That's NOT How God Speaks: Exposing Whisper Theology With Jim Osman

They say, “God spoke to me.” They say they “heard His voice.” But is the God of the Bible whispering personal messages today? Jim Osman joins me to dismantle the modern obsession with subjective revelation and show from Scripture that God speaks clearly through His Word — not through whispers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Long for Truth podcast. I'm Robin Long.
Join my husband Dan and I as we explore the
roots of the early Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, and we
shine a light on false doctrines and false teachers in
the modern church. Let's get started.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
If God wants us to hear him, why does he whisper?
Why doesn't he shout?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Why doesn't he speak loud and powerful, spectacular ways.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I'll tell you why. God whispers because he's close.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
God's preferred method of communication to us is through the whisper,
through a still small voice.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Think about it.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
We only whisper to people that we have a relationship with.

Speaker 6 (01:00):
I have learned that God rarely yells. In fact, I
don't think my entire life God has ever yelled at me.
But God whispers to me all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
God does not whisper because he does not have good
vocal abilities. He whispers because he's close.

Speaker 7 (01:28):
I have prayed for God to speak to me, but
I don't hear him. My faith is strong and I
know he will do for me as the Bible promises,
but I have never heard him say, go buy this
gallon of milk. Don't buy this car, wait for what
I have for you? Am I not listening in the
right way? Or is he guiding my everyday decisions? But

(01:49):
I don't realize he's speaking. How do I hear God's voice? Indeed,
God is still speaking, and He's interested in all these
things that you name, buying me, waiting up about the car,
and so forth. So are you asking if God speaks specifically,
And the answer is yes, he does. Let me give
you two or three examples. Speaking about buying groceries. On

(02:12):
a particular day, I had a very short period of time,
and so I wanted to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving.
My time was really running out. I thought, well, I
shouldn't do this now, I said, God, just show me
what to do. It's like God said, go to this
store by the turkey. Now, against some of my will,
I went. I walked right in, straight to the right place,

(02:33):
the right pound of turkey, walked right out, paid it,
got back in the car in less than about twenty
five minutes. Did God tell me to go?

Speaker 8 (02:41):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
He did.

Speaker 9 (02:42):
Hello, everyone, welcome along for truth. My name is Daniel
long Well. Folks. A topic we're going to be looking
at today or talking about today is one that's deeply,
deeply personal to me and one that I often talk
about here on this channel. And my topic is hearing
the voice of God. Does God still speak today? And

(03:06):
if He does still speak today, can we actually hear
his voice? I mean, like directly, does he directly speak
to us from heaven? Now, many of you who have
followed this channel for a while already know my story.
I nearly lost my family because I thought God was

(03:26):
speaking to me. I thought he told me to do
something that, as I later came to realize, he never
said at all. If you haven't seen that video, I'll
share it down in the YouTube description so you can
watch that for yourself. But today we're going to look
closely at the many different ways that Christians are taught

(03:50):
God speaks, things like the still small voice, or that
voice that jumps out of the pages of Scripture right
at you, or putting out a fleece like Gideon did,
or following those inner promptings or leadings. We're gonna test
these ideas and see how they hold up to Scripture. Now,

(04:13):
the single best resource I've found on this subject is
this book right here, God Doesn't Whisper by Jim Osman.
Most of you know who Jim Osman is if you
watch this channel, but most of the questions you might
have about hearing God's voice are thoroughly answered in this book.

(04:35):
And speaking of Jim Osman, I've actually invited Jim Osman
on to join us today to talk about this very
important topic. Jim is the author of Truth or Territory,
a Biblical approach to spiritual warfare, selling the stereoway to Heaven,
the Prosperity of the Wicked, a study of Psalm seventy three,

(04:57):
God Doesn't Whisper, which is the topic and the book
that we're going to be discussing today, and his latest one,
God Doesn't Try. That he co wrote with the elder
of his church, Dave Rich, and he's also the pastor
of and let me know if I'm saying this right,

(05:17):
Cootney Community Church.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, time out of the gate?

Speaker 9 (05:22):
All right, all right? How about that Coutney Community Church
in Cootney, Idaho. Jim, it is just an honor, I
mean a real honor to have you on today. Thanks,
thanks for taking time and coming on.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Well, thank you, Daniel. I appreciate being here, and it's
an honor for me to be here.

Speaker 9 (05:39):
Oh thanks much. Why don't you tell us just a
little bit about yourself. What are you doing right now
and do you have any writing projects in the works.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, right now. I pastor a small church in rural
North Idaho up by the US Canadian border, and have
been doing that since nineteen ninety six. It's actually the
church that was instrumental in my salvation when I was
a teenager, and now I pastor that and been doing
that for almost thirty years now. Currently I'm preaching through
Second Peter chapter one, going through the entire book a
Second Peter. I do have three different writing projects in

(06:15):
process right now. I'm currently editing heavy editing a book
I'm writing called the working title is The Blessing of
Discipline study of Hebrews twelve about the role of discipline
and the life of a believer. Also doing some study
research and outlining and prepping as I'm starting to write
a book on the modern deliverance ministry, all the demon slayers, exorcisms,

(06:37):
things of that nature. And then I've got done some
study and am doing the planning for a book called
The Prosperity of the Righteous, a study of Psal thirty
seven so that's kind of what I'm working on right now.

Speaker 9 (06:50):
You also have a YouTube channel that I didn't realize
your church as a YouTube channel.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yes, the weekly sermons are uploaded there after they after
Sunday morning.

