is the new birth. This is regeneration. This is the call becoming effectual. Jesus, the good shepherd calling his lost sheep to himself in salvation.

That's the picture here. This is not God whispering in your head, telling you where to go to have lunch one day, or as Charles Stanley says, where to go get your Thanksgiving day Turkey, literally.

How God Directs Believers Through Impressions and Burdens

If I may maybe present a different angle is what about when people say, you know, I felt God calling me to tell you this, or God is like this on my heart. These would be all be internal things, not external voice.

Would you say that's God talking to that person because they have this emotional burden. They want to share something with a friend or relative. Would that be in this department or not?

Let me, let me take your question. There's two aspects that I wanted to bring up in this discussion that you brought out. One is that the, the emotional feeling, what is that when we have those, if we want to say premonitions, you know, Harriet Truman might be in this,.

This case, I'm thinking of a specific instance. Recently, a friend of ours had called and talked to my wife. And during the conversation, She was saying that she, you know, there's a person in her life that she's having a relationship with and she had a broken heart and she was asking for forgiveness.

And there was the emotional thing where she just, of course, one to be forgiven and restored. And so the language that was used is where's the fact that I felt God calling me or talking to me to come to you and, and fix our relationship.

And that's kind of just,.

And that's the second part that I was going to bring out. So one is that there's two things I think that we have in this. When we talk about this topic, one is those premonitions or feelings. That's one issue.

A second is what you just brought up the language. And because in my opinion, I'll just speak for myself. I think that there's people who may not mean what they're actually saying or what we think when they say things, because they, they use the common language that many Christians use.

And it, you know, we people think they know what it, someone is thinking for, you know, when someone says, well, Lord told me something I'm going to say, Lord literally told you something. I, I, I know that I had a case with one of the guys that used to work for us.

He, I met him on the street when I was doing open air evangelism and he heard me. They came out of the whole foods. They heard me preaching and they walked over. When I got done, the, this one guy, Mitch comes up and just goes, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me I should come over here.

And I just looked at him and I don't remember saying this, but he tells him, he says this, that I just said, no, it's probably heartburn. I just totally rejected his spiritual language in the bosom. Justin knows about burning in the bosom.

He stays at Marriott. But the, the thing there though is, um, it actually bothered him. He told me that it bothered him that I rejected his spiritual language. And he came back and like week after week.

Eventually he asked me about it. Like, why did I say that? And I'm like, I didn't even remember saying it, but I probably would picture me saying it because I'm just rejecting that spiritual language.

So there's two aspects to your question. I'd like us to address. Um, one's the emotional, what, what, what is it when people say, I mean, is it actually God giving people premonitions? Can he do that?

And then let's, let's deal with that one. And then later I'd like to deal with the, the language people use. So what do you guys think when, when, like in a case like he says, does God work through giving people emotions, giving people a thought middle night, someone wakes up, thinks to pray for somebody and they give him a call and find out there, they were just in a car accident, you know, and you know, does God do that?

What say you? Um, if I'm not, I guess what I would say is I believe God would, could, could do that because I mean, the Bible tells us that, um, God directs ourselves. There are many thoughts or many plans in the mind of a man, but it's the Lord directs his way.

And so I do believe that the Lord could lead someone or press someone's heart to give someone a call at an opportune time that somebody may be going through something. Or, uh, I remember, um, not too long ago I was dealing with something and, uh, my, uh, elder in my church just happened to text me.

It's like, Hey brother, are you okay? And I was like, man, I'm really going through right now. You know, please pray for me. And he's like, I really feel like the Lord, you know, let me, um, to miss you, you know, praise the Lord, you know?

And I, and I thought it was, I do believe that I do impress on people's heart to contact people. I don't know if I don't know if I'll go as far to say that the guy would be, um, Andrew called Jamal, tell him he's going to be okay.

I'm here for you. You know, I don't know if that's, I don't think that's the case, but I do believe that, um, there are impressions and, and leadings by the Holy spirit.

Colleen, Eve, you guys have been a little bit quiet. Well, I was,. Oh, go ahead.

Sure. Okay. Um, I had a couple of scriptures that I kind of referred to in our podcast, and I'd love to have Justin's take on this because didn't have him available when I was doing our podcast on Harriet, but it seems to me that there are instances in the new Testament where the spirit directs people.

