“I have gotten to see something that I think is huge. And I’ll also suggest to you that I am not the only one. And tonight I’m going to do my absolute best to illustrate to you something that God showed me sitting out on that back porch. He put a picture – I’ve explained to you before I’m a very visual person, so He speaks to me very often in putting a picture in my head – And it was as if I was raised up, looking down on a community, as I saw the Church as Jesus sees it in a particular dimension.”
-Beth Moore, Living Proof Ministries
There are plenty of teachers who want you to believe that they’ve heard some kind of voice or received some kind of vision from God. How can we know whether or not what they are hearing or seeing is truly from the Lord?
Well, there is a very simple test you can apply:
Does their personal revelation agree with the Bible?
If the answer is “No”, they are either making stuff up or the voice they are hearing isn’t from God. If the answer is “Yes”, then you don’t need their word or vision – it’s in the Bible. Or, as theologian John Owen said,
“If private revelations agree with Scriptures, they are needless. And if they disagree, they are false.”
Many will say, “But I hear God speak to me in a still small voice, just like He spoke to Elijah!”
Well, Hebrews 1:1-2 tells us,
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son”
In the Old Testament, God spoke through burning bushes and talking donkeys and still small voices. But today, He speaks loud and clear through the word of Christ. Just as we are told in Colossians 3:16,
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”
Everything we could ever want to hear God say is already right here in the Bible, when we understand the text.