TWIST BUSTERS | God Does NOT Promise to Speak to You Through a Still Small Voice

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith's Twistbusters series. This is where we take popular passages that are twisted and mangled by many of the teachers and preachers and prophets and prophetesses and evangelicalism and we untwist them so that you can see what they really actually means.

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I mean God's Word is so much better than what these people are saying. So today we're gonna be looking at Paula White and we're going to be making the case that God does not promise to speak to you through a still small voice.

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You may have heard this teaching. There's Elijah. He's at Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb.

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Those, by the way, are synonymous names. And he's been fleeing from Jezebel and God appears to him and doesn't talk to him in an earthquake, doesn't talk to him in a whirlwind.

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God talks to him through a still small voice. Therefore, God's gonna speak to you through a still small voice.

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You see, that's not what God's Word says at all. So we're gonna take a look at Elijah here as he's hearing the voice of God through the still small voice and kind of ask the question, does this passage in 1

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Kings actually teach us that we are supposed to hear God's voice through a still small voice?

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Well, there's one false teacher who believes that's the case and her name is

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Paula White. And so let's go ahead and take a look at the screen here and listen as Paula White twists this text and we'll make an important distinction here in a minute and we'll take a look at some other biblical passages to see and test to see if this is true.

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Here's Paula White. Today we're gonna cover how God speaks through a still small voice.

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Let's go to 1 Kings chapter 19. I'll set it up for you. Elijah is a man of God. James says he's a man of many passions, like passions like us, of many emotions.

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He's the prophet that calls the fire down with the 63 word prayer and it consumes the prophets of Baal who served false gods.

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He was one of the strongest. He was at the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses. He was one of the strongest prophets.

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Now this is absolutely true about Elijah. Nice little, you know, summary biography of Elijah there.

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His protégé will be Elijah, that he will cast his mantle on him. Elijah will follow him, do 32 miracles and says,

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I want a double portion what's in thy spirit. And so here in 1 Kings chapter 19, he's having really a showdown with Jezebel.

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Now we often reference Jezebel. Particularly here, it is a female who is very manipulative, controlling.

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Wouldn't know anybody like her in the church today, would we? A weak man under her by the name of King Ahaz.

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But when we deal with the Jezebel spirit, we often are referencing manipulation, control. The Jezebel spirit.

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Oh man, this is not a dumpster fire. So I gotta restrain myself to the singular topic.

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But yeah, there we got some problems here. Witchcraft. And so Elijah is living in a time where the people are under severe oppression and Jezebel is coming against him.

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This strong spirit of control is coming against the man of God. No, after the showdown at Mount Carmel, literally

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Jezebel is threatening to make Elijah like one of the prophets of Baal.

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They all lost their lives. They were slaughtered after God showed up at Mount Carmel.

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And Elijah is literally fleeing for his life because Jezebel has promised to make him like one of them.

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Yes, see, she's already twisting this text. And he gets discouraged and he needs

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God to speak to him. And it's interesting how God speaks here. So I want to set this up. In verse 1, it says,

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Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done. How he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

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So Jezebel sends a messenger to Elijah, says, may the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow

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I do not make your life like that of one of them. Which is what

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I was saying. So I'm glad she's trying to read this out in context. I mean, that's at least somewhat helpful.

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But we're going to make an important distinction here. Let me pause there for a second and come back to our screen here.

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There's Elijah. He's at Mount Horeb. He's in the mouth of a cave and he hears the still small voice of God.

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See, here's the issue. And that is that in Scripture, this portion, this type of portion of Scripture is called a historical narrative.

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It is telling us a history of what has happened. And so it's important for us to remember this, that historical narratives are generally descriptive, not prescriptive.

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Unless there is a command or promise specific to us, we have to be very careful.

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So this is a historical narrative and it is describing a historical event.

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And this truly took place in history. God definitely spoke to Elijah at Mount Horeb.

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Nobody is disputing that. The question is, is this a prescriptive text which teaches that because God spoke to Elijah this way, therefore we must believe that God's going to speak to us in this same way?

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That's kind of the thing that's on the table. So I want you to remember that historical narratives are generally descriptive, not prescriptive.

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And one of the ways you can find somebody twisting God's Word is when they take a historical narrative and it prescriptive when there's nothing in the text that would signal that there is a prescription for everybody to do or whatever.

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For instance, Jesus walked on water. Nowhere are we told to do the same.

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Peter walked on water and nearly drowned. Nowhere are we told to be water walkers.

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Yeah, you get the idea. So be aware of people who turn historical narratives into prescriptive texts.

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That's not how they're supposed to be used. So let's come back to Paula White as she continues to read out this text and then try to tell us what it means.

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So she sends this threat, this intention to harm, to damage, to be a menace to Elijah.

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And Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. Now think about how strong that is because here he is.

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He's called down the fire on the prophets and now he's running for his life because the spirit that is operating through this woman

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No, it doesn't mention anything about the Jezebel spirit.

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This is Jezebel, you know, Jezebel. She is an idolatrous, murderous, horrible, no good, wretched, well, woman who dies a miserable death and I'm pretty darn sure that her eternity is going to be in the lake of fire.