And, um, one of them that I'm thinking of is the Macedonian call where, uh, Paul gets the vision, um, of the, of the person in Macedonia is asking him to come there. And, um, the other one I, I think of is an ax eight where Philip is told by the spirit to go up and speak to the Ethiopian.

And, and so I was just thinking, you know, it is, it seems to be scriptural that if we are sensitive and in, in, in God's will that he can speak to us through the spirit, it may not be an audible voice, but, and it will not tell us anything contrary to scripture, which I think is our testing ground.

Um, but it seems like we, the, if that we should be able to hear, um, the spirit of prompting us to even, you know, speak as Jamal was saying, speak to a particular person or something like that.

The Danger of Attributing Personal Desires to God's Direction

Okay. I'm going to maybe disagree a little bit. I think we have to be really careful in saying, um, a lot, a lot of times, at least, uh, in my background, people would say, I think God is telling me such and such.

And Eve, you said, as long as it doesn't go against scripture, and I'm going to give an example. When I was in Bible college, a young man came and said, um, you know, God told me that I'm supposed to marry you.

Okay. Well, there's nothing opposed to scripture in him saying that. Um, but then another guy said, I think God's telling me that I'm supposed to marry you. It's amazing. God's telling all these guys, three of them total.

Um, I think we have to be really careful because it would be easy if I wake up and I'm thinking of my best friend. Um, and she's on my mind and sure the Lord can do anything and maybe bring her to mind.

But I think we have to be really careful in saying God did this. And, um, you know, I think of Hebrews one, one and two long ago at many times. And in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the air of all things through whom also he created the world.

That's one passage I think of, but I just think we need to be really careful unless God has said in his word. Um, certain things I think we have to be really careful attributing that to God in his sovereignty.

If I wake up this morning or wake up tomorrow morning and I'm thinking of my best friend and thinking, you know, I really ought to check if she's okay. And I call her and she says, wow, I really am not doing okay.

I'm so glad you called. And in God's sovereignty, I think he may work in those ways, but I think we need to be cautious and what we attribute to the Lord. You will notice. I asked that as a question. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Let me, let me say this before Justin responds to that real quick is just to say in the content is, um, the danger of it actually Colleen is I remember in college now, granted, most people were word of faith back then that I was in college with, but there was someone who is, she was dating someone and he got a word from the Lord.

That she's to marry him. And so she broke up with her boyfriend that she was engaged to and ended up marrying this guy. And so the proof, you know, as I was told from someone else, when I, when I had disagreed with it was that they got married and that was the proof.

But now that couple's divorced. So what does that then end up saying about it? You know, did God lead you Jamal's Jamal's piping up? Cause he just did an episode on divorce to start in the new year. He wanted to, he didn't want a difficult or controversial topic.

Um, but actually in my wife had a similar thing. Colleen, he, she had a guy that actually came to her mother's house and told her, told her mother that, uh, God said that my wife was to marry him. Uh, I said, I knew he was wrong cause I married her, but so, so Justin,.

Go ahead and you could answer the question. Yeah. A few things here. Uh, I'm glad we're talking about this cause this is an area that's so, um, misunderstood. I think by so many, and there can be a lot of harm done to people.

Um, for one thing we should clarify that we're not talking about whether or not God can speak or can direct us. Of course he has the ability. Um, he has the ability. So that's not really the question.

The question is, is, is he doing these things? Is he speaking and hunches or feelings and that kind of thing? Um, uh, as far as like the, the test that we always hear, well, anytime somebody hears, thinks they hear God say something, always test it by scripture.

And if it's okay with scripture, then it's okay. You know, if it contradicts scripture, you got to throw it out. Well, as Colleen was saying, that's a, that's really a dangerous position to take because what if I were to go up to a, you know, 20 year old young man and say, young man, I've been having this recurring dream about you.

And, uh, I've had it every night this week that you're supposed to go to Nigeria and be a missionary. God really lays this on my heart. And, uh, just really feel like God's telling me to tell you that you need to go to Nigeria and be a missionary.

Well, that certainly would not contradict scripture, but maybe it's not God's will for this young man to go to Nigeria and be a missionary. But if he believes I am a, you know, quote unquote, man of God, and he believes what I'm saying, I could ruin this guy's life by giving him, telling him that God is telling me to give him a message when that's not at all, what's happening.