Speaker 9 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah, well you also I want to I want
to point folks to not just not just a book.
I'm going to do that, but I also want to
point them to your AG TV series, because your American
Gospel Television series. I went through the whole thing there too,
and it's just so well done and it's not as
extensive as the book. You're going to get more, uh,

(07:24):
you're gonna get more of a book than you are
with the TV series, but that just to get a
kind of a basic overview. That's something else that I'll
put a link to down in the description, But I
want to point folks to that too, because that's going
to be extremely helpful as well. What was it that
motivated you to write hearing the voice of I'm sorry,

(07:47):
God doesn't whisp hearing? I'm thinking hvg, he HVG. We'll
get to that in a second, But what what motivated
you to write God doesn't whisper?

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well? This started out. It's just an interesting story this
started out. It had intended this to be my first book.
Back when I first started pastoring, I had just kind
of had a transition in my own life and of
my own thinking about hearing the Voice of God, decision
making and the Will of God. Great Cocal Materials Decision
Making in the Will of God was instrumental in that.

(08:20):
Gary Friesen's book Decision Making the Will of God was
part of that. I had sort of assumed, going through
Bible College, that every Christian should hear the voice of God,
and that this is how God leads us and speaks
to us, and I had bought into all of that.
Shortly after I became a pastor, I started to question
all of that. I got a hold I don't remember
exactly what the order of events was, but somehow I

(08:42):
got a hold of Great Cocals Materials and Gary Freesing's
materials and went through that, and that entirely changed my
paradigm and my understanding. So I wrote a series of articles,
sixteen articles in our church newsletter where I kind of
fleshed out a little bit about my change of thinking.
And the problem was some of this methodology. It was
pretty it was pretty bad. It didn't have a lot
of quotations. It was nothing like the book God Does

(09:03):
a Whisper, pretty bare, not a lot of quotations from HBG,
and that's hearing the voice of God. That's my shorthand
for that. Not a lot of quotations from HBG teachers.
And those articles became one of the most commonly downloaded
sets of articles on our church website. So I knew
that there was a hunger for that, and I decided
to write a book and wanted to take those articles

(09:24):
and just make them into chapters. So I started to
do the work, but realized that I needed to go
back and really read their materials and really do a
deep dive into this way of thinking. So I bought
on my shelf, I mean a shelf full of books
on that thinking written by those authors, and I spent
two years reading through those books, highlighting, taking notes, pulling

(09:48):
it apart, looking at their scripture citations, putting all their
teachings into different categories, and really thinking through what they
were arguing and how they were making the case. And
then I set out to write this book. So this
became the fourth book because I sort of put this
writing project off, so I could finish the book on
spiritual warfare and the heaven visitations and prosperity of the Wicked,

(10:08):
and then I picked this book up. So I'm glad
I did. I'm glad I took the time to kind
of go back and really do a deep dive and
not just take the superficial articles that I had written
and make a book out of it. This book is
the most thorough treatment of this subject and refutation of
this theology that I could make it. I don't think
I left anything out of it. I tried not to.

(10:29):
I tried to really attack it from every angle. One
of the criticisms that the book has received online is
that it's too repetitive. Well, it is because their teaching
is very repetitive, so kind of knocking over the same
horse from twenty different angles.

Speaker 9 (10:42):
Jim, quick question for you. This leaks into Baptist churches,
Methodist churches, all over the evangelicalism. It's not just in
Pentecostal or charismatic churches, is it.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
No, it's not. In fact, when I sat down to
write the book, I kind of realized, and I shared
with my wife, there's a spectrum there that I could
be dealing with that is quite large. It's everything from
on one extreme sort of your New Apostolic Reformation Pentecostal charismaticism,

(11:20):
you know, the open but cautious non cessationist, all the
way through to the Baptist little lady in the Baptist
pep who thinks God's going to tell her where to
go to lunch after the church on Sundays. There's a
massive spectrum there. And I aimed the book to really
address not the abuses of the New Apostolic Reformation charismaticism,

(11:40):
but the person who would be sitting next to us
in church who would say, yeah, Jim, I agree with
you that all those charismatics and the nar all that
is just wacky nonsense. But the Lord spoke to me
and told me go to X, Y and Z. I
wanted to address that person, to show them that you
have adopted a charismatic theology, you have adopted a continuationist

(12:04):
theology of believing that God is still speaking, and you
have and in adopting that, you're only different from the
New Apostolic Reformation person in terms of the the degree,
not of the substance of your theology. And you have
you have adopted their theology. You just haven't applied it

(12:24):
the way that they have applied it, or stretched it
out the way that they've stretched it out. So that's
I was really going for a narrow niche of evangelicalism,
sort of the cessatianist in theology quote unquote, but yet
continuationist in practice.

Speaker 9 (12:40):
This topic is very important to me because I thought
I was hearing the voice of God outside of scripture,
and I ended up leaving my family to go into
a ministry that God never called me into.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah there's yeah, there's a there's a lady. There's a
lady in ano our congregation, our community that she left
her husband and went out ran off with another man
because she was convinced that God had told her that's
what she needed to do. Yeah, that's just that type
of nonsense is only one of the ways in which
the bad fruit of this movement manifests itself, probably one

(13:19):
of the most common ways that you see all the
time as the Holy Spirit gets blamed for all kinds
of stupid decisions and bad thinking because they say, people
say God told me to do this, or I felt
the Lord of leading me to this, or God was
whispering this, and they start a ministry or make a
decision and do something, and turns out it was horrible, foolish,
it was ignorant, it didn't work out, and God didn't

(13:40):
bless it. And then guess who takes the blame for that.
Never the person who thinks they're hearing from God, but
always the spirit of God. He's the one who takes
the blame for it. So that's one of the bad fruits.
Another one is people just getting starting to question whether
or not they're really truly Christians believers, because people are
told that if you're one of His sheep, you'll hear
his voice, you're.

