God’s visits to Adam and Eve in the Garden, Enoch’s walks with God and the face-to-face conversations between Moses and Jehovah are all commonly regarded as highly exceptional moments in the religious history of humankind. Aside from their obviously unique historical role, however, they are not meant to be exceptional at all.

They are examples of the normal human life God intended for us: God’s indwelling his people through personal presence and fellowship. Given our basic nature, we live—really live—only through God’s regular speaking in our souls and thus “by every word that comes from of the mouth of God.”

With good reason we often hesitate to speak about experiences we regard as God’s speaking to us. It would be like those who think they have sighted a UFO or those who have had the much discussed near-death experiences soon learn to keep their mouths shut. We could be regarded as eccentric or even crazy.

Similar doubts and hesitations justifiably trouble those who feel they are spoken to by God. “Why is it,” comedian Lily Tomlin asks, “that when we speak to God we are said to be praying but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?”

As Christians we stand in a millennia-long tradition of humans who have been addressed by God. The ancient Israelites heard the voice of their God speaking to them out of the midst of fire (Deut 4:33). A regular place of communion and conversational interchange between the high priest and God was established in the mercy seat over the ark of God (Ex 25:22; see also Lk 1:11-21).

But the individual person with faith among the Israelites also cried out expectantly to be taught by God:

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path. (Ps 143:10)

Israel’s experience led the prophet Isaiah—who also had firsthand experience of conversing with God (Is 6)—to describe conditions of the faithful this way:

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. . . . The LORD will guide you continually. (Is 58:9, 11)

On the evening before his crucifixion, Jesus assured his little band of followers that although he was leaving them, he would continue to manifest himself to all who loved him. One follower asked, How would this manifesting take place? Jesus’ reply was that he and his Father would “come to them and make our home with them” (Jn 14:22-23).

The Spirit who inhabits us is not mute, restricting himself to an occasional nudge, a hot flash, a brilliant image or a case of goose bumps.

This abiding of the Son and the Father in the faithful heart involves conscious communication or conversation in a manner and a measure our Lord himself considers to be appropriate.

How could there be a personal relationship, a personal walk with God, or with anyone else, without individualized communication?

One-to-One with God

God walks and talks in our midst as part of how the kingdom of God is in our midst (Lk 17:21). We are to seek to interact with God in a relationship of listening and speaking.

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron 7:14,. If we humble ourselves and seek God, he will respond. Such interaction is part of our friendship with God.

Recognizing the Voice of God

The shepherd of the sheep, calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. John 10:2-4, 14, 27

To the individual believer, who is, by the very fact of relationship to Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, there is granted the direct impression of the Spirit of God on the Spirit of man, imparting the knowledge of his will in matters of the smallest and greatest importance.

When a word or thought comes to us, through others, the inner voice, some special experience, the Bible or circumstances, how do we know whether it is a word from God to us?

We can know that the word is from God if it corresponds with the plain statement or meaning of the Bible, construed in such a way that it is consistent with soundly interpreted biblical teaching.

We can all know at all times, for example, that God directs us not to worship an idol or be covetous.

Even a word-for-word quotation from the Bible can be put to a use that makes it only a message from the Dear Self or from Satan. The dangers of so-called proof texting, of taking biblical passages out of context to serve some preconceived purpose, are well-known.

Voice Recognition

It is a remarkable fact that sheep, all sorts of domesticated animals, and pets unerringly recognize the voice of their master.

Isaiah marvels that the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. (Is 1:3)

Jeremiah makes a similar complaint with reference to nondomesticated creatures:
Even the stork in the heavens knows its times; and the turtledove, swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming; but my people do not know the ordinance of the LORD. (Jer 8:7)

In contrast, the light that shines on every human being who comes into the world, according to John 1:9, vainly strikes the blinded eyes of fallen humanity. The word that has gone out to the very ends of the earth, according to Psalm 19:4, falls on deaf ears. But those who have been given the additional birth—the new birth through the redemptive message of Christ that has entered their lives—can learn by experience to hear God as he speaks, to recognize his word and confidently interact with it.

Knowing by Experience

The emphasis given in the opening of John’s first epistle to seeing, hearing and touching the Word of life is startling (1 Jn 1:1, 3). But it was in the presence of the visible, touchable Jesus that John learned to recognize when God was speaking.

John speaks to us from the authority of his experience, just as Abraham spoke to his eldest servant when sending him into an unknown land to find a wife for Isaac (Gen 24) and just as Eli did to little Samuel (1 Sam 3). We may mistakenly think that if God spoke to us we would automatically know who is speaking, without having to learn, but that is simply a mistake—and one of the most harmful mistakes for those trying to hear God’s voice. It leaves us totally at the mercy of any stray ideas we have picked up about what God’s speaking is like.

Perhaps our inability to recognize his voice right off is a result of our fallen and distorted condition. first we must be told that,

The ability to confidently distinguish and recognize his voice as his voice comes only with experience.

We should understand that it is in Satan’s best interest to make an inherent mystery of God’s word coming directly to the individual. In this way the power of God’s specific word for our lives can be hindered or even totally lost. (Micah 6:8). Such confusion allows evil impulses to move into the vacuum and sweep us away.

The Three Lights

God’s impressions within and his word without are always corroborated by his providence around, and we should quietly wait until those three focus into one point. If you do not know what you ought to do, stand still until you do. And when the time comes for action, circumstances, like glowworms, will sparkle along your path; and you will become so sure that you are right, when God’s three witnesses concur, that you could not be surer though an angel beckoned you on.

