Everyone at some point has had an interest in speaking to their Creator. Why was I made? Why am I here? What does God have for me? Am I doing life right? Does God love me? But not all of us have realized this is a possibility. Perhaps we became convinced us God has little to say to us. Perhaps He is bothered by the idea of having to explain things to us that we should be expected to understand? Perhaps He has more important problems to deal with than my stupid questions? Perhaps I am not deserving of hearing His words in my thoughts and spirit because I have not done what He’s commanded or listened to the things He’s told me in the past?
Whatever the reason, I am here to tell you that our assumptions do not have robust support in Scripture. From the beginning of Genesis to the last book of Revelation, God was always speaking to His people. He could be very long-winded at times, and the 66 chapters of Isaiah filled with God’s constant dialogue are an indication of that.
So what changed? Why have many of us never heard God’s voice?
God Speaks to Everyone
We assume God spoke to these people because they were God-fearing, they respected God more than any of us do, or they were specifically chosen to carry God’s message. Who am I that I should hear from God?
These assumptions don’t find support in Scripture either. God spoke to people of all statuses, in all walks of life, both important people and unimportant people (e.g., 1 Samuel 16:11-13). Consider how God spoke to Cain before and after he murdered Abel (Genesis 4:6-7,10-16)? Was Cain more God-fearing than yourself? Consider how God continually spoke to Aaron, who relentlessly disobeyed God, even worshipping a golden calf (Exodus 32:1-6; Leviticus 10:8-11). Their disobedience did not stop God from speaking to them. God took compassion on people who were poor, of no account, had no influence over others, and gave them direction that changed human history (e.g., Judges 6:11-16). We can identify no pattern or system in Scripture for the type of people God is willing or not willing to speak to.
God spoke to people because He wanted to, not because of that person’s will or effort. No one has deserved to hear the voice of God. On the contrary,
Romans 3:11-12 (NLT) No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. 12 All have turned away; all have become useless.
Isaiah 65:1 (NLT) The Lord says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name.
God Has Much To Say
The Psalmist David recounts how God would continually speak to him in the mornings when he would awake. He was not concerned that God had nothing interesting to say to him but instead wrote:
Psalm 139:1-18 (NLT) O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. 3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. 4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. 5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!
7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! 8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. 9 If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, 10 even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me. 11 I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night— 12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! 18 I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!
David did not understand God to be too busy with more important problems to think or talk to him. God has no limit on His capacity to be everywhere, do everything, and talk to billions of people at the same time. He is omnipotent and omnipresent. On earth, we have limited attention spans; we can only process one task at a time, and if we must do something important, it sometimes means the people who want to talk to us have to wait. That is never the case with God. How then could God know the number of hairs on your head (Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7)? Hairs grow or fall from our head continually throughout the day, requiring God to recount them all every few minutes. How does He have time for such an endeavor?
Scripture portrays a God who is very interested in speaking to you, and even if you are not actively listening, He is thinking of you so much that even the sands of the sea cannot outnumber His thoughts toward you.
How then do we hear Him?
Hearing The Voice Of God Is A Miracle
God spoke to His people through physical encounters and audible voices, but most of the time, He spoke to them through dreams and visions (Numbers 12:1-9). Both of these took place only in the minds of the hearers, and others nearby did not experience the same sensations (Acts 12:6-11; Ezekiel 8:3; Daniel 10:7).
When God spoke in visions, He did so through the Holy Spirit. Under the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit would temporarily descend upon the individual God wished to speak with, deliver the message, and then may or may not depart shortly afterward (Numbers 24). It is necessary to have the Spirit of God to hear His voice because Scripture says:
1 Corinthians 2:11 (NLT) No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
Only God’s own Spirit can share His thoughts. Therefore, to hear Him, one must receive the Holy Spirit. And under the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit never leaves believers, even to this day (Ephesians 1:12-14; Titus 3:4-7).
Acts 2:38-39 (NLT) Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.”
1 Corinthians 2:12 (NLT) And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
Isaiah 59:21 (NIV) “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the LORD.