Speaker 8 (14:00):
Believer in Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian, you should
be hearing the voice of God. And if you're not
hearing the voice of God, I want that to be
of concern to you. Hearing God is proof that Jesus
is the Lord of our lives. Is if we have
made Jesus lord of our lives, we need to be
hearing Him for the sake of him guiding us. Making
Jesus lord of your life is saying God, I'm not

(14:22):
in control of my life anymore. You are. I'm giving
you control of my life. In other words, I'm not
going to be the king sitting on the throne of
my heart. I'm asking you from now on to be
the king sitting on the throne of my heart in
other words, And you're going to tell me what to do. Well,
you have to hear God.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Well, I never hear the audible voice of God. I
never know what to listen to. I can't really hear
him speaking to me and leading me, like you know,
Priscilla Trier claims, So maybe I'm not a Christian after all.
And people get discouraged. They live under the oppressive burden
of this paradigm for knowing the voice of God, and
it can be very taxing on christ and is unnecessarily oppressive.

Speaker 9 (15:03):
I want to play a clip here for you from
Priscilla Schreyer and she's on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and
she's talking about the importance of hearing God's voice.

Speaker 10 (15:18):
The voice of God. Today we're going to unpack that.
So why is this subject matter something that is really important?

Speaker 11 (15:28):
It is important because this facet of our faith is
what separates our faith from every other so called faith
on the face of the earth. Okay, that our God lives,
he's alive, and he speaks to us. We have an
actual relationship with him. And that's so casually thrown around
this whole relationship thing. But what good is any relationship
if nobody's talking to each other, if there's no communication,

(15:50):
if there's not a connectedness that is ongoing and continual.
So this issue of discerning the voice of God, first
of all, believing that he does speak, but second of
all trusting in the fact that as as kids, we
have the privilege to actually discern and have a distinction
of his voice between all the other voices that also
want to get a word in. Edge Wise, that's something
that really can change and transform the trajectory of your

(16:12):
entire Christian experience.

Speaker 9 (16:13):
So rather than scripture transforming you, it's hearing the voice
of God externally outside of scripture that's going to change you.
But I'm going to say something here, but I want
to get your response to that.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, they notice what she says that the assumption is
that if you're not hearing from God outside scripture, that
there's no communication at all between you and God. She
likens that to the relationship she has with her husband.
I assume that's who's sitting right next to her there
that they're having a conversation back and forth. That's a
back and forth conversation. Is the essence of relationship, Well,
that's not necessarily the essence of the relationship with God

(16:51):
in us, a real time personal conversation where we're hearing
Him outside of the scripture whispering into our ears. Her
assumption is that if all I have is the Word
of God and I read Scripture and I pray to God,
that that's not a relationship, that is a that's a
horrible blaspheme of God. What does that say about her
view of the Word of God? And in her view
the word of God me reading you know, the Book

(17:14):
of Ephesians and hearing what God says about me being
in Christ in the first three chapters of Ephesians and
my responsibility to walk in a manner worthy of that
in the last half of Ephesians, that I read that book,
that that's not hearing from God. And I would say
that is completely is completely wrong. You are hearing from
God when you read scripture, you are hearing the voice
of God. You're hearing what God has spoken to his church.

(17:36):
He spoke that to those people back then, and when
I read it, he is speaking that to me today.
I don't need God to tell me, you know, which
contractor to hire, which babysitter to hire, or what color
to paint my house, or what college to attend. I
don't need personal and private whispers. He gives me his
revelation in his word, and I read his word and
I hear his voice. But not for Priscilla Sryer. Her

(17:57):
whole theology of hearing from God is based upon the
assumption that scripture is not the voice of God, and
that is not God speaking to us unless it comes
alive in some mystical gnostic sense.

Speaker 9 (18:10):
Yeah. Yeah, and this is gnosticism, by the way, this
is this is very much this is very very gnostic.
And what I was gonna I was gonna mention after
listening to that clip, and and I've got another clip
of her too where she specifically talks about scripture. But
this really does these teachers would say that they believe
that scripture is sufficient. But I really do believe that

(18:32):
these these teachers undermine the sufficiency of scripture. They they
they they do not see scripture as sufficient. Listening to
your interview with Tanya, and I keep forgetting her last name,
but uh, Tanya Harris, there's you asked her a question

(18:54):
on there. What was it you asked her? If you
didn't have any didn't hear the voice of God at all?
You didn't have any revelations, private revelations, anything like that?
Would scripture be okay? Would it be sufficient for you?
Would you would you? Would you be? Would it be
sufficient for you to live a you know, to live
a godly life, to to disciple others, to to you know,

(19:16):
that sort of thing. She did not answer that question.
She just went round and round. And so when I
when I look at people like uh, you know, Priscilla
Schreier and Mark Patterson and even guys like Charles Stanley,
I don't I don't know, Jim, it doesn't seem to
me like they actually hold to the sufficiency of scripture.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
They do in words, see, all of them will say
that God's word is special, it's unique, it's enough for us.
But then they'll turn around and say, but it's only sufficient,
it only gives us sufficiently the general principles. In other words,
if you're talking about the minutiary Christian life, it's insufficient.
So as much as come out and say that. They
will say that scripture and tell me which woman to marry.

(20:01):
It doesn't tell me which church the pastor, doesn't tell me,
doesn't tell me where to go to school, doesn't tell
me what to name my kids. It doesn't give me
any of those kind of specific, you know, gym specific instructions.
But it does sufficiently give me the general principles. In
other words, there's no general principles about general truth that
applies to all people that I need. So they would
say it's sufficient in that way, but not sufficient in

(20:23):
my day to day operations of living out my Christian life.
And so while they would affirm sufficiency, they define it
in a very narrow sense, and then everything that they
do and what they teach actually turns around and undermines
that very doctrine that they claim to promote.

