The Voice of God: How Often Does He Speak?

I am a believer from the Pentecostal/Charismatic background. I fully believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues. That last statement reveals my Assemblies of God background. I am currently not involved with those denominations since I have joined the Organic House Church movement.

But the baggage of our background carries with us into new movements. One element that is a common mantra in the pentecostal church is that "God is speaking always". That is not biblical. If it were, then there would be no 400 year silent period between the return from captivity and the advent of Jesus Christ, also known as the Maccabean period of the Greek empire.

This is a dangerous doctrine since it opens the way for demonic deception. Not every thought that goes through your head is God. We are called to "...believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. " (I Jn 4:1 KJV).

Consequently there are many pentecostal/charismatics who speak "from the abundance of their hearts" (Matt. 12:34) and like the false prophets of old, "that prophesy out of their own hearts," (Ezek 13:2 KJV).

Jesus told us the nature and character of His words. He said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63 KJV). If Jesus speaks to us there will be a "quickening" and sense of "life" in the words. In other words, If Jesus has spoken you sense the life giving power that motivates you to action. Furthermore, He said that His words are "spirit", which means it comes from the Heart of God and is according to His will. In other words, again, His words will be in complete agreement with the Bible which is His revealed will.

The devil likes to masquerade as an "angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:4) which is a cheap imitation of God. The power of Satan is deception. As long as you think you are hearing God when in truth you are hearing him, then he gains control of an area of your life. God does not step in and say, "ignore this voice for it is not me" because God wants us to seek Him with our "whole hearts" (Psalms 119:2). Assuming that God is speaking all the time is an excuse for laziness, and by passes the whole heart seeking of the Lord.

To conclude, however, I do want to say that God does lead us all the time. For he is the Good Shepherd and "as many are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God" (Rom. 8:14). Being led by the Spirit does not mean hearing His voice. It means to follow the nudges of God through the peace, the witness of the Spirit, or the checks in your spirit or disturbance of your peace. It means responding to your conscience as it agrees with the counsel of Scripture. There are many ways God leads us according to the Bible, but being led does not mean hearing a voice. God does speak, but my argument is that it is the leading of God that is more frequent than the speaking of God.