Re-Release: Does God Still Speak to Us Today?

For the next little while, I am going to be re-releasing some old teaching posts on hearing God’s voice. I say “re-releasing” and not “reposting” because I am not simply slapping an old post up here. I am updating the posts, making them even better and more relevant than they were the first time around. As if that is even possible.

For Re-Release: What Does God’s Voice Sound Like, Click HERE

How cool is that? The very first “action” we see God perform is to speak. And speak He did! He spoke light into existence.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to hear a God who can speak light into existence. Can you even BEGIN to wrap your mind around that concept? I can’t. It makes my brain hurt.

What blows my mind even more is that this same God (who spoke light into existence) wants to have a relationship with me. He wants to talk to me. And He wants to talk to you.

After God spoke light and the rest of the world into existence, He set out to communicate with and build relationship with His most precious creation: people. You cannot read the Bible at all before you discover that (a) God is a Master Communicator, (b) He speaks any way and every way He pleases, and (c) when God spoke in the Bible, people heard Him and knew it was Him.

Check out a few of the ways God communicated with people in Scripture:

In the Old Testament

• He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day (Genesis chapters 2 and 3)
• He spoke through an angel to Hagar (Genesis 6:13-21)
• He appeared to Abraham as three men (Genesis 18:1-15)
• He appeared to Jacob in a dream (Genesis 28:13-15, 31:3)
• He appeared in flames to Moses (Exodus 3:1-22)
• He spoke face to face with Moses, like a man speaks with his friend (Exodus 33:11)
• He spoke to Balaam through a donkey (Numbers 22:12-35)

I just have to interject here…have you ever read that whole story about the donkey? It is stinkin’ HI-LAR-I-OUS. In the book of Numbers, no less. Who knew?

• He spoke to Samuel in an audible voice (I Samuel 3:10-14)
• He answered Job out of the storm (Job 38:1-41)
• He spoke to Elijah in a whisper (I Kings 19:11-18)
• He spoke to Isaiah in a vision (Isaiah 6:1-13)
• And in hundreds of other places in the Old Testament, it simply says, “God said.”

In the New Testament

• He spoke to Joseph through an angel in a dream (Matthew 1:20-23)
• He spoke to Mary through an angel in her house (Luke 1:28-38)
• He spoke to Saul in an audible voice through a bright light (Acts 9:1-9)
• He spoke to Cornelius in a vision (Acts 10:1-7)
• He spoke to Peter while in a trance (Acts 10:9-16)
• He spoke to Agabus through the Spirit (Acts 11:27-30; 21:10-14)
• And of course, most profoundly: live and in person through Jesus Christ, God in the flesh

It doesn’t bother me so much when un-believers claim God doesn’t speak today. I guess because I don’t expect people who don’t know God to understand the ways of God. Shoot, it’s hard for me to undertand the ways of God, and I have been a disciple of Christ for decades. I get it when non-Christians misunderstand God.

However, I’m always very confused and a little sad when Christians claim God does not speak to people today or that He speaks only through His word. It makes me wonder if they’ve ever read the Bible—the very word through which they claim God speaks—at all.

To borrow a concept from John Eldredge in his book Walking with God, if God doesn’t also speak to us today, why would He have given us an entire book filled with examples of Him speaking to other people? It’s as if God is saying, “Here are hundreds of examples of Me speaking to My people in this situation and that situation. Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t it inspiring? But you can’t have that. I don’t speak like that anymore. So sorry.”

God did not give us a book of exceptions. He gave us a book of examples. Examples of what it looks like to walk with God. To say He doesn’t or He won’t speak to us like that today is not only disheartening, but it is also unbiblical.

Pastor, teacher and author Bill Hybels says, “If there is a pattern in Scripture…it is that we serve a communicating God—a God of words. He created with a word, He healed with a word, He encouraged with a word, He rebuked with a word, He guided with a word, He prophesied with a word, He assured with a word, He loved with a word, He served with a word and He comforted with a word. Throughout all history, God has communicated and He still is at it today. The issue isn’t whether or not God is speaking, it’s whether we will have ears to hear what He says.” ~The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God. Having the Guts To Respond.

If you aren’t sure about this whole “God speaking” thing…I challenge you to do two things:

1) Read through those scriptures about the different ways God spoke in the Bible. Seriously, go through each one, back to back to back.  Don’t stop until you’ve read all of them. 

2) Ask God to speak to you.

Then leave a comment and tell me what you think/hear/feel about all of this. Even if you disagree with me. I’m curious where you stand on this issue.