John 14:16-18 (NLT) And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. 18 No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.
John 14:26 (NLT) But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
John 16:13 (NLT) When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.
Christians receive the Holy Spirit when they believe the gospel, and from that moment on, the Holy Spirit never departs but remains inside them forever (John 14:16; Ephesians 1:13-14). Therefore, genuine Christians can always hear God’s voice. The Spirit is aware of all God’s thoughts (which outnumber the grains of sand) and is able to share them at all times, anywhere, and in any place with anyone who has the Spirit.
Discernment Is A Miracle
Yet, despite the unverifiable nature of divine visions, God’s faithful never questioned whether they had clearly heard the voice of God. We see Abraham willing to believe that God wanted him to offer Isaac (Genesis 22). Wouldn’t he have considered that perhaps he was only listening to his own thoughts? We have Daniel prophesying detailed events that would take place 490 years into the future (Daniel 9:24-27). How could they discern or verify that the things they heard or wrote down were coming from the mouth of God? They could not. There was no technique or human formula to verify that the information they were given was reliable.
2 Peter 1:20-21 (NLT) Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.
Therefore, it does not depend upon human skill, will, or effort to “discern” God’s voice. No human techniques are required by Scripture and people often heard God in the midst of normal activity (2 Kings 6:15-17). Today, Christians can compare what they hear to Scripture and ensure there are no contradictions. But what Scripture did Daniel use to verify that the 490 years of future events he was being told were reliable? What Scripture did Abraham use to confirm that it was indeed God who wanted him to offer up Isaac? They lived before much of Scripture was written and therefore could not use it to discern.
After receiving the vision in Revelation, John declared a curse on anyone who added to or took away anything from the words of that vision (Revelation 22:18-19). Would he have had such confidence in the accuracy of what God told him if there was any reason to believe he was reflecting his own thoughts?
They believed God spoke because the Holy Spirit both spoke to them and flawlessly convinced them that He had spoken to them (John 10:4-5, 27; 1 Corinthians 12:7-11). They had no power in themselves to hear or discern.
1 Corinthians 2:13-14 (NIV) This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
Is Scripture Alone Enough?
If God could speak reliably and clearly enough to the authors of the Bible in ancient times—so that we today can trust their writings as infallible and completely accurate—then He can speak to us just as reliably and clearly now, addressing specific questions or situations that the Bible may not cover and even correcting our own misunderstandings of Scripture. Conversely, if He cannot speak to us reliably and clearly today, we must also assume that He was unable to do so with the biblical authors when they first wrote Scripture.
1 John 2:27 (NIV) As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
Many people today assume that the Bible alone is the complete, exclusive, and total source of truth, meaning that God no longer needs to speak to humans. However, this belief must come from sources outside of Scripture, as the Bible does not teach it. The Bible never indicates that God intended to stop speaking; in fact, it strongly teaches the opposite. So, if God no longer speaks to us today, then the Bible itself isn’t the complete and total picture of truth—because we would have to assume things about God from outside the Bible that Scripture doesn’t teach. Therefore, if one believes that the Bible is infallible and complete, they must conclude that God is capable of speaking to us reliably today and that He will never contradict what He has already said in properly understood Scripture, since those authors heard Him reliably as well.
Is God Alone Enough?
A core tenet of the New Covenant teaches that God wants to be your most reliable source of wisdom, teaching, and knowledge (Matthew 23:8; 1 John 2:27; James 1:5).
Jeremiah 31:34 (NIV) No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Paul understood the gospel only through the Holy Spirit speaking to him directly, not from a human teacher or his study of Scripture.
Galatians 1:11-12 (NIV) I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Paul had to trust that what the Holy Spirit was telling him was even more reliable than his understanding of Scripture. He used to be a highly trained expert in Scripture, but he misunderstood it to the extent that he persecuted Jesus (Philippians 3:4-6; Galatians 1:13-14). God’s voice contradicted his faulty understanding of Scripture, but He never contradicted properly understood Scripture. Jesus likewise rebuked the religious experts of His day for placing their trust in their ability to interpret Scripture without God’s help. Yet, God never said Scripture was false—only that their understanding of Scripture was false.
