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NASB | Acts 9:4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 9:4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice [from heaven] saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting and oppressing Me?" |
Subject: Speak from the midst of the fire to you? |
Bible Note: I would like to interject, if I may, to make a point that I hope will be conciliatory. Personal experiences are so precious to us, and they should be respected. But in the scheme of things they are but anecdotal evidence, and subjective evidence simply cannot prove a point in God’s economy. They must be coupled with something else. This I say, my sister, not to discourage you entirely, but to discourage you from depending on personal experience entirely in any situation. I hope in the end to encourage you to hold your personal experiences tightly coupled always with the word of God. The problem is that there are always personal experiences to the contrary. One young lady once told me that God had told her he wanted her to be my wife. She was so sure, she wrote in all bold letters. She was wrong. She is not. She also said that God had given her the gift of speaking in unknown language. She later acknowledged she did not know what had come over her. It never happened again. My father once ran home not knowing why, to find his house on fire. He was there on time to save it. He ran home another time with a nurse for my mother. He was not on time, and she died. A patient thought she heard God saying everything would be fine. From that moment, everything went wrong. It was not the voice of God she had heard. If we took all of the stories, we would find that many seem to have been God talking and just as many were illusions or delusions. What is the solution? I hope it is this simple: Combine your personal impressions with the word of God. How do you do that? When you think you hear God saying, “I say you should do such and such”, ask him, “Where Lord?” I do believe that the Lord guides us by his Spirit. He also guides us by his word. What I am suggesting here is that he always uses both, together. I chose the last word over its cousin Simultaneously, because I believe he starts with one and brings in the other, for explanation, or for confirmation. When I think of doing something, I look to see where God said so, in the Bible. Sometimes I remember, or may I say the Spirit brings it to my remembrance. I may have to look it up, or ask someone. But, sorry for the bad picture this conjures, the body and the eagles must come together. Dreams are not God’s communication with us. They are essentially no different from our other thoughts and with some guidance you can easily explain them. And our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. Even when our thoughts are godly thoughts we’ll find that he will lift them higher. Let us take our thoughts to God and let him tell us yes or no, by his written word. He did it for Paul (See Acts 16:7, 2 Corinthians 12:8,9). He did it for our Lord Jesus Christ (See Luke 22:42). Long ago God did speak to people in isolated situations in those manners, but he has taught us not to depend on them. There are reasons: the fact we now have the word of God in writing, the fact that Satan mimics God, etc. Please consider that God has two lines: personal impressions from his Spirit, and his written word. Where the two lines meet, there is safety. Without the Spirit, we do not know what the word means. Without the word, we cannot give rein to our thoughts. I think I’ve said enough on that. God does not want to take this sense of personal communication from us, but he also wants it coupled with word. Always. Please consider what I say, and the Lord give you understanding in this thing. One quick word on the other side, our communication to God, in prayer. I was impressed again recently with the fact that we should keep praying and not give up. Suddenly, it seemed the respectful thing to do, and I could do it without being fretful. If I felt he was taking long, I could tell God so, but I would respect his position as God and keep on asking. So, when I fell sick a few days ago, I prayed a million times that God would heal me. And it happened while I was praying. This day I was able to keep my speaking engagement, because the Lord answered my prayer. And if you would, I’d like to pray for you. I’d also like to encourage others who might have read this to keep on praying concerning your physical problem. Let us let our voices rise like a fountain night and day for you. We need not multiply words. We can say the same words, as Jesus did. If we would bombard his throne with our requests, he’ll notice. And we should not stop until he tells us no. And we will only know he’s saying no when he directs us to some passage such as 2 Corinthians 12. Otherwise we’ll let the ones like Luke 18:1 and 3 John v. 2 encourage us. Somehow there comes to mind the thing about the rod and the staff in Psalm 23. We can’t get into that now, but we also have two things to be very thankful for: the Spirit and the word. |