FAITH COMES BY HEARING
Anyone who professes to have faith in God must hear God’s voice. People who say they have faith and trust God, or Jesus, but do not hear God’s voice are deceived hypocrites. Consider these scriptures:
Romans 10:17 17So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of christ.
COMMENTARY: The first thing to notice here is that faith comes by hearing the words of christ. It does not say hear the words of Jesus. Jesus was a messiah, which means he was a christ (i.e. anointed one.) Readers will notice that christ is not capitalized in this commentary. The reason that it is not capitalized is that christ is an adjective — not a proper name.
Furthermore, Jesus was only one example of a messiah/christ. All true prophets past and present are messiahs because they are anointed by God and sent by God to speak for him. This is why it can be said of Jesus that he spoke God’s words — not his own words. Considering these truths about what it means to be a christ, this verse could be rightly translated this way:
Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of God spoken by true prophets.
Galatians 3:2This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
COMMENTARY: This is a rhetorical question for which the answer is obvious: The spirit of God is not given to people who obey religious laws. The spirit of God is only given to people who hear God’s spoken voice.
Galatians 3:5So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
COMMENTARY: This is another rhetorical question with an obvious answer: God does not give his spirit and the miracle of faith (i.e. a transformed heart) to people who obey religious laws. See this link for understanding of miracles.
Colossians 3:16Let the word of christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
The essential qualification for being a New Covenant disciple is the ability the hear God’s spoken voice. Religion teaches nothing about how to do this because religion is based on religious rules taught by men. Religion, therefore, is passed on by the teaching and writing of men who speak and write fleshly — not Godly — wisdom with human words that come out of the stubborn imaginations of their evil hearts.
If religious leaders actually knew how to hear God’s spoken voice, they would not teach others how to listen to God’s voice themselves because, if people knew how to hear God’s voice, they would leave religion and listen to God’s voice directly instead of listening to false prophets.
God’s 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.
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.
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.
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 is not heard in mere intellectual understanding of the literal, written words of the Bible, or in interpretations or paraphrases of the literal Bible spoken by religious leaders/teachers. Note: Anyone, even an unbeliever, can understand the written words of the Bible and give logical, believable interpretations of them.
It will not give so-called “prophetic” messages about personal or global events that will happen in the future.
It does not speak generic, “feel good” messages that could apply to anyone at anytime.
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.
Since God’s word teaches us how to know the difference between good and evil, we will be very glad and very thankful for every insight that leads us away from religion and toward God.
Hearing God’s voice is an awesome event. It lifts up the heart in a way that nothing else can do. 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.
Hearing God’s voice is a combination of knowing, tasting, seeing and hearing in our hearts that satisfies our need/desire to know that he exists and loves us.
Our hearts are lifted up (i.e. raptured) with excitement over the fact that we have actually heard God’s voice.
Religious people who do not expect to hear God’s voice will experience fire (i.e. anger) in their hearts when God challenges their religious beliefs and practices.
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.
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.
STUDY TIP: See the following links for for more benefits/rewards of hearing God’s voice.
This is only a short list the rewards of hearing God’s voice. It is impossible to explain spiritual events (i.e. hearing God’s voice) with human words. Nevertheless, human words are useful guides to understanding when the event of hearing God’s voice has occurred.
In the New Testament, the response to hearing God’s voice is described as being “caught up” and “taken up” into heaven. These terms are commonly associated with an imagined, future event that some Christians call the rapture. Christians who indulge themselves with speculations about the timing of the rapture wrongly think is a future event that happens after they physically die. They do not understand that scriptures about being caught up/taken up are only another way of describing the response to hearing God’s voice, and that it is a here and now event for people who have eyes to see and ears to hear God’s voice. People who have heard God’s voice, however, understand that going to heaven and the rapture are not future events but are events that can be experienced today.
STUDY TIP: See The Rapture for other descriptions of what it is like to hear God’s voice. See The Kingdom of God/heaven for understanding of these spiritual concepts.