The first concern that Christians need to have is that we are seeking Jesus Christ and trying to do what He asks. That is why the foremost command in the Bible is "Hear O, Israel".
Because His Holy Spirit is not the only spirit, there is another concern which comes up and that is that we don't start following an evil spirit.
Now, what we don't want is that the second concern keeps up from our primary objective of following Jesus Christ. And so we should be aware that the purpose of the enemy is to obstruct us from our primary objective of seeking Jesus Christ and trying to do what He asks!
This is why the first words from that old snake in the Bible are, "Did God really say"! Those words are specifically designed to get us to doubt that we are indeed hearing from the Lord. It wasn't that Eve did not hear from the Lord, or even believed that she had heard from the Lord, but that if the snake could get her to doubt that she did hear from Him, or doubt that God loved her and meant the best for her, then Eve might then switch from following the words the Lord had spoken to her to listening to what he (that old snake) was telling her. And that snake of old was successful in ruining the trust that Eve had in the Lord.
So it is that trust in the Lord - that we can hear from Him and that He means the best for us - that Satan has always tried to ruin in us. And this is why God said that whoever believes in the Lord our God, Jesus Christ, shall be saved. The word believes in the following verse mean a belief that involves putting our trust in Him!
Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Now one of the cleaver tricks that old snake uses it to get out to doubt that we hear from the Lord is to get us to depend on what God said to others instead of listening and trusting Him ourselves. That is to say that Satan wants us to start leaning on the writings of the past instead of listening in the present.
This is the trick He first tried to use on Jesus Christ Himself, in the desert. Satan tempted Jesus by saying, 'Make bread out of the stones in the desert'.
Mat 4:3 During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Moses had brought stones down in the desert with the Law written on them. But we don't live by leaning on our understanding of what is right according to the Law, but we are to seek the living Word of God for instructions. So Jesus answered:
Mat 4:4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”
So even the Sacred Writings, tell us that we are to listen for every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and not even on our understanding of the Writings (the Scriptures)!
So a question we tend to have is in regards to if I seek our Lord Jesus Christ and what He has to say to us, will I actually be able to hear from Him, or will I get that old snake instead? Jesus addressed this issue, did He not?
Luke 11:11 “Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
The early Christians drew an image of a fish to represent Jesus Christ, so they understood the meaning of the above saying. If we ask the Father for Jesus Christ and a word from Him, we are not going to get that snake of old, are we?
It is also written that all those who seek find!
Mat 7:7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Now that certainly works of you believe and trust in Him, but what if you don't. There is also some other things written:
Prov 1:24 “Because I called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
Prov 1:25 And you neglected all my counsel
And did not want my reproof;
...
Prov 1:28“ Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,
Prov 1:29 Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the LORD.
Prov 1:30 “They would not accept my counsel,
They spurned all my reproof.
So if you refuse the Lord over and over and over and over, and are unwilling to accept His counsel and spurn His reproof, then a day will come when you need Him but He will be unwilling to be found by you.
So there is a day to put your trust and belief in Him, and that day is Today.
Heb 3:7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
And in regards to testing the spirits, it is still a wise thing to do, so how are we to test the spirits?
1 Jn 4:1-3 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
So if you suddenly hear a spirit talking to you, are you not able to have it confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? You can hear with your spiritual ears, right?
If you do not hear very well with your spiritual ears I would suggest you practice using your spiritual senses more.
Heb 5:11 Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Heb 5:13,14 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
There is a basic understanding in the writings, and it makes sense that a new Christians would need to read the Bible. The first words I heard from Him were "Read Your Bible". Yet He was not the Bible but the One who told me "Read Your Bible". So we read:
Is 28:9,10 “To whom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
“For He says,
‘Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’”
So we need to start with the basics of reading the orderly line in the Bible a little here and there till we get through it. And we find out that He also continues to talk about it, but not just it. For life is made up of so very much more than just what is written in the Bible.
He once told me, "Karl, can 1500 pages tell you all that need to teach you?" and another time He told me, "Karl, I can be contained in a box, not even a Bible box."
So we have to progress into a personal relationship with Him, and not try to keep Him in a Bible box!
We have to start listening to Him. Failure to do that will result in the following:
We have to start listening to Him. Failure to do that will result in the following:
Is 28:12, 13 He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,”
And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.
So the word of the LORD to them will be,
“[Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there,”
That they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.
So a new believer needs to read the Bible to get a basic understanding, but that understanding from the Bible should have been that we need to seek Jesus Christ, get to know Him, and that by hearing what He has to say to us. If we still reject actually hearing from Him, then those same orderly lines we read a little here and there will become the very thing that causes us to go stumbling backward, be broken, snared and taken captive - because you did not listen!! And instead you scoffed at the idea the He was there to speak to you!!
Is 28:22,23 And now do not carry on as scoffers,
Or your fetters will be made stronger;
For I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts
Of decisive destruction on all the earth.
Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my words.
So seek the voice of the Lord and listen to Him. Test the spirits, but don't let the fact that evil spirits are around stop you from seeking Him and listening to Him!!