Speaker 9 (20:39):
How do they view scripture when it comes to hearing
the voice of God? You mentioned that in your book
as well.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, So for the AHBG movement, scripture is not itself
the voice of God. It's not itself a revelation from God.
It's a record of God's revelations to others. So it's
not the voice of God to you. Instead, they use
it like a textbook or a book of examples of
how how God can speak. And they will they will say,
as much as we have Scripture as an example of

(21:06):
how God speaks, so that when the voice of God
comes to you, you'll know if it's the same as
the way it came to other people in Scripture. So
you know, there's a difference in there's a difference between
saying that the Word of God is the is itself
the message, and saying that the Word of God is
the vehicle through which the message can come at times,

(21:27):
or saying that the Word of God is an example
of how the message will come at times. You see
the difference between those three views. And HBG teachers will
say that the Word of God, they'll treat it two ways.
They'll say it's the vehicle through which the message can come. So,
say you're reading a passage of Scripture and the word
gate you read in the Old Testament the Gate of
Abraham or the Gate of the City of Dan or something,

(21:48):
and that the idea of gate just sort of pops
off the page at you and you think, oh, that's right,
and it's going to put that gate up at the
end of our at the end of our walkway there.
I think the Lord is telling me to do that
this weekend. So so you call up your wife and
you say, honey, I know we were going to go
to them. You know we're going to go to the
beats this weekend. But the Lord told me today is
supposed to put the gate up at the end of

(22:08):
the walkway. See that, you know, that's in their view.
That's how God's speaking to you. Something jumped off the
page of scripture. It becomes it becomes a source out
of which the Word of God can sort of pop
up and leaps off the page. It becomes personal. It
jumps up and catches your eye. Then you know that
the Word of God has become alive. It has brought
a message to you that's unrelated to the text. You
notice that the only thing that what I think I

(22:31):
got out of Scripture and what the scripture actually says
is the word gate. That's the only thing they have
in common. But it has its own personal message for me.
It has its own personal application for me, unrelated to
what the spirit of God intended in the text. That's
how they view the Word of God as a source
through which it's sort of a channel through which messages
can come. So to them, the word of God is
kind of like the US Mail service. Personal letters can

(22:53):
come that way, pops off of there. God could just
as easily speak to you through a billboard, you know,
the menu at a Chinese restaurant, newspaper article, and country
music lyric. The voice of God can come in all
of those ways. We're in peace, you know Tolstoy's brother Pasmov,
or the or the Word of God or the Bible.
It comes through any of those ways. So that's one
way they treat scripture. And the other way is not

(23:16):
just as the as a source from which revelation can come,
but the example. So if I get a personal word
from God and look to scripture, I say, does that
kind of look like you know, God speaking to Paul
or Elijah or Jeremiah is sort of have those same similarities. Okay,
this is what It's an example to me of God speaking.
So then if I think if vibra from God, I
can kind of look at it and compare and say, yeah,

(23:37):
I probably have heard from God. Since I think Jeremiah
probably got a nudge. I got a nudge it must
be from.

Speaker 9 (23:43):
God, man man, and that just this has always seemed
like a lot of work to me. I could just
open up the Bible, read the words of scripture. No,
I'm hearing God's voice. But now I've got to sift
through all of this stuff in my heart. Make sure
I'm our motives are correct, make sure I'm You know,
you got all this stuff you gotta sift through. It's
like you, you know you've got you've got the You

(24:04):
ever see those those bee hives or they're they're getting
the bee wax out of the honey, and you got
the shift her at the end. That's what you got
to do with with this stuff. It's just so frustrating
when you could just open up God's word and read
it in no for or fact. That's God speaking to
me right there.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
But yes, I got it.

Speaker 9 (24:24):
I got an example of exactly what you were talking about.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Here.

Speaker 9 (24:27):
Uh, here is Priscilla Shier again, and she's going to
be talking about uh scripture. Listen to this.

Speaker 10 (24:34):
We're gonna we're gonna discern the voice of God. Let
me ask you a question in the Priscilla Jerry world. Yeah, Uh,
does God speak audibly? Does he only speak through his word?
Does he speak?

Speaker 2 (24:47):
How?

Speaker 8 (24:48):
How?

Speaker 10 (24:48):
What are the different ways that you certainly know of
that God speaks to you.

Speaker 11 (24:55):
I've never heard the audible voice of God, babe, of you.
I missed something.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
I'm not, no, no, not yet, but I think there
is something internal. Yeah, and you that you that you
feel the presence of God. And it lines up with Scripture,
which confirms, Okay, this is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
That's right.

Speaker 11 (25:11):
So the Holy Spirit of God illumines Scripture, the book
is alive, and he causes the the old presets of
Scripture to have a nowness and a newness that applies
and intersects with our personal experience. So, as Jerry mentioned,
the Holy Spirit in us confirms and corroborates and connects
with the Word of God and causes it to intersect

(25:32):
with our experience. So that that verse that has something
to do with David and Goliath, all of a sudden,
it's not about David and Goliath. It actually applies to
what you're facing right then in your life, and you
understand it as a directive straight.

