Open Hailing Frequencies
Greetings,
Recently in this blog and in the comments section we have addressed the issue of direct revelation. To me the real question is: Does God continue to speak to us today or does His speaking begin and end with The Bible? I firmly believe that He continues to speak to us today in scripture and beyond it in our daily lives. God has not stopped communicating with us and it would do us all well to listen for His voice and direction in all our affairs.
The whole idea of confining God to the scriptures and keeping Him bound and gaged in a book is totally atrocious. For a limitless God to limit Himself in such a manner makes no sense whatsoever. Besides even the Bible speaks of revelation beyond itself. Act’s 2:17 says, “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” Notice it says “on ALL people! Those who limit God to only speaking through the Bible in the here and now also say that God only spoke to special people like Jeremiah, Moses and Paul. I say that God shows no favoritism and that He is not a respecter of persons. (Acts 10:34,35) Besides He also spoke to another mere disciple Ananias and told him to go find Saul and to lay hands on him. (Acts 9:10-19)
Those who limit God to secondary revelation like the Bible also say they cannot trust their own hearts and minds with direct revelation because “The heart is deceitful above all things”, (Jeremiah 17:9) and that their mind and choices are corrupt and not trustworthy. I say that these facts changed dramatically when Jesus came and The Holy Spirit was given. Now believers are indwelt with The Spirit and we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds and thus are now able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good , pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
God is still speaking and He wants us to hear Him and trust Him! Our hearts have been indwelt and changed and our minds are being transformed! God is NOT limited to a book and our limited understanding of what the book really says. Now to the HUGE question does direct revelation ever seem contrary to what is written in the scriptures? To answer this important question I will refer to Peter’s vision in Acts chapter 10. “…Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, “Get up Peter, kill and eat.” Surely not, Lord! Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
Did you catch what just happened? That’s right, God just told Peter to violate the Old Testament scriptures and the Law. Peter was told outright to go against the scriptures that he had known. In this circumstance Peter was told by God’s direct revelation to go against the secondary revelation of the scriptures. Can this still happen in this day and age? I don’t know why not. Has it ever happened to me? I am not sure, but once God told me to hit an older man in the head with my guitar. I am pretty sure that assaulting Larry with my guitar is not something that the scriptures would approve of, but when I hit him in the head his hearing problem was healed and he has had full hearing in both ears since that day.
For Peter that day on the roof was a game changer. The voice of The Spirit spoke and went directly against the food laws of the Old Testament. The voice of The Lord changes things. The question is are we willing to allow Him to speak directly to us, and when He speaks will we obey? Do we trust Him more than we trust our own understanding of the Bible? Or will we allow Him to change how we read and live the scriptures? I admit that I am sort of afraid of such revelation. It is much easier and convenient to trust what is written, but then again what does HE want? I got plenty of questions and only HE has the answers. When push comes to shove will I come directly to Him, or the book I have become comfortable with?
Direct revelation, His Voice… I do not want to call anything impure that God has made clean…. Including my heart and mind.
Love and ……
Kirk Out !
notesfromthebridge 
Very good blog today Chris… And I agree I don’t thing God went on a talk fast for the last 2000 years no he is still talking to us today… If we will but just listen and have faith…
And you are right about that great story about Peter and the unclean food how God told him to go against the OT…I do see more there than just about food… God spoke to me about these verse and they are also about the gentiles not being unclean that they were now as clean as the jews were…So yes I agree with you brother God is still speaking to us to day..You don’t have to be a pastor or a leader just a believer and just listen…Once again Chris great blog…
LORD HAVE MERCY
JIM
Did God tell Peter directly “Break the Old Testament Law”? No. He focused Peter on the fact the God purifies, not our obedience. The law will only lead to death; not life.
The Old Testament is full of those who could never keep the Law…..and I believe that was the point. I also believe the the “Beatitudes” show us where we will always fall short. We are not Holy and cannot be on our own.
I think God simply redirected Peter to the whole affect of the Scriptures….beyond the Law…..and towards the Covenant….which was always greater than the law.
We can use today’s tech to see what is being said in tech space regarding direct revelation. Tech is not a good place to arrive at a good understanding of direct revelation, but it is what is at hand. I am unclear – what is meant by direct revelation? Perhaps you could be a bit more clear about what this means in this notesfromthebridge?
Thanks.
Dan, It is really a simple concept. Direct revelation is God speaking directly to you.
Again, “His sheep hear His voice and obey.”
Love,
Chris
We need to be careful to not discount any means that God uses to reveal himself – and that includes the Bible. Some people turn the Word of God into a law for us to follow. Others sneer at the Word of God, saying “We don’t need yet another book about God, we’ve got JESUS!” Both have gone too far.
