Jews and Christians have a long history of believing that God’s written word (i.e. the Bible) has the same spiritual value as his spoken voice. This wrong thinking is the root problem of their religions. It orients people to using their minds for intellectual understanding instead of using their hearts to hear God’s spoken voice.

When religious leaders say, or write, “hear the word of the Lord”, they are equating the power of their spoken voice or their written words with God’s voice spoken to the heart. This is sheer arrogance in which  religious leaders lift themselves up to be equal to God.

STUDY TIP: See Competing Voices and False Prophets.

When anyone says “I have a word from God for you”, or says anything else that implies that they have wisdom and authority to speak on God’s behalf, they, in effect, say that whatever you hear from me has the same accuracy, power and value as words spoken by God’s mouth. This too is sheer arrogance that places the speaker on a spiritual par with God.

Religious leaders with and without titles (e.g. rabbi, pastor, etc.) and degrees who presume to speak for God are usurpers and imposters who represent that what they speak is equal to God’s spoken voice. They are, in their eyes, and in the eyes of those who listen to them, like God.

In God’s eyes, however, they are other gods, idols, evil angels, false prophets and Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil whose words seem good for food but yield forbidden fruit that causes death for those who eat it.

STUDY TIP: See Bread, Food and Wine and Wood (trees), Gold, Silver, Stone for more about Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Religious leaders are free to speak and write in this way, of course, just as people are free to listen to them and read what they write. In Biblical symbolism, people are free to eat (i.e. listen to and read) the words of these religious leaders just as they are free to eat (i.e. hear) God’s spoken words. Such freedom, however, does not protect them from in the wrong belief (i.e. deception) that these leaders (i.e. gods, idols, evil angels, false prophets, Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil) are actually speaking for God. In Biblical language, people who fall into such deception yield to temptation to sin.

STUDY TIP: Here we have the definition of sin: Eating the spoken or written words of anyone other than God or his anointed spokespersons. Instead of listening to and obeying God’s voice regarding the two trees, Adam and Eve listened to the voice of the serpent. This is the original sin that led to the protracted sin of religion.

In this definition of sin, we also have the justification for calling religion sin: Religion always involves reading and/or listening to the words of religious leaders (e.g. Serpent, Devil, Satan, Adversary, Demons, Evil Spirits and Anti-Christs.

 Thus it can be said that eating the written or spoken words of Old/First  Covenant religious leaders constitutes sin in God’s eyes. These leaders/teachers are called idols. People who listen to such people practice idolatry because they listen to and obey them instead of listening to and obeying God’s voice.

It must be said also, however, that New Covenant disciples are anointed by God to speak on his behalf through the power and influence of his spirit. These are True Prophets, angels and Warriors.

Because religious leaders (i.e. idols) do not speak for him, God will tear down the high places from which these self-proclaimed authorities speak and write. Moreover God will not listen to anyone who listens to these other gods and false prophets. He is emphatic that he wants his people to listen to his voice and not be dependent on others to speak for him as religious leaders do.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: We are well aware that throughout this website we have presumed to speak for God by interpreting the spiritual meanings of scripture. But, there are two major differences between what people will read here compared to typical religious teaching:

Religion always teaches people to depend on religious teachers for understanding about God. This website always tries to teach people how to interpret scripture themselves by listening to God’s voice. This website teaches religious people to stop listening to false prophets. Religious teaching always has a commercial aspect to it. This website does not sell anything.

The issue of dependency on religious leaders for teaching about God is addressed throughout this website, but particularly in these pages:

Religion is Commerce Religion is Deception Religion is Injustice, Slavery, Oppression and Affliction Religion is the Kingdom of False Prophets Religion is Idolatry Toxicity Religion is Disease Detoxification Examine Yourself

This dependency on religion and religious teachers has had an adverse effect on Christians and Jews ever since God gave the tablets of the law to Moses. Since then, Jews and Christians have stumbled over the law by interpreting it literally instead of symbolically.

The stumbling block includes religious teaching that says obedience to the literal, written word of God as taught by religious leaders satisfies God’s commands to obey his voice and immunizes them from warnings about not listening to his voice.