Speaker 9 (25:44):
Straight, Okay. That that is to me, that's that's blasphemous.
Old precepts, those old precepts of Scripture is old Bible
versus You can't really get anything out of that. You
have to have the now voice that you know it's
got a jump off the page. So let me get
your thoughts, Jim.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, well, I noticed what she just says in that
clip that the story of David and Gliath is no
longer about David and Gliath, now it's about you. Presumably
it jumps off the page with something alive, current relevant. Well,
that's not how the Word of God works. When we
say the Word of God is living and powerful, we
mean that it's truth is eternal. It's truth is It's

(26:24):
truth is eternal, It's truth is alive. It is a
living book in the sense that it is powerful and active,
not in the sense that it means something different every
week that I picked up and read it. In their view,
when I'm reading Scripture, something jumps off the page. That's
a new directive from me. And I think she used
the term directive in that it's a new directive to
me out of that truth. So, like the example they

(26:47):
gave you a few minutes ago with Gate, I had
a friend one time who's reading through the Book of
Joshua when he came across the name Benjamin and felt
that the Lord was telling him to name his child Benjamin.
The examples of that. It was Robert Morris with Gateway
Church who got the name Gateway off of a billboard.
It's that example, that way of treating the Word of God,

(27:08):
that treats it as a dead letter, old precepts a
dead letter until it comes alive, suddenly sparks up and
comes to live with some new, contemporary, fresh meaning that's
directly for me, a message directly for me. And that
message might be entirely unrelated to the intention of the
spirit of God in the text. It may be a

(27:29):
message that would be unknown and unrecognizable to the original recipients,
not at all with the spirit of God meant by that.
But these words take on a new and fresh meeting,
and therefore the God has spoken to me through his word.
It becomes God can speak to you through a magic eateball,
a menu, a newspaper article, a headline, a Twitter post exactly.

Speaker 9 (27:53):
I was getting ready to ask, how, how then, is
the Bible different from any other book? If God can
just speak to you through anything, how is the Bible
different from any other book. It's it's not a book anymore,
that's alive. It's not it's it's it's now, it's it's
just another book that God speaks to you through. And
it sounds a lot like bibliomancy. Have you ever heard

(28:15):
of that term?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, yeah, not until you not until you sent me
the clip earlier today. Of that, that's the first time
I've heard that term. But I have heard of this practice.

Speaker 9 (28:25):
Yeah, it's like the eight ball effect when I before, uh,
you know, when when I, you know, before I got
out of all this. That's kind of how I viewed scripture.
I would I would literally ask God a question, pop
open the text and and just read wherever, you know.
And I didn't do it all the time, but when
there was a pressing decision or something really important, I

(28:45):
used to treat the Word of God like that. I
used to treat the Bible like that.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Oh you know, just.

Speaker 9 (28:50):
Pray, Lord, just show me and pop the text open
and and just see what.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
To you That is different out of the ages. This
is personal and different than anything that the text actually
might be saying. You see, in this view of reading scripture,
you don't have to do the work of saying, Hey,
what's the historical context, what's the language, what's the syntax,
what's the author talking about? What does he say in
the passage before that? What does he say in the
passage after that? What is the theme he's developing, What

(29:17):
is the historical circumstance, What is the issue that he
is addressing? To whom is he writing? What is the
occasion of his writing? What is the purpose of his writing?
You do not have to answer any of those questions.
When you treat scripture the way that Priscillas Trier treat scripture,
You just have to open it up, and you don't
have you have to do any work at all, because
a message is going to pop up out of the
text of that. Well, that can happen with ward piece

(29:39):
or you know, a Christmas carol, or a Hardy Boy
mystery series or book, or any other piece of writing.
It doesn't have to be the Bible. So while they
will say the Bible is unique, it's it's significant, it's
one of a kind, it's inspired, authoritative, infallible, it's not
like any other book. They'll treat it like it has
the same authority and potential as a road sign or
a menu or advertisement the flyer of the newspaper.

Speaker 9 (30:04):
Yeah, yeah, this this next clip that we're going to
look at, this is the bibliomancy clip this woman has.
You know, she's she's a practicing which she practices divination.
But I just want the folks to listen, uh to
what she says here. And I think this backs up
exactly what you were just saying. So check this clip out.

Speaker 12 (30:24):
As long as I can remember, I have used books
that I have read for divination purposes. Now I might
be a little behind in the game here, but just
last night I found out that there's an actual word
for that, and that word is biblio. Biblio missy, wait, bibliomancy. Yeah, bibliomancy.

(30:53):
I think that's how you see it. Correct me if
I'm wrong. So, bibliomancy is actually an ancient art of
divination through divining with books.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
It is.

Speaker 12 (31:06):
And of course, before I let you guys go, I'll
just show you quickly how to use a bible for bibliomancy.

Speaker 10 (31:14):
Let me just grab it real.

Speaker 12 (31:15):
Quick, so I have my Bible and all you have
to do to make this work is if you have
a question in mind or a topic in mind, simply
close your eyes, hold your book, take some deep cleansing breaths.

(31:36):
I like to do that, of course, with my eyes closed,
because I like to just center myself in mind and
body and spirit. After you've taken some deep breaths, you
can also expand your light. I love doing that every time,
and then simply close your eyes, open the book, take
your finger and stop it where you see it.

Speaker 9 (32:00):
So I first came across that term bibliomancy. I had
Holly pivoc on. We were talking about the nar and
she's the one that mentioned this this practice. I'd never
heard of it before. But this is a real thing.
You can use any book on your shelf. I mean,
this is what you know some people do. And so

(32:21):
I just went down a rabbit trail and just started
looking at us, looking at other other people that do this,
and every single one of them are part of the
New Age or they're practicing Wicca or something like that.
But it's the same exact thing. You can. The Bible
means nothing if if that's how you think God speaks
through scripture.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
There's no that woman is a witch, Okay, there is
no substantive difference between how she treats and views scripture
and the way that any of the HIVG authors or
teachers treat in view scripture. There is no substance of
difference between what she has said and how charismatics think
that God speaks to, no substantive difference. Your worldview regarding

(33:05):
the text of scripture is the same as a witch.