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Manipulation, control, witchcraft. And when he came to Bathsheba and Judah, he left his servant.

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He goes up for a journey. He sits under a broom tree and he prayed that he might die.

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I've had enough, Lord. Take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors. And he goes and it says all at once an angel touched him and said, get up and eat.

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He looked around and there's this bread and hot coals and he ate and he drank. Again, note she's doing her best to actually read out this historical narrative.

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The question is, is this a prescription? Are we therefore instructed to expect

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God to speak to us the same way God spoke to Elijah? The angel came back the second time, the angel of the

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Lord, and touched him. We're going to talk about how angels speak to you as well. It says, get up and eat for the journey is too much for you.

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So he got up and he ate and he drank and he was strengthened by food and he traveled 40 days, 40 nights. Now verse 9 is where I want to bring you to through about verse 14.

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There he went into a cave and he spent the night. So he's in a dark place. And the word of the

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Lord came to him. So here's one of the ways God speaks. What are you doing here,

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Elijah? I need to correct that. Here is one of the ways that God has spoken in human history.

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Nowhere are we told to expect God to speak to us in this way. I've been very zealous of the

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Lord, God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant and broken down your altars. Put your prophets to death with the sword.

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I'm the only one left and now they're trying to kill me too. Saying, God, you better speak. And the

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Lord said, go out, stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord for the

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Lord is about to pass by. So God's about to speak. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart, shattered the rocks before the

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Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind was the earthquake, but the

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Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake came a fire, but the

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Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper, or what some versions say, a still small voice.

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Now this is true. There are some translations that take the Hebrew and translate it as still small voice, a low whisper, or a thin silence.

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These are different ways in which you can translate the Hebrew there and still actually do it accurately.

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Okay. And when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and he witnessed it at the mouth of the cave.

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And then a voice said to him and begins to prophesy, what are you doing here? I've got 7 ,000 other prophets.

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Now there's several things interesting to note. All right. So apparently we're done with the narrative because she's read it out.

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She's shown that this is in the Bible, historical narrative. It's a description of actual historical events.

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But why should I believe that this is a prescription that God's going to speak to me in this same way?

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God will speak in a still small quiet voice. Or God here,

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I said, speaks in a still small quiet voice. Yeah, that's right. There, why are you saying that he's going to speak to me now in a still small quiet voice?

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Or what's called a gentle whisper. The word still means quiet. So? So?

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What's it matter if it, you know, if it means quiet? Okay.

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The question is, what in this text would signal this to be a prescription that I should expect

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God to speak to me in this way? God speaks to us often when everything is quieted.

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Says what text? Not this one. Mm -hmm.

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So we call this meditation, being still, being calm. It literally, the

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Hebrew word means to be quieted, to be calm, to be silenced. Yeah, you're gonna note, nowhere in the text does it say

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Elijah was meditating. Nope, that's not what was going on at all. Still.

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And the voice of God, which means to call aloud, spoke to him. So now she's kind of just throwing out, you know, well the

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Greek might mean this, or the Hebrew kind of sort of means that, and this means this, and now she's just kind of engaging in, well, obfuscation.

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This is a smokescreen, an etymological smokescreen that she's laying down, because she's trying to teach you that God's gonna speak to you this exact same way.

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But nothing in the text says that. So God called him aloud, and stillness, calmness, quietness.

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No, it says that God spoke in a low whisper. Let's take a look at the details of the text.

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So this is 1st Kings chapter 19, and we'll pick up at verse 11.

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And so God said, Go out and stand on the mount before Yahweh, and behold, and behold,

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Yahweh passed by, and a great strong wind tore the mountains, broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh, but Yahweh was not in the wind.

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And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the

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Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound, kol in Hebrew, of a low whisper.

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Uh -huh. So you're gonna note, it is not saying that that Elijah was calm, or that he was silent.

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No. It's saying that after the fire, there was the sound of a low whisper, or a thin silence.

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And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak, and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

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And behold, there came a voice to him, and said, What are you doing here, Elijah?

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He said, I have been very zealous, jealous for Yahweh, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even

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I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. But when you're gonna, you're gonna note here that she's twisting this text.

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She is making it sound like Elijah was, well, he was sitting there silently, and that's the silence that made it so he can hear the low whisper.

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That's not what's going on there. So let me see if I can back her up just a smidge, because I think it's gonna be necessary.

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You know, go back about 10 seconds, no, maybe 15. Here we go. Um, to be silenced, and to be still.

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And the voice of God, which means to call aloud, spoke to him. So God called him aloud in stillness, calmness, quietness, in a state of tranquility.

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Elijah was anything but tranquil. He was quite distressed. Wow, this is a fascinating twisting.

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One thing here is, there's a process of elimination. God did not speak in the earthquake.

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He did not speak in the fire. Nope. He did not speak in the windstorm. Definitely not.

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He was not speaking in any of those. So that says there's often false voices before there's an authentic voice.

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What? No. That's why it's important to know, how does

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God speak? And the takeaway from this is that often you have to calm things in your life.

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There's too much noise. Yeah, see, you won't be able to hear the still, small voice unless you calm and silence the noise in your life.