Regarding the second error, I see a lot of problems with it. Say someone “loves Jesus”, was never exposed to the Bible, but got his knowledge of God from George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”, the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright”, Joan Osborne’s “What If God Was One Of Us?”, U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and that ethereal still small voice. Pretty soon, he will have a pretty good theology worked out, know the voice that agrees with that theology, and attribute it to Jesus. How do you know it’s from the real Jesus? And if it’s not from the real Jesus, then when the real Jesus speaks to that person, would he turn Him away because He does not agree with the still small voice?
Which begs the question, how do you know who the real Jesus is?
That’s why I personally value the Bible above anything from Oswald Chambers, CS Lewis, Charles Colson, Anne Graham Lotz, Lloyd Ogilve, or (heresy alert) Christopher Kirk. I see the Bible as God’s objective revelation of Himself. He speaks in other ways, including the still small voice, but He will never go against what He’s already revealed in His Word, both Logos and Rhema. As a Pentecostal who’s had lots of run-ins with the Charismatic Movement, I see that the reason Pentecostals are in the main stream of what the Holy Spirit is doing, and the Charismatics are off in their own little world, is that Pentecostals have learned to value God’s Word and have discerned whether other spirits are of God, and too many Charismatics emphasize any spiritual thought that comes to their heart at the moment without seeing if it’s right.
And let’s face it, sometimes God gave a law to the Israelites that was actually more of an allowance for their rebellion. Such as the law of divorce, allowed in the Old Testament, which Jesus said was never God’s intention in the first place. When he said “Peter, kill and eat!”, and Peter knew God was referring to Gentiles coming to salvation, that was in line with various kings and prophets speaking positively of foreigners coming to faith in God – and being accepted by God! Orthodox Israelites were very opposed to that then and in the New Testament, yet God wanted the world to come to Him, not just Hebrews. He found in Peter someone who would finally believe His heart on that matter.
My bottom line: look for God to reveal His truth in many ways, and make sure it lines up with the Word of God. Saying it’s either/or, either hear from God or worship a book, sets up a straw man argument that intends to put our minds above the mind of God.
Elwood, Can I please get your real name? You make some good points.
I actually had a tee shirt made it reads “HERETIC?” with a question mark.
I know that sometimes I push the envelope, but my heart is right. Anyone
who knows me knows I wear out bibles on a regular basis, but I still say
listen for His voice, perhaps especially when we read the bible.
LOve, Chris
People definitely put too much emphasis on reading, and not enough on listening. I have a post about that (http://theichabodshow.com/blog/2010/12/the-word-of-god/), explaining that “the word of God” is what God says, not what God wrote. The example of Peter is a good one, because it exemplifies the fact that the Scriptures don’t tell us to obey the Scriptures, the Scriptures tell us to obey the covenant. And Peter had to disobey the (old covenant) Scriptures in order to obey the covenant he was under, which Yeshua had taught him. We disobey Scripture every day; e.g., by not sacrificing animals. But we are not to disobey God’s covenant (the new covenant). We must listen to God speak, whether it’s through Scripture or anything else. We must have a relationship with the living God, the living Savior, not a book. Elwood made the good point that we only know the truth about God because of Scripture, and that’s why we must study it. But as we study, we must also remember that faith does not come by reading but by hearing the living word of the Anointed One Himself, and that knowing Scripture does not equal knowing God.
Malkiyahu, Thanks for visiting my blog. I like yours too. Seems we like to write about the same things. If you don’t mind me asking…how did you find my blog?
LOve, Chris
You commented on a post on my dad’s blog http://www.simplechurchjournal.com and I followed the link and found you talking about interesting topics. Topics that confuse people are interesting to me, and they need to be talked about. So many believers don’t make the distinction in their minds between “the Bible” and “what God says,” and that’s what causes the confusion. God’s word comes to us in many ways. It must line up with God’s covenant, which is taught in Scripture. That doesn’t mean it will line up with all of Scripture, as the case of Peter shows. Peter was obeying his covenant with God, which he had learned from Yeshua Himself, and he therefore disobeyed the Scriptures that had been written up to that time.
EVERY time God speaks to us, it is direct revelation, whether He is speaking to us through Scripture or through circumstances or through a prophet or through anything else. Personally, Scripture is the best way I’ve found to hear God speak. That’s why I study it so much. So Elwood is right that it isn’t either/or: either Scripture or direct revelation. The difference between His Scriptures and His word is a very important distinction to keep in mind, but it’s just a distinction, not a separation.