People wrongly think, therefore, that, when God said ‘faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ,” he meant the following:

Hearing God’s voice means the same thing as reading words written by men on a page. Hearing what religious leaders speak and reading what they write is the equivalent of hearing God’s voice.

 

These beliefs are both totally wrong. Religions that practice and promote  these beliefs have stumbled over the written law and they sin by listening to human voices — not to God’s spoken voice.

In their deception, people wrongly think that spoken messages (i.e. sermons) and books written by religious leaders have the same spiritual value as God’s word spoken to their hearts. These are lies perpetrated by religious leaders, speakers and writers, whose authority, status and income depends on the deception that God has chosen them to speak for him.

The truth is that religious leaders are false prophets who do not speak for God. They actually speak out of the imaginations of their minds. The same is true for any religious person who might presume to interpret scripture or speak a word of knowledge or word of wisdom. What they speak becomes the stuff of man-made religion which, in God’s eyes, is idolatry.

Religious leaders effectively create a religious business out of their interpretations of the literal Bible. And those who are not leaders with titles, but who still presume to speak for God, also  speak out of the imaginations of their minds. Thinking they are spiritually wise, they vainly chase after the wind (i.e. spirit) by displaying their worldly knowledge. Instead of instructing people with Godly wisdom, they deceive them with lies. When they speak and teach, they practice their righteousness so that others can see how spiritual they are. They are all false prophets who speak worldly knowledge — not the kind of knowledge that comes from hearing God’s voice.

True prophets, on the other hand, interpret the Bible symbolically — not literally — because they can hear God’s voice and are taught by the spirit of God. They  understand the mystery of Symbols, Signs, Types, Copies, Shadows and Patterns by listening to God’s spoken voice. They report what they hear without self-interest. When they do speak, their only desire is to set people free from captivity to religion so that they might worship God in spirit and truth. They preach three main messages:

Religion is the sin of idolatry. Repent for practicing the sin of idolatry and turn back to God. Listen to God’s voice.

These messages are not the messages of Old/First Covenant religionists who do not speak for God but  speak out of the imaginations of their minds only for self interest. True prophets speak for God without self-interest with the sole purpose of doing justice by setting people free from religion. Their main messages are these:

Religion is sin. Abandon religious idolatry. Come out of religion. Stop listening to false prophets. Return to God and worshiping him in spirit and truth. Listen to God’s life-giving spoken word.

These messages are not received quietly or complacently by most religious people who are convinced in their minds and hearts that they are true worshipers and that they know God because they read the Bible, quote scripture and follow religious laws. Religious people will be offended by these messages and will consider the messengers to be heretics. Religious people will go so far as to consider that true prophets are their enemies because they want to tear down their religions. That is why true prophets are warriors who live in constant conflict with religious people.

True prophets teach people to use their spiritual eyes and ears — not their natural eyes and ears — to listen God with their hearts. This teaching insures that people do not become dependent on human teachers which is what false prophets do when they encourage people to keep coming back to them for instruction.

God is very particular about the qualifications of the messengers he chooses to teach his people about him. He wants to do the teaching himself, and he can do that only through people who have his laws written on their hearts. That is what the New Covenant is all about. Anyone who teaches otherwise is God’s enemy.

Because of generations of false teachings about these matters, religious people do not understand that there is a big difference between learning about God from human teachers and listening to God’s voice. Because they have not been taught to listen to his voice, they do not know that God’s spoken voice has definite, discernible qualities that are not commonly known or understood. Thus, they do not experience the spiritual life that only comes from the mouth of God.

Here are a few rules of thumb to consider when trying to discern if we have heard God’s voice or not:

GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR HEARING GOD’S VOICE:
		When people first hear God’s voice, it will be like a foreign language to them. They will not be able to understand what he is saying because they have hard hearts. They will only be able to hear and understand after they turn from their idolatry and stop listening to the voices of false prophets. When God says “hear the word of the Lord“, he is talking about hearing his spiritual voice — not listening to a human who claims to speak for God in verbal or written language. Hearing can come at any time in any location. Hearing God’s voice does not happen only in special buildings or places that are considered to be holy or sacred. Hearing will not come to people who are busy with religious activities, but does come to people who fast and rest from religion. God’s voice explains the meanings of  Biblical mysteries,  dark sayings, proverbs and riddles, figures of speech, enigmas and difficult problems, shadows, types and patterns, and symbols, signs and allegories. Only New Covenant disciples can reliably hear God’s voice because God’s speaks to their hearts with his spirit. Old/First Covenant religionists will hear one main message: Come out of religion and listen to God’s voice. God’s voice is discernible only to people who expect to see with their spiritual eyes and ears and do not expect to gain understanding through use of their natural, physical abilities (i.e. eyes, ears, intellect). God’s speaks only to people who do not listen to false prophets (i.e. Old/First Covenant religious leaders). God voice gives understanding to the mysteries of the literal Bible. It explains, and connects seemingly unrelated parts of the Bible that we do not understand because we cannot relate them to each other using our natural, intellectual minds. It explains the symbolic meaning of the literal words of the Bible. It explains the spiritual meanings of dark sayings, proverbs and riddles, figures of speech, words of the wise and riddles, dreams and visions, enigmas and difficult problems, shadows, types and patterns, and symbols, signs and allegories that we we cannot  interpret and understand with our natural, human minds. God’s voice spiritually connects the pieces of the incomprehensible Bible puzzle that we do not understand into comprehensible images that we do understand, and integrates them into the big picture of who God is and how he relates to his people. When God opens the eyes of New Covenant disciples to see how pieces of the Bible puzzle are connected, and explains their spiritual meaning, disciples experience an “aha” moment that causes them to tremble with awe in appreciation that God has revealed a spiritual mystery to them with his spiritual voice. God’s voice may not come all at once in a complete, fully formed, comprehensive revelation. It will more likely come in bits and pieces of smaller, incomplete revelations that make no intellectual sense until they are linked together as in the assembly of a puzzle. The linking occurs, however, only for people who diligently search for related links that will complete that portion of the puzzle. Only people who are like little children, full of questions, who ask God — not false prophets — to explain the spiritual meanings of scripture, may expect to hear his voice. God will reveal spiritual mysteries only to people who assume that God has planted mysteries in the Bible and expect that God will reveal the interpretations of those mysteries. God will reveal mysteries only to people who apply what they learn in their own lives. We will actually hear God’s voice before we recognize it as his voice. It will first be like a goad/prick to our heart that challenges our religious beliefs and practices. We will probably not understand or believe what we have heard when we first hear it because what God tells us about how to interpret scripture and religion is contrary to what we have been taught by religion. Our eyes are opened when we interpret scripture that we thought we understood in a totally new way. The literal words are still the same, but our spiritual understandings of those words are totally different.  God’s voice will be heard and understood by people who are humble enough to admit that the doctrines they believe and the religion they practice are not, or may not, be in perfect agreement with spiritual truth that comes from God’s voice. God’s voice will be heard and understood by people who are like little children who are not wise in their own eyes because they are proud of their intellectual understanding of the literal meanings of the Bible. God’s voice can be heard only by people who ask, seek and knock so they might understand the wisdom of God that is hidden in the mysteries. God’s word is his spoken word — not just words written in the Bible. The spirit of God’s voice will bring enlightenment on three basic issues: Convict religious people that they have practiced the sin of religion. It will convict people about their prideful self-righteousness, religious behaviors and beliefs. It will enable them to make judgements about the differences between religion and faith in their lives and in the lives of others.
WHAT GOD’S VOICE IS NOT LIKE:
		God’s voice is not heard in the human sense of hearing with natural ears. God’s voice is not heard in mere intellectual understanding of the literal, written words of the Bible. Anyone, even unbelievers, can understand the written words. It will not give prophetic messages about the future. It will not anticipate or interpret physical signs and wonders. It is not like the teachings of false prophets and pharisees. It is not like human wisdom and knowledge. It is not like listening to your own thoughts.
WHAT GOD’S VOICE IS LIKE:
		God’s voice is like a whisper of gentle wind, but also like wind, thunder and lightning. God’s voice is perceived like another language (i.e. tongue) that has not been heard before but is understood with the heart. It causes a trembling in the heart that is like an earthquake. It is like the sound of many waters and like the sound of harpists playing on their harps. God’s voice resonates as truth in our hearts (i.e. spirits) like thunder and enlightens our spirits like lightning flashes of truth that we cannot anticipate and can’t quite believe we have seen/heard because it happens so fast. God’s voice registers as understanding of truth in the heart. God’s voice registers in our heart as an “aha” moment in which the spiritual meanings of scripture are made clear. When we hear God’s voice explain scripture that we thought we knew in a new and different way, it inspires great awe and gratitude that he would disclose such truth to us. We sense that we have been blessed that God would reveal to us truth that is totally different from lies we previously believed. God’s voice comes to us when we are in a dream-like state when our heart is exclusively open to hearing him. God’s voice is more like a vision than words, God’s voice is like a whisper of one standing behind us telling us the way to walk (i.e. choose life instead of death). God’s voice is ephemeral. When it comes, it is more like an impression of truth than it is of actual words that can be organized into a thought or statement. It arouses a feeling of awe that words cannot describe but which is very real and tangible in the heart/spirit. God’s voice teaches us a totally new (i.e. spiritual) way of interpreting scripture. When we understand the spiritual meaning of scripture, will are humbled for the fact that our earlier understanding was so wrong. We will be humbled and ashamed for having listened to and believed false prophets who taught us out of the imaginations of their hearts as a way to earn an income that we financed. Since God’s word teachers us how to know the difference between good and evil, we will be very glad and very appreciative for every insight that leads us away from religion and toward God. God’s voice refreshes us like rain that makes us grow spiritually. God’s spoken voice has the quality of a spiritual revelation that shakes us so much that we become like a dead person unable to speak. We are at first unable to put what we have heard into human words with which we can report what we have heard to others. Hearing God’s voice is an awesome event. The first few times it happens, you know in your heart that you have heard it but still can’t quite accept that the one, true, living God has actually spoken to you. When hearing God’s voice becomes common, any doubt you had about whether you have heard God’s voice or not is replaced with an overwhelming sense of being blessed because Biblical references to “blessing” always refer to hearing God’s voice and following his commandments. Every time we hear his voice we will be inspired to disengage from Old/First Covenant religion in favor of becoming a New Covenant disciple. The more we hear God’s voice, the more we are inspired to study so that we can hear his voice more often and more clearly. The more we hear God’s voice the more we are inspired to share with others (i.e. teach) what we hear so that they might also learn how to hear God’s voice and receive salvation from the sin of religion. Hearing God’s voice inspires great thankfulness and appreciation for delivering us from bondage to religion. When we have heard God’s voice explain scripture to us, we are inspired to share and teach what we have heard with people who are still enslaved to religion. After we have heard God’s voice explain the symbolic meaning of scripture, we are highly motivated to study more with the expectation that he will speak new truths to our hearts again and again. Hearing God’s voice is a combination of tasting, seeing and hearing in our hearts that satisfies our need/desire to know that he exists and loves us. The words that come from God’s lips communicate his deep, sensual love for us when he shares the meanings of deep mysteries to us.