It wouldn't necessarily be unbiblical, but I could ruin that kid's life by doing that. So it's, it's very, very dangerous to say that, uh, Hebrews one, one, and two, as Colleen just quoted is a, a go-to text.

The writer of Hebrew says that God spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets and the portions in many different ways. You know, he spoke through a burning bush. He spoke through a donkey one time numbers chapter 22.

Uh, God spoke in a lot of different ways, but in these last days, he has spoken to us in his son. Jesus is the final speaking of God. He is, he is the full revelation of God. And, uh, God is not speaking today in a direct, quotable sense outside of scripture.

You've spoken to us in a son. We have a perfect, inerrant, infallible, sufficient record of that in his work. Now, let me say something real quickly. I don't want to hog the show at all, but about like, well, I got an impression.

Uh, I felt the Lord impressing upon me. We hear this language. I am not going to say that God cannot, nor will I say that God will not give us burdens, uh, impressions, but here's, here's the deal. We have no mechanism to know when it may or may not be God.

Uh, an illustration that I gave at the truth matters conference. When I was speaking on this, this very issue, I gave this illustration. I grew up in Mississippi. I now live in Montana, but one of my best friends, uh, a guy named Chad Stewart.

I've known Chad ever since I was a toddler. Uh, Chad and I grew up together, went to church together, school together. Uh, but now I live 2000 miles away. Hardly ever see Chad anymore, but from time to time, you know, I'll think about Chad and sometimes I'll pray for Chad.

Is that God bringing Chad to my remembrance so I can pray for him? I don't know. Maybe I just thought about Chad, you know, there's no, there's no mechanism to know. It's not like we've got a flashing red light that goes off inside of our skulls.

When it's God bringing somebody to our remembrance, maybe he is, maybe he isn't. We have no way of knowing that. So it's kind of, uh, uh, it's kind of pointless to say, well, God laid this on my heart.

Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn't, maybe he just thought about it. So, uh, I'm very careful to, you know, to, uh, stay away from saying, well, God told me, or God laid this on my heart. God gave me a burden.

When you, when you look through the new Testament and we're even dealing, of course, in the apostolic era, when you look at the apostles, Paul and Peter and John going out and doing their thing, uh, you never see them asking for a word from the Lord.

You never see them praying, Lord, show me where you want me to go. Uh, putting out a fleece or anything like that. They just did stuff. They just did things even in the apostolic era. Of course, there's a Macedonian call and that type thing.

Occasionally God sovereignly just redirected them, but you never see them seeking out. God, show me your individual specific will for my life. They just did things. You know, Paul said, we spent the, we spent the winter at Nicopolis because we thought it was best.

He didn't put out a fleece. He didn't say, Lord, speak to me, tell me where you want me to spend the winter. He spent the winter there just because he thought it was best to spend the winter there. And this was even in the apostolic era.

So we're, we're 2000 years past that now. And, um, God is no longer, we have a, if I may kind of comment,.

I'm sorry, go ahead. You know, you, I've kind of been patiently waiting to see what your solution was. And it's kind of the thought where I was thinking of going, uh, is that you said, we don't know. We have an impression.

Uh, we look in the Bible. It doesn't really stay exactly. Pray. Uh, pray is a good way to go. Everything is, you also alluded to it. There is sometimes out of practicality. We just, you know, consult other people.

We get advice from other Christians. You know, what job should I take? Should I work for McDonnell Douglas? Should I work for Laclede? Oh, they're both good jobs. Which one should you do? Well, pray about it.

Ask people, investigate the practical pros and cons. Cause not everything in life is spiritual. We have, when we're looking for a word from God or how to live our life. And sometimes it's, we need to have a non-spiritual answer.

And sometimes that is the answer is just a practical everyday seeking advice from others who we trust. Right. So we should combine all three. You know, when you have an impression, check it with scripture and check it with other believers.

This, this, that's always the threefold thing. I was raised up and knowing what God wants.

Yeah. How about like asking God to close doors? Cause I know when I was starting out in life, I asked, you know, I prayed going out of college. It's like, Lord close all the doors. So I know which way you want me to go with my career.

And he.

That's pretty smart, actually, instead of saying open the door, because there's a lot of open doors, but God closes the door. He closes it. And then shall shut. As it says, the revelations.

Yeah. Were you still saying so, Nev? No, that was the point I was trying to make that he, I asked God to close doors and not, and he opened a very big door. That wasn't the door I wanted to go through, but it was the door he opened.