Because His Holy Spirit is not the only spirit, there is another concern which comes up and that is that we don't start following an evil spirit.
Now, what we don't want is that the second concern keeps up from our primary objective of following Jesus Christ. And so we should be aware that the purpose of the enemy is to obstruct us from our primary objective of seeking Jesus Christ and trying to do what He asks!
This is why the first words from that old snake in the Bible are, "Did God really say"! Those words are specifically designed to get us to doubt that we are indeed hearing from the Lord. It wasn't that Eve did not hear from the Lord, or even believed that she had heard from the Lord, but that if the snake could get her to doubt that she did hear from Him, or doubt that God loved her and meant the best for her, then Eve might then switch from following the words the Lord had spoken to her to listening to what he (that old snake) was telling her. And that snake of old was successful in ruining the trust that Eve had in the Lord.
So it is that trust in the Lord - that we can hear from Him and that He means the best for us - that Satan has always tried to ruin in us. And this is why God said that whoever believes in the Lord our God, Jesus Christ, shall be saved. The word believes in the following verse mean a belief that involves putting our trust in Him!
Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Now one of the cleaver tricks that old snake uses it to get out to doubt that we hear from the Lord is to get us to depend on what God said to others instead of listening and trusting Him ourselves. That is to say that Satan wants us to start leaning on the writings of the past instead of listening in the present.
This is the trick He first tried to use on Jesus Christ Himself, in the desert. Satan tempted Jesus by saying, 'Make bread out of the stones in the desert'.
Mat 4:3 During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Moses had brought stones down in the desert with the Law written on them. But we don't live by leaning on our understanding of what is right according to the Law, but we are to seek the living Word of God for instructions. So Jesus answered:
Mat 4:4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”
So even the Sacred Writings, tell us that we are to listen for every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and not even on our understanding of the Writings (the Scriptures)!
So a question we tend to have is in regards to if I seek our Lord Jesus Christ and what He has to say to us, will I actually be able to hear from Him, or will I get that old snake instead? Jesus addressed this issue, did He not?
Luke 11:11 “Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?
The early Christians drew an image of a fish to represent Jesus Christ, so they understood the meaning of the above saying. If we ask the Father for Jesus Christ and a word from Him, we are not going to get that snake of old, are we?
It is also written that all those who seek find!
Mat 7:7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Now that certainly works of you believe and trust in Him, but what if you don't. There is also some other things written:
Prov 1:24 “Because I called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
Prov 1:25 And you neglected all my counsel
And did not want my reproof;
...
Prov 1:28“ Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,
Prov 1:29 Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the LORD.
Prov 1:30 “They would not accept my counsel,
They spurned all my reproof.
So if you refuse the Lord over and over and over and over, and are unwilling to accept His counsel and spurn His reproof, then a day will come when you need Him but He will be unwilling to be found by you.
So there is a day to put your trust and belief in Him, and that day is Today.
Heb 3:7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
And in regards to testing the spirits, it is still a wise thing to do, so how are we to test the spirits?
1 Jn 4:1-3 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
So if you suddenly hear a spirit talking to you, are you not able to have it confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? You can hear with your spiritual ears, right?
If you do not hear very well with your spiritual ears I would suggest you practice using your spiritual senses more.
Heb 5:11 Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Heb 5:13,14 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
There is a basic understanding in the writings, and it makes sense that a new Christians would need to read the Bible. The first words I heard from Him were "Read Your Bible". Yet He was not the Bible but the One who told me "Read Your Bible". So we read:
Is 28:9,10 “To whom would He teach knowledge,
And to whom would He interpret the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just taken from the breast?
“For He says,
‘Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.’”
So we need to start with the basics of reading the orderly line in the Bible a little here and there till we get through it. And we find out that He also continues to talk about it, but not just it. For life is made up of so very much more than just what is written in the Bible.
He once told me, "Karl, can 1500 pages tell you all that need to teach you?" and another time He told me, "Karl, I can be contained in a box, not even a Bible box."
So we have to progress into a personal relationship with Him, and not try to keep Him in a Bible box!
We have to start listening to Him. Failure to do that will result in the following:
We have to start listening to Him. Failure to do that will result in the following:
Is 28:12, 13 He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,”
And, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.
So the word of the LORD to them will be,
“[Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there,”
That they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive.
So a new believer needs to read the Bible to get a basic understanding, but that understanding from the Bible should have been that we need to seek Jesus Christ, get to know Him, and that by hearing what He has to say to us. If we still reject actually hearing from Him, then those same orderly lines we read a little here and there will become the very thing that causes us to go stumbling backward, be broken, snared and taken captive - because you did not listen!! And instead you scoffed at the idea the He was there to speak to you!!
Is 28:22,23 And now do not carry on as scoffers,
Or your fetters will be made stronger;
For I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts
Of decisive destruction on all the earth.
Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my words.
So seek the voice of the Lord and listen to Him. Test the spirits, but don't let the fact that evil spirits are around stop you from seeking Him and listening to Him!!