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That's not what this text says either. So notice he's turning it into a prescription, and she's like inventing rules for, like, if you're gonna hear the still, small voice, you gotta make sure that you're tranquil and quiet, and there's no sounds and stuff.

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No, this is not a prescriptive text. Much clutter in your, in your life. There's too much clutter in your, in your spirit.

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Clutter. Yeah, you gotta get that clutter out of your spirit. It's from a root word of clot. It's... What's the

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Hebrew word for clutter? Could you tell me that, please? A blood clot, and a blood clot will cut off the lifeline, the flow.

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So when we talk about spiritual clutter, we're talking about habits, thoughts, things that will prevent and hinder your purpose from coming forth.

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So there's a place that you get, that you can be very calm in spirit.

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For me, one... I think you get the idea. So we got a problem here.

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So she's taken a descriptive text, turned it into a prescription, but there's nothing in the text at all that says that because God spoke to Elijah in this way, that God's gonna speak to you in this way.

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The same way. So let's go back to some of our biblical texts here. We're gonna note some of the other ways in which

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God has spoken. In Job 38, verse 1, it says, "...and

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Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind."

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Yeah, God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind. Terrifying words, by the way.

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And it says, "...who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge, dressed for action like a man?

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I will question you, and you make it known to me." So here we see in Job 38 that God didn't speak to Job in a still small voice.

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God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind. And I think a good way to describe the whirlwind, at least the

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Hebrew word for this, it's like the equivalent of a supercell thunderstorm.

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God comes storming towards Job and speaks to him out of this whirlwind, tempest storm.

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So should we expect God to speak to us in this same way? No. What about Moses?

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In Exodus chapter 3, starting at verse 1, it says, "...now Moses was keeping the flock of his father -in -law

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Jethro the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God."

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This is the same place where Elijah was. "...and the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

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He looked and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said,

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I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when Yahweh saw that he turned aside to see,

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God called to him out of the bush, Moshe, Moshe. And he said, here

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I am. And he said, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

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So using Paula White's logic, then, if you want to hear God's voice, head out into your backyard, take your sandals off, and put some gasoline on one of your bushes and light it on fire, and then wait for God to start talking to you from it.

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You see, that doesn't make any sense either. So I find it fascinating that false teachers will always key in on the

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Elijah story, where God speaks to him in a low whisper, or still small voice, and say, oh, so you've got to remove the clutter from your life so you can hear the voice of God.

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Yet there is no text in all of Scripture that says God will speak to you the same way that God spoke to Elijah, or even the same way that God spoke to Moses, or the way in which

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God spoke to Job. Those are three different ways that God spoke to people in the

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Old Testament. The question then is, how has God promised to speak to us now that we are in the

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New Covenant? 2nd Peter chapter 1, starting at verse 16, we would be wise to pay attention to.

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For the Apostle Peter is a fellow who actually saw with his own eyes

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Elijah. He saw him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he actually heard the voice of the

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Father while Jesus was transfigured, and it was literally bright as lightning.

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So listen to what Peter says as he's getting ready to finish his course. He is literally, this is his last epistle, he knows he's soon going to be martyred for the

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Christian faith, and here are his instructions to Christians as he's about ready to depart this earth.

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And here's what Peter writes, he says, We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the

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Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom

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I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

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And we have the prophetic word, this is the written word of God, more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So here the Apostle Peter, as he's getting ready to depart this earth, is saying, Pay attention to the written word of God, this is more fully confirmed and surer even than the voice he heard on the

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Mount of Transfiguration. Paul speaks very similarly, as he's getting ready to depart his life, one of his last letters is 2nd

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Timothy, it's a pastoral epistle, and here's what he says to young Pastor Timothy, As for you, continue in what you have learned, and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

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All Scripture is breathed out by God. Notice that God the

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Holy Spirit, according to both Peter and Paul, is intimately involved in the inspiration, the writing, and, well, the continuing on efficacy of the written word of God.

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After all, Scripture says, all Scripture is God -breathed, and it's living and active, and sharper than any double -edged sword.

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So all Scripture is God -breathed, breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every, not some, but every good work.

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So think of it this way. Nowhere in Scripture are we told that God is going to speak to you the same way that he spoke to Elijah.

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Nope, nowhere. Same holds true regarding how God spoke to Moses from a burning bush, or how

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God spoke to Job from the whirlwind, or the tempestuous storm.

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However, God has promised to speak to you through his written word, and he continues to do so, and not only that, that we know for a fact that God the

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Holy Spirit was intimately involved and is the single author of all of Scripture, and that all of these written scriptures are profitable for correction, for training in righteousness, so that you may be equipped for every good work that God would call you to do.

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You don't need to learn how to hear God's voice, or God's still small voice out there in, you know, the ether somewhere.

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No, God has promised to speak to you through his written word.

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Hopefully you've enjoyed this installment of Twistbusters, Fighting for the Faith segment, and if you found this helpful, then please share it with other people.

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and you'll find all the archives for the daily podcasts that we put out, where we tackle these exact types of topics in a longer format for your benefit and for the benefit of the body of Christ.

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So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.