 

Of course these human words are inadequate attempts to explain totally spiritual events (i.e. hearing God’s voice). These human words are, nonetheless, useful guides to understanding when the event of hearing God’s voice has occurred.

STUDY TIP: Even though the Bible is full of dark sayings, proverbs and riddles, figures of speech, words of the wise and riddles, dreams and visions, enigmas, difficult problems, shadows, types and patterns, and symbols, signs and allegories, there are parts of the Bible that may be trusted literally.

Learning how to know which parts are to be taken symbolically and which parts are to be take literally is the big challenge for Bible students/disciples/learners. But it is not a challenge that is conquered by sheer will and human effort. Understanding is a gift from God.

It is impossible to instruct anyone about how to know which parts are to be taken symbolically and which are to be taken literally. Knowing, or not knowing, depends on God alone who gives us spiritual eyes to see what we read and spiritual ears to hear his voice tell us how to interpret what we read. This is the art of hearing God’s voice.

The main condition that prepares us to hear God’s voice is that we stop listening to the voices of false prophets. When God says “listen to my voice” and “hear the word of the lord” he doesn’t mean just listen, he also means listen to his voice and hear his spoken word exclusively. People who aspire to spiritual holiness would do well to regard these statements from God as commandments on a par with the Ten Commandments that make the way for seeing and hearing with spiritual eyes and ears.