Speaker 9 (33:09):
Yeah, that is that is extremely sad. So let's talk
about some proof texts. And I think the favorite one
to look at is is John chapter ten, where and
I think it's in verse twenty seven where Jesus says,
my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. Now,

(33:32):
you do a really fantastic job exageating that chat text
in your book and also in the video series on
American Gospel. But exegete that for us here if you would.
What does what did Jesus mean when he said my
sheep hear my voice.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, the understanding there has to do. Well, let's just
to say this. You can you can see what Jesus
means by his sheep hearing his voice when you ask yourself,
what is the result of his sheep hearing his voice?
In John him is the result that his sheep know
which house to buy, which woman to marry, what to
name their kids, which car to buy, or is the
result of hearing the voice of God the sheep, the

(34:10):
voice of the shepherd that his sheep get eternal life
and come to him, and he secures them everlastingly and
glorifies them in accordance with the Father's will. Read through
John ten and answer that question. You'll see that what
Jesus is describing there, with his sheep hearing his voice,
it is a figure of speech for salvation. He says,
I have other sheep that you're not out of this schold.
I will call them to me as well. He's using

(34:30):
an agrarian word picture there to describe his act of
gathering in to himself all those whom the Father had
given to him. So the Father had given him the
people in eternity past. Those are his sheep. He says
to the Pharisees later in that chapter, you do not
believe because you're not my sheep. You didn't the Father
didn't give you to me. Therefore you're not believing. And
my sheep, they're the ones who hear my voice. So

(34:51):
he's obviously not talking about talking about their A literal
voice and a literal hearing of him being whispered. He's
talking about my sheep. They hear me call them, and
I come to them, and they believe. That's the result
of hearing the voice of the Shepherd. They believe, and
I give them eternal life, and I secure them. I
put them in my hand, and no one will snatch
them out of my hand. And Father's greater, no will

(35:13):
snats him out of the Father's hand. I'm the father,
are one. So that's John ten. It's not describing private
personal revelations. And what is what's so infuriating about modern
HBG teachers is that they will use every single one
of them uses that passage down to the last one
of them. They will use that passage to teach that you,
as a Christian, have a birthright to hear the voice

(35:35):
of the Shepherd and to hear from God.

Speaker 11 (35:39):
John chapter ten, Jesus said, my sheep, hear my voice.
Listen to that again.

Speaker 13 (35:45):
He basically says the default position for anybody who's a
part of the fold, the flock, the family of God,
what my sheep do is hear my voice. It's the
scheme of the enemy to get us to think that
we have to be any thing other than a son
or daughter to have this right, this privilege to hear
God speaking to us through the word.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
This is the bread and butter of Pashila Schreier and
others like that. All of them use that passage, and
it is John says in John ten, verse four, in
the beginning of that entire analogy. John says, this figure
of speech Jesus was giving to the Pharisees and other once.
He's speaking to them in a figure of speech, and
they did not understand what he was saying. And that's

(36:28):
the point. They didn't hear the voice of the shepherd.
He is not their shepherd, so they did not believe.
They didn't understand the figure of speech Jesus was speaking
to them. They heard in a literal sense what he
was saying with their ears, but they did not hear
in a spiritual sense and come to him in belief
for saving faith. That's what Jesus describing in John ten.
So it never never trusts an HVG teacher to tell

(36:51):
you how to discern private whispers when they cannot even
tell you how to discern the clear meaning of a
passage of scripture right on the pages.

Speaker 9 (36:59):
Yeah, and uh as you said in your book. To
even to get the whole overview of that passage, you
got to go back to John chapter nine, you know,
and look at the fact that this is the this
is the healing of the blind man. That's where the
context of all of this, you know, this whole conversation

(37:20):
with the Pharisees starts is with the healing of the
blind man. So yeah, just, uh, you're right, never trust
never trust that age. Uh an HVG teacher that that
can't handle the biblical text. Let's let's talk about Samuel.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Oh, go ahead, buddy, I just to say, anybody who
doubts when I just said to you, go back and
read John chapter nine and John chapter ten and just
realize that John chapter ten is Jesus answer to the
Pharisees who were persecuting the man born blind who had
been healed in John chapter nine. And Jesus is not
talking to his sheep in that passage, telling his sheep

(38:00):
what they should expect and listen for his voice. He's
not giving them a tutorial on how to receive private revelation.
He is in a scathing rebuke of the false shepherds
of Israel, comparing himself with them and saying, here's why
you don't believe. You don't belong to me. My sheep
hear me, like the man born blind, who was his sheep?
That man heard, he came, he worshiped, and he became

(38:21):
a believer. And Jesus said, that man's my sheep. You're
the false shepherd. You can't even recognize that, and you're
not my sheep. And it was a scathing rebuke to them.
So just go and read John chapter ten for yourself
and without the HBG paradigm in your mind, and you
cannot possibly come to the conclusion what Jesus is talking
about there is private revelations.

