The Way God Speaks

I thoroughly agree with all of these methods, and in this order, although I believe that for #3-#5, the test should always be thorough examination against the Word. If it’s not directly from the Word, it had better be fully in line with it, and the only way to test that, is to compare it to the Word directly. I am even cautious of something that is “extra-biblical but not anti-biblical” (#3) because of too much potential for margin of error or misinterpretation. Many things “do not contradict” and yet are still not fully in line with scripture.

I have met a few people in my life who have placed #4 in the #1 position, and #3 in the #2 position in their own lives–believing that God regularly speaks through them, even when it isn’t something from the Word. I avoid these people now. I’ve had several circumstances where I have been exposed to people who regularly believed that they were revealing words of God, and frequently acted according to things triggering from #3 and #4. Those same people have often tried to encourage me to act based on their delivered word as well. I won’t go into all the details about those events or stories, but suffice it to say: if it’s not via #1 or #2 first, it’s not worth listening to. Certainly if it contradicts or doesn’t line up with #1 or #2, it’s false.

That said… I have also witnessed, and been blessed, with #1 and #2 in my life. I have had many, many personal circumstances of #1 occurring, as I’m sure many people have. I would agree that probably for every ten times I witness #1, I also witness an occurrence of #2. However I have always felt that any time that #2 or #3 occur, I expect that God will provide his own confirmation, either through scripture directly, or through at least one other person (so that there are two or more occurrences of the same message being delivered from a person). In fact, I expect at least three people in total to voluntarily share the word if it’s not something directly from scripture. For me, I believe that if God “can’t” say something important to me through scripture, then he needs to send at least three “random” people before I will accept that it’s from him. And for anything spoken that is outside of scripture, there should be ten times as much scripture to back it up.

One time in particular, someone I know in a leadership position shared a word from God–something very specific, a prophetic, future event that would impact the team they were leading. But this person then used the opportunity to draw the attention to their qualifications as a leader, and that God was speaking through them, and therefore their involvement was critical to the success of the team they were leading. I challenged this person on it, and pointed out that the glory was for God, and not for them, and that I refused to accept their interpretation and would instead wait for the precise time at which God revealed that he would intervene. I then literally sat and waited for God that day. Sure enough, and to the witness of several people, down to the minute, the event occurred as the person had shared. It was too specific to be anything but God. But instead of following the direction resulting from that event, this person followed their own ideas. The result was a very long downward spiral of this person’s life, of the lives of those on their team, and in the end, the complete collapse of that team and all the resources provided to it–all because the leader took the prophetic word to be an indication of their role as a prophet, rather than an indication of God as a provider. They took the idea of being a prophet, and began lording it over the team as to why they were the most important leader.

So in the end, my experience has been this: God is very specific. He is very detailed. The Word is also very specific and detailed, and He will speak through that before He will speak through anything else. If someone shares something with me, and it’s not directly from scripture, it’s probably not from God… unless two other people show up and say the same thing. When God does intervene in a supernatural way, He makes it unmistakable that it is Him–but we have to watch for it. He isn’t willing to share the glory with anyone else. As soon as we take the glory on ourselves, we are carrying the name of God falsely, because we are using God’s miracles to increase our own kingdom instead of His. And our kingdoms fail tragically when we do that. I’ve watched them fail. As a person who was part of the team affected in the example above, I can confidently say that when God gives a specific word, obedience is critical, but more importantly, there cannot be even a shred of pride that suggests that we are in any way sharing the glory with God. If the pride is there, the fall will also be there.