Recognizing The Voice of God

Written by Guy Saffold

When the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives He speaks to us. But does that mean that every thought that runs through our heads is from God? Sometimes God asks us to do some pretty unusual things and we are to obey, but other times we may be hearing the voice of God’s enemy who wants to lead us away from God’s path. How do you know when a prompting is from God and when it’s Satan whispering lies?

It is very important to recognize that Satan does come whispering. We all have an inner world and Scripture makes it clear that Satan has at least some capacity to influence our inner conversation. Matt 4:1-10, Acts 5:3, 1Thess 2:18 all point to this. We also know from Matt 16:23 that Satan can tempt us to act on his behalf. These “whispers” of the enemy can be very subtle in the way they come to us. He can even present himself as a godly presence disguising his lies as the voice of truth.

The Holy Spirit As A Person

The Holy Spirit is not a mere symbol of anything. No mere symbol is able to:

communicate ('speak') (Acts 13:2),
intercede (step in on behalf of someone) (Romans 8:26),
testify (John 15:26)
guide (John 16:13),
command (Acts 16:6,7),
appoint (Acts 20:28),
lead (Romans 8:14),
reveal to someone how wrong, foolish, or sinful he/she was (John 16:8).
seal God's promise in believers' hearts (Ephesians 1:13-14)
shape the life of each person and community to Christ's (Romans 8:1-17)

The Holy Spirit can act in whatever manner the Spirit wants to act. The Spirit generally acts through the church, but doesn't have to; the Wind blows where it will. The Spirit is free not to always be seriously focused on those purposes; the Spirit can have fun while at work.

This is all stuff that can't be true of a mere (or even 'The') Force. That is how we often experience the Spirit and know of the Spirit's presence, but that is not what the Spirit is. As God, the Holy Spirit is cause, and that cause has effect. Yet, there are those in the Christian churches who reduce the Holy Spirit to a force, or to a collective will or a living memory of the gathered believers, or the force of emotion or conscience within a person. Those people, fine as they may be, are describing a different spirit than the Holy Spirit as viewed by the Christian faith. The Spirit works in all of these ways and more, yet against all of them at times. The Spirit works in whatever ways are needed to do what needs to be done, except in choosing not to take forceable control of people's actions.

gotquestions  http://www.spirithome.com/holy-spirit.html

"My Time Has Come"

"Maybe my time has come to die," said the old man from his hospital bed.

"Yes, but are you ready to die?" I asked him. "Are you saved and ready to meet God?"

"That is a deep question," he replied slowly and thoughtfully. "I have always tried to do what was right, and I have never done anything really bad in my life."

"Then you don't have a chance in the world of going to heaven," I said.

He stared at me, and I could see he did not believe his ears, so I repeated it. "If you have never done anything wrong in your life, then you don't have a chance in the world of going to heaven. Jesus Himself said, 'I came not to call the righteous'; so if you are righteous, there is no hope for you; you cannot be saved. Jesus said He did not come to save good people" (see Luke 5:31,32).

The old man seemed to be absolutely dumbfounded. He looked as if he had been shot. Tears trickled down his cheeks as he said brokenly:

"Can it be that I have been wrong all my life? I have never in my life heard that before. I thought God saved good people."

"No, Jesus said plainly that he did not come to save righteous people, but sinners. So if you are not a sinner, you cannot be saved." After quoting a number of Scriptures to him, he saw that he was a sinner (Romans 3:23). He also was shown that Christ came to save sinners, and therefore to save him, if he repented of His sin before God and trusted Christ as His Saviour (Acts 20:21). Only the blood of Christ can cleanse from sin (1 John 1:7) and make one fit for God's presence.

How astonishing it is to see people who go through life hoping they are all right because they have never killed anyone or robbed a bank. Then they launch into eternity, to meet God in their sins, and find themselves shut out of heaven forever. Yes, this dear old man had joined some church and been baptized, he told me. He raised his family right, and did all he could to help other people. But he did not understand anything about God's wonderful salvation, which is entirely by grace and not of works (Ephesians 2:8,9). And now literally with one foot in the grave (for one of them had been amputated), and with the other one sliding on the brink, he evidently heard for the first time in his life that he could not save himself.

What about you? Are you a sinner? If not, there is no hope for you, for "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"—only sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). If you are depending on your good life, you will not be saved. When your time comes to leave this life, you will enter into judgment.

—C.D. Carter

http://www.mwtb.org/site/moments-for-you/back-issues/third-quarter-1996/my-time-has-come.html

The Importance Of The Cross

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18 KJV

By Tom Westwood

In the context of this verse, Paul is presenting the antidote to contentions and divisions among God’s people. He has been setting forth in sad perspective the spectacle of a divided Church and, under the Spirit’s guidance, he is suggesting to us the one sure, unifying influence in Christianity – the Cross of Christ.

