Hath God said...?

“Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” Genesis 3:1

Now, I think the fact that she was talking to a snake should have clued her in. Needless to say, it didn’t. I say that because in the end, Eve believed the talking snake over Almighty God. Just because we get a strong impression about something and just because we hear some kind of voice, doesn’t mean that God is talking to us.

I don’t think that anyone could accuse me of being overly charismatic. In fact, I’m still hoping for some more impressive extraordinary spiritual gifts so that the Pentecostal’s will finally believe that I’ve been baptized in the Spirit. When I say that one of our primary tasks is to be led by the Holy Spirit, it’s isn’t freaky theology. It’s only freaky if He doesn’t live in you.

Tell me if I’m way out there, but if Satan spoke to Eve and if Satan spoke to Jesus Himself, would it be out of line for me to assume that he might still whisper in our ears from time to time? Is it possible that the Greyhound bus guy really wasn’t listening to Jesus?

I knew a little girl once who had this ‘voice’ plague her for some time. This ‘voice’ kept telling her that she had committed the unpardonable sin of cursing the Holy Spirit. She kept praying with her mom and dad for several nights. After several days and nights of prayer, she had the sense that God wanted her to be baptized in the name of The Father, in the name of Jesus the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit.

After being baptised, the message of the voice changed. It began saying, “You aren’t good enough. You didn’t really mean it. God can’t forgive you.” Her parents kept praying for and with her through this period, and in time she addressed each accusation. After a couple of weeks, having failed in its attempt, the message of the ‘voice’ changed once more,

“Tonight you will die. You won’t make it through the night.”

The little girl is still alive today. So this voice which had plagued her was proven to be a lying voice.

I don’t have any solid scripture, but to the best of my understanding, the serpent is not all present, all powerful or all knowing. I could likely develop a case for each, but it would take me too much time. More often than not, I believe that Satan sends his agents to accuse us in our minds.

You might never have a young child who goes through the same thing as this little girl, but how do you suppose her parents dealt with her ‘voice’? How did Jesus answer Satan when He was tempted in the wilderness? What was the Devil’s strategy with Eve?

‘Did God really say....?’

There are so many cases in North America where horrible things have been done by people who claim that they were told to do them by God.

I have had many impressions that sounded like they might have been from God, only to find out in the end that they were some pale imitation. In Genesis, we are told that “the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made”. Genes1s 3:1

He tends to build a convincing case. Do you ALWAYS know the difference?