John 5:39 (NIV) You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
Luke 24:25-26 (NLT) Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. 26 Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?”
Without the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we cannot even hope to properly interpret Scripture (1 Corinthians 2; Ephesians 3:9-10). The same Scripture that can teach us the truth can also be used to blind us to the truth if we misinterpret it (Isaiah 6:9-10; Matthew 4:1-11; 13:14-15; 22:23-33; John 6:51-66). But with God’s help, Scripture becomes a blessing and not a curse.
Therefore, we can trust God alone to teach us—even without Scripture or without properly understanding it—just as the saints of old trusted God in the absence of Scripture.
The Blessing of Scripture
We should not assume that God will lead us away from the clear teachings in Scripture if we listen to Him. If we believe God wrote the Bible, we must logically conclude that anything further He teaches will remain consistent. He may correct our mistaken interpretations of unclear passages in Scripture, but He will never contradict properly understood and clear Scripture.
Paul used Scripture to defend and teach the things God taught him so that we today would not have to blindly follow a man who claims to have heard God but could objectively evaluate the logic and reasonableness of his arguments.
2 Timothy 3:16 (BLB) Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
Humans lie all the time; therefore, it is unwise to believe someone just because they claim to have heard from God. Rather, Christians today have the opportunity to validate some of the most important things God tells them with Scripture.
1 John 4:1-2 (NLT) Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God.
The Bible speaks highly of people who studied Scripture to validate the statements someone claimed God told them.
Acts 17:11 (NLT) And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
Why Hasn’t Everyone Heard God?
If this is the case, then why have so many of us not heard God constantly? Why did it seem that despite our prayers and desires to hear God, we felt like He was silent? And why have so many people claimed to have heard God to only later to find out they didn’t accurately hear Him, and surprise themselves?
When Christians hear and verify what the Scriptures teach, they are responsible for believing the message. If the message conflicts with their reality or past experiences, they must not question the Scripture but question their faith. How many examples can we think of where God intended to perform some miracle, both in the Old and New Testaments, but because of their lack of faith, they did not experience the blessing (Mark 11:23-24; James 1:5-7; Numbers 13-14; Matthew 17:14-21; Matthew 13:53-58; Mark 6:1-6; Matthew 14:22-33; 2 Kings 7:1-2, 16-20)? It is the same now.
God does not work miracles, including the miracle of speaking to us, because of our obedience, law-keeping, or human-made techniques. He does it because we evaluate what the Word says, choose to put our faith in its reliability and genuineness—despite the fact that up until that point it was not our experience—and then wait patiently for what we believe to happen.
Galatians 3:2-5 (NLT) Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. 3 How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? 4 Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?
5 I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
Hebrews 6:12,15 (NIV) We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised… 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.
So then, there is only one thing we can do to accurately hear God: believe. We must believe that God is interested in speaking with us, that He is able to speak to us, that He can convince us when we have or haven’t heard Him (John 10:4-5, 27; 1 Corinthians 12:7-11; 1 John 2:27). All of the labor must rest with God because every aspect of that is a miracle.
Hearing God Wisely
Know that the Holy Spirit is capable of guiding you into complete truth and understanding without mistakes:
John 16:13 (NLT) When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.
It is not wrong to reason with God or the things you hear as wisdom from heaven is open to reason.
James 3:17 (English Standard Version) But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
Paul was not ashamed to investigate the things God told Him to confirm their truthfulness. So God is not ashamed of Christians for questioning His reasoning.
Galatians 2:1-2,6-7 (NLT) Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. 2 I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing.
…
6 And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) 7 Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews.
Summary
In summary, Christians who want to hear God’s voice should understand that:
- God wants to speak to us
- God has a lot to say
- God can speak to us
- God can convince us when He has or hasn’t spoken
Christians should accept that God can and will speak to them anytime, anywhere, and anyhow if they have faith.