Speaker 9 (38:41):
Absolutely absolutely. Another biggie is first Samuel chapter three and
the story of Eli and Samuel, and it's it is
ironic that they say that you know, this is where
you are, This is for you to learn to hear

(39:02):
a god's voice. Samuel had to, you know, he had
he had to learn. Eli had to show him. But
the whole irony is is that Samuel heard the voice
of God, and he heard it clearly. He just couldn't identity.
He didn't know it was God. He thought it was Eli.
But he heard it clearly. And there was no There
was no teaching there. Am I correct, there was no
training there.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Priscilla Schreyer has an entire book on that subject where
she just takes first Samuel three, and that's what the
whole book is about. How to posture yourself to hear
the voice of God, how to learn all of that.
And she makes some hay out of that passage, for sure,
but you're absolutely right. At the beginning of that chapter,
chapter three, it says the word of the Lord was
rare in those days. God. Here's the irony. They take

(39:45):
that passage and say that this was God, this was
Eli showing Samuel how to hear the voice of God.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
Samuel had to learn to recognize and respond to that voice.
He didn't ignore it or dismiss it as his imagination.
He responded with humility and openness. That's the posture we
need today. When God whispers, we need to be ready
to say, speak, Lord, I'm listening.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Eli wasn't hearing from God. Eli was a wicked man
whose sons were having sexual relations with the prostitutes and
the tabernacle. He was a wicked man. God wasn't speaking
to him. God wasn't speaking to anybody in those days.
When God did speak to Samuel. The word of the
Lord came to Samuel, and Samuel heard him, understood exactly
what he said. He just didn't understand who was speaking.
We heard a voice and thought it was from the

(40:32):
other room. So he went and thought Eli was calling
for him. But Samuel didn't need to learn how to
hear the voice of God, and Eli didn't teach him.
Eli just said go back to your room and listen.
The next time you hear it, just say this, and
so Samuel did that. There was no class that Eli
was teaching Samuel. Here's how you discern, and here's how you,
you know, take the sign of that you might be

(40:53):
discerning in a whisper and nudging or a prompting and
tested by scripture and acquire wisdom and then put out
a fleece for conform and then finally do what God
has commanded you did to do. There was no methodology
laid out there at all. It's just that again, it's
just a serial abuse of scripture.

Speaker 9 (41:09):
Yeah. Now they do use Gideon's fleece too, and we
can get to that if you'd like to. But before
we do, I want you to if you would explain
to the audience what the still small voice is or
the whisper that is mentioned in First Kings chapter nineteen.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, the still small voice. That one phrase used in
that one place in First Kings nineteen to describe a
sound that it doesn't even say it was the voice
of God. It just says it was a sound that
Elijah heard. That phrase is used sort of as the
And this is why I deal with this one of
the very first chapters in critiquing the false methodologies, because
it's become kind of like an umbrella term or phrase.

(41:54):
It's used to describe promptings, nudging signs, impressions, leading of
the heart, feeling, a check in your spirit, you know, indigestion,
almost anything that you want to put under that rubric.
It's all part of that. It's the still small voice
the way that God leads his people today.

Speaker 8 (42:11):
The second way that God speaks to us is his
still small voice inside of our hearts. This is First
Kings nineteen. This is speaking about Elijah and after the
fire is still small voice. And that's how God spoke
to Elijah. A lot of people say, well, you know,
how does God speak? He speaks in a still small
voice inside of our heart. When God is speaking to you,

(42:33):
it's not here now, he's in here. And you have
spiritual ears. When you're born again, you have spiritual eyes
and you have spiritual ears.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
So in First Kings nineteen, that phrase, it's an odd
Hebrew phrase that is used nowhere else in the Old Testament.
It's translated in a variety of ways. The ESV says
it's the sound of a low whisper, so kind of that.
The King James and King JASV says, still small voice.

(43:03):
Some translations translated as a sound of a gentle blowing
that's the NASV. A voice or a soft whisper, a
gentle whisper, the sound of a gentle whisper, the voice
of a gentle whisper, a soft whisper, a sound of
sheer silence, that's another translation. A light murmuring sound, a
light silent sound, a soft gentle voice, or a whispering voice.

(43:24):
That's the way in which or the sound of a
light breeze is another translation. So you can see that
the variety of ways that that's translated in our English translation.
Because it's such a unique phrase, and what is obvious
there is not just that it's difficult to translate. But
what's obvious there is that this was not an audible

(43:45):
voice that Elijah heard because it sounded something like a whisper.
He couldn't even discern what was being said. And the
second thing that's obvious is it was not internal to Elijah.
It wasn't in his heart, it wasn't in his mind,
wasn't in his subconscience. It was external to Elijah, which

(44:05):
is why he went outside the cave. The voice or
the sounds that sounded like a whisper or a breeze
or a gentle blowing or a still silence, whatever that
sound was, was outside the cave that Elijah was in,
and he went outside the cave in order to see
what the source of that sound was. And that's where
God spoke to him audibly. Where it says and then

(44:26):
the Word of the Lord came to Elijah and said
quote and you get the Word of the Lord end quote.
So what's interesting is with these people who think they're
hearing from God, they take this phrase the still small voice,
and they used that sort of to describe any kind
of impression that they get, as if that's God's revelation
to them, and all of the other times in Elijah's

(44:47):
life it was the word of the Lord came to
Elijah and said, or the or the Lord said to Elijah.
Yahweh said to Elijah. God said to Elijah, and it
was clear, unmistakable, quotable text. He spoke face to face
through his prophets, to his prophets. And then this one,
you know, that becomes the still small voice, becomes the
pattern for the whole hearing from God movement, rather than

(45:09):
the clear, articulate, quotable sentences that God spoke to Elijah
on every other occasion before and after that.

Speaker 9 (45:18):
That's exactly what I was going to get to. Guy.
They talk about this hearing, you know, hearing this still
small voices out of their heart. But God had already
spoken to Elijah so many times before this whole uh,
you know, hearing this, gentle whisper, I gotta tell.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
You, Dallas Willard. I think it's Dallas Twillard. He says,
that's God's preferred method of communication. Well, interesting, it's his
preferred method of communication. It's only used one time in
the Old Testament, and even then it's unclear exactly what
is what is meant by it. And yet God's preferred
method of communication through his prophets over and over hundreds

(45:58):
of times, literally hundreds of times in the old Us,
is just speaking to and through his profits.