Paul stated that Christ sent him “to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made of none effect” (1 Cor. 1:17). Notice that the emphasis is on the Cross here rather than the Person of Christ. It is not because the Cross is more important than the Person, but rather that we cannot reach the truth of His Person without coming by way of the Cross.


The Cross has been used through the ages as a symbol of Christian faith. The importance of the Cross is that it brings us to realize that we can never become followers of Jesus in the same way that we might follow a leader among men. The Lord has not inaugurated a political system, social order, or intellectual cult, wherein we bring our ideas into conformity with His, and thus become supporters of His cause. Unfortunately, sometimes we look at Christianity that way, but Paul indicates that the Christian faith touches something much deeper than that.


It is by the Cross that we make our first contact with God in His divine dealing with us. That is what John meant when he wrote of the Lord coming “by water and blood” (1 Jn. 5:6). It was at the Cross that the soldier pierced Christ’s side, and “forthwith came there out blood and water” (Jn. 19:34). The Lord Jesus reaches us in our need by the cleansing of water by the Word and by the release from sin by His shed blood.


The Cross stands in the center of two eternities – the dividing point of all time. The ages, from the world’s foundation, rolled onward with every milestone a finger pointing to Calvary. The cycles of time of the Old Testament were measured prophetically in view of that time when the Messiah would be cut off. Moreover the tide of time in the last twenty centuries has rolled forward in every receding ebb from the high mark of Calvary. The Cross is the apex of all time.


Moreover, if we go beyond the span of time itself, we find that, in a bygone eternity, the Godhead took counsel together regarding the vast plan of everlasting bliss that should be inaugurated. It was decreed that the foundation of the universe of bliss that was planned should be laid at Calvary’s Cross. Then, as we look forward into the limitless expanse of eternity to come, we see the Lord Jesus not merely as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but also as “a Lamb as it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). We see Him riding forth to establish His kingdom in power and great glory with His vesture dipped in blood. Both the millennial and the eternal kingdom are built upon the foundation laid at Calvary’s Cross.


Thus our attention is riveted in 1 Corinthians 1:18 on the preaching of the Cross. It is not the preaching of the Christ as an example, leader or even as martyr. It is the preaching of the Cross. It is the symbol of that which was the cutting off of everything of the first creation, and the beginning of everything of a new creation. The Lord Himself said, “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” And then He said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto Me” (Jn. 12:24,32).


We who are Christians do not begin to estimate the tremendous importance of the Cross. It is not simply the death of Christ, because death might have been inflicted on Him in some other way. The Bible says, “He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8).


Crucifixion was the worst form of death for an arch-criminal, and it is the expression of man’s estimate of the Son of God. Disgrace, reproach, and shame are involved. It, therefore, signifies the calamity of the ages. The Cross of Christ plunged the universe into hopeless gloom during those three hours of darkness when Jesus was the sin-bearer under Jehovah’s hand. The light of the sun was shut out, and the universe was plunged into black night. It was the climactic focal point of all time and eternity.


Think of what was transacted at the Cross. God was there in the Person of His beloved Son, who had taken a place so lowly, and in such magnificent grace, that He “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2). Jesus, in the supreme sensitivity of perfect Manhood, underwent the agony of physical pain, mental anguish, and heart sorrow. His soul was troubled. He was grieved in spirit. His body was bruised. And He suffered the agony of thirst. Then the holocaust of divine judgment descended upon Him, and He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mt. 27:46). That was done on the Cross.


But not only was God there, Man was there too – representative of all mankind. The Just One was taken and condemned. The Jews and Gentiles joined together to crucify the Lord of Glory. You and I were represented there, because those who took part in the awful pageant of Calvary’s drama behaved just as you and I would have, under the same circumstances. They were demonstrating what was in man’s heart, namely, hatred against the God who had made him.


Satan was there also, for he and his fallen legions had mustered all their reserves to make one last assault upon the Son of God, and they were using men as their own foolish instruments to perpetrate their diabolical deeds.


The angels were there, for were there not twelve legions of them poised on the horizon of heaven ready to come to the aid of Jesus, their Creator, had He breathed a prayer for their assistance (Mt. 26:53)?


God the Father was present also at that climactic scene, beholding with divine and infinite satisfaction His beloved Son bringing glory to His Name in the putting away of sin forever. Before the Savior yielded His life, He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit” (Lk. 23:46). Never was Jesus nearer and dearer to His Father than He was on the Cross (Jn. 13:31-32.)


The Cross is the eternal symbol of Satan’s wicked might and man’s slavery to the power of evil. But it is also the eternal symbol of the endless and unfathomable love of God: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16).


“The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God.” By the Cross of Christ, you and I stand or fall before our Creator.

http://www.gtpress.org/gtweb/gtmag/mag06/apr06/feature2.html