Many discussions about hearing God’s voice speak of three points of reference, also called “three lights,” that we can consult in determining what God wants us to do.

These are
• circumstances
• impressions of the Spirit
• passages from the Bible

When these three things point in the same direction, it is suggested, we may be sure the direction in which they point is the one God intends for us.

Frederick B. Meyer’s book The Secret of Guidance.

According to Meyer,

The circumstances of our daily life are to us an infallible indication of God’s will, when they concur with the inward promptings of the spirit and with the Word of God. So long as they are stationary, wait. When you must act, they will open, and a way will be made through oceans and rivers, wastes and rocks.

It is possible to understand this precious advice in such a way that it completely resolves any problem about hearing God’s voice. This will normally be the case for those who have already learned to recognize the inner voice of God.

For those who do not yet have a confident, working familiarity with this voice, however, trying to discern the three lights may speedily result in a swirl of confusion, leaving them hopelessly wrecked on spiritual misadventures. These lights can be especially dangerous and disappointing for those without a deep experience and commitment in the Way of Christ. Such people will almost certainly try to use them as a spiritual gimmick or quick fix.
the problem with using the three lights.

A large part of the practical problem in working with the three lights comes from the simple fact that they are interdependent. It is difficult or impossible to tell what the one is saying without already knowing what the others are saying.

it is commonly understood that the Holy Spirit works through the Scriptures to make them effective for guidance as well as redemption.

William Law:

Without the present illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God must remain a dead letter to every man, no matter how intelligent or well-educated he may be. It is just as essential for the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of Scripture to the reader today as it was necessary for Him to inspire the writers thereof in their day.

The biblical test of a spiritual impulse weighs the impulse by whether or not it confesses Jesus as Lord (1 Cor 12:3) or as Son of God (1 Jn 4:2-3); yet this test is not very helpful in practice when we are, for example, trying to decide whom to marry or which job to take.

The mere open or closed doors of circumstances cannot function independently of the other two lights or of some additional factor; for one does not know merely by looking at these doors who is opening or closing them, God, Satan or another human being. Indeed, one often cannot tell whether they are open or closed until after one has acted.

It is not, therefore, practically possible to use the criteria of openness or closedness by themselves to determine what to do. Scripture and inner promptings must be brought into consideration to determine whether doors are open or closed.

It is simply not true that we can get a reading of what circumstances say, a separate reading of what the Bible says and yet another separate reading of what the Spirit says.

Consequently, we cannot strengthen our reading of God’s will from one of these sources just by mechanically checking it against the other sources,

All who have much experience in the Way of Christ, will know that it is somehow right, when trying to hear what God is saying to an individual, to look to circumstances, the Bible and inner impulses of the Spirit.

How are we to understand the role they play in hearing God’s voice?

First, a life lived by listening to God speaking is not one that excludes our own judgment. Listening to God does not make our own decision-making process unnecessary. We ourselves, as well as others who come under the influence of God’s voice, are still the ones who make the decisions.

The three lights are simply the factors that we must consider in the process of making a responsible judgment and decision about what we are to do.

Second, while neither one light taken individually nor all of them taken together simply give us God’s word, each or all together may be and usually are the occasion of God’s directive word coming to us.

The voice of God is not itself any one of the three lights nor is it all of them together. But the inner teaching of which John speaks in his first epistle—the voice or word of God coming to individuals, as repeatedly displayed in biblical events—usually comes to us in conjunction with

• responsible study and meditation on the Bible

• experience of the various kinds of movements of the Spirit in our heart

• intelligent alertness to the circumstances that befall us

Although there are exceptions to the rule, God’s directive voice does not usually come to us out of the blue. This point is important to us practically. It enables us to do specific, concrete things that will help us as we seek to know the will of God.

Factors in the Voice

To say that we learn to recognize the voice of God by experience is not all that we can or must say. Certain factors distinguish the voice of God, just as any human voice can be distinguished from another.

What are the factors of God’s voice that enable us to recognize it as his?

How we can distinguish the voice of God from the voice of our own subconscious,

E. Stanley Jones says,

Perhaps the rough distinction is this: The voice of the subconscious argues with you, tries to convince you; but the inner voice of God does not argue, does not try to convince you. It just speaks, and it is self-authenticating. It has the feel of the voice of God within it.

When Jesus spoke, his words had a weight of authority that opened up the understanding of his hearers and created faith in them: “for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt 7:29).

The word of God, on the other hand, comes with a serene weight of authority in the word itself. People left the presence of Jesus with heads and hearts full of thoughts and convictions that he had authored in them through the power of God’s voice and word with which he spoke.

The voice of God speaking in our souls also bears within itself a characteristic spirit. It is a spirit of exalted peacefulness and confidence, of joy, of sweet reasonableness and of goodwill.

There is a content that marks the voice of God. The content of a word that is truly from God will always conform to and be consistent with the truths about God’s nature and kingdom that are made clear in the Bible. Any content or claim that does not conform to biblical content is not a word from God.

God’s Voice will never tell us to engage in any activity or relationship that is inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures.

In order to qualify as the voice of God, a thought, perception or other experience must conform to the principles—the fundamental truths—of Scripture.

You must distinguish between the peripheral messages of Scripture and the essential messages. Keep to the principles in interpreting the voice of God. For example, in 1 Corinthians 11, we find women being advised not to have short hair and men being informed that on them long hair is shameful.
Principles of Scripture are to be identified most of all from the actions, spirit and explicit statements of Jesus himself.
Something should also be said on the negative side about the content of voices. Any voice that promises total exemption from suffering and failure is most certainly not God’s voice.