Speaker 9 (46:03):
All right, So Jim, how then do we make decisions?
So you these you've mentioned in these uh these hearing
the Voice of God teachers say that you know, well, scripture,
the scriptures are important, but they don't tell us everything.
They don't tell us who to marry, they don't tell
us what car to buy, they don't tell us what

(46:24):
house to purchase. They don't tell us the the the
everyday things that scripture doesn't tell us the everyday things
that we need to know in life. And and that's
the why we need this ongoing conversation outside of scripture
so that we can get these answers. So, how then
would you direct Christians to make decisions using scripture? I

(46:48):
think that's really really important.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah. I might shock some of your listeners by by
what I'm about to say, but I don't believe the
scripture needs to tell me anything regarding all of those personal, private,
individual decisions on the day to day and listen carefully,
not even the big ones, which woman to marry, what
house to buy, what job to take. God doesn't need
to tell me which decision to make. He has given me,

(47:13):
in his word everything that I need to live a
god glorifying and obedient Christian life in this world. Everything.
That's what we mean when we say that Scripture sufficient.
He's given to me everything that pertains to life and godliness.
So how do I make those decisions? Well? I have
the moral will of God revealed to me in Scripture,
which is the Biblical precepts, the truth of Scripture, so
I know what God's parameters for his moral will are.

(47:35):
I have wisdom given to me, and Ecclesiastes and Proverbs
and the stories of Scripture reveal the wisdom of God.
I have wisdom in Christ. I have the end dwelling
of the spirit, so I have God's revelation. So when
I have a decision to make, I can read the
moral will of God and say, am I making it?
These two things that I'm choosing between? Are they morally
within God's will? Are they morally permissible? And both for them?

(47:58):
If they're both yes, and that doesn't rule it out,
then is one of them more wise than the other?
Is one of them a foolish decision, and if one
of them is not. Obviously, all things being equal, I
think we have the freedom to make whatever, to choose
whichever one we want, and to trust God for the consequences.
So I have scripture, I haves moral well, I have wisdom,
and then do what you want, what do you want

(48:20):
to do? And God will honor that.

Speaker 9 (48:23):
There's a lot of freedom in that, isn't there.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Well. God's not going to hold us accountable for disobeying
or revelation he has not given to us. Yeah, if
he wanted me to know what woman to marry, he
would tell me in scripture what woman I need to marry.
It's scripture sufficient. I know from scripture. I should marry
a believer. I should know from scripture. I shouldn't mary
somebody who is who is maybe divorced unbiblically and is
not qualified to be married to me. I shouldn't marry

(48:49):
somebody who would be unwise, though not sinful, to marry
somebody who's radically theologically different than me, I shouldn't do that.
Scripture tells me the type of women that I should
be looking for, woman that I should be looking for.
In the book proverbs. So I've got wisdom guidance, and
you know, then I should marry the woman that I want.
If she doesn't violate God's moral will, it's not foolish.
Then I can't marry the woman that I want to marry.

(49:11):
I don't have to wait for God to tell me.
And you notice that this is the very uh, this
is the very approach that the apostle Paul took to
the issue of who to marry. In First Corinthian seven, basically,
Paul says, Mary and the Lord, and if you give
your version to be married, you do fine. If you don't,
you know you're not sending there either. In First Corinthian seven,
he basically kind of says he are the moral parameters

(49:32):
in which you should make this decision. And Paul says,
here's the wisdom. It would be wiser if, given the
current distress, you didn't marry or didn't get married and
seek to be unmarried. So this is the wisdom considerations,
and then what you want make the decision. Paul doesn't
once in First Corinthian seven, say pray about it. Wait
for God to give you a still small voice to

(49:53):
tell you which woman to marry, and then confirm it
with the fleece, look for the signs, discern still with
the whispers, listen for the nudgings and the promptings, and
make sure you don't have a check in your spirit.
It doesn't lay any layout any of the modern decision
making paradigm.

Speaker 9 (50:08):
Yeah, it's just a shame that these teachers treat scripture
the way that they treat scripture and almost treat it
as if it was just you know, it's something I
got to read to kind of know what God's like.
But it sure isn't very exciting. It sure isn't something.
Let me just read my Bible and get it over with,

(50:29):
you know.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
So Yeah, anyway, it's so much easier just to just
to wait and listen for the voice of God and
they get an impression and say, well, the Lord revealed
this to me. Then it is to do the hard
work of knowing the moral will of God and reading
the wisdom of God and applying that to your lives
and walking in holiness and obedience. It's it's much easier
just to blame God for your decision. It's to me. Yeah,

(50:50):
I hope me to do this, So I went and
did it.

Speaker 9 (50:53):
Wow, yeah, and so many bad decisions are made like that.
So many bad decisions are made like that. So as
a you know, as a pastor, how can and these
are just some some questions I want to wrap things
up with, as a pastor, how can how can you
know other pastors lovingly correct this kind of error that

(51:17):
they see in their congregations.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
It's not sometimes as a pastor, because you hear, you
hear people, You hear people use the language of God
led me, God told me, God spoke to me. I
think it's important as pastors that we be patient with
people and sort of point these errors out as we
have opportunity to do so, and sometimes question the assumptions
that go into it. I understand as a pastor that
we have a lot of well verbids that's used in evangelicalism.

(51:45):
It's language that we use, sort of the Christianese that
we speak that when we say God spoke to me,
or God led me or God told me, what we
really mean is, you know, I felt, I felt strong
desire to do this thing, and so that's how we
communicate it. God told me to do this, And sometimes
as pastors we can just sort of step back and
I think privately publicly. When we have an opportunity to

(52:06):
teach on one of these texts, it's appropriate to demonstrate
that the text doesn't say what you're assuming that it says.
Walk through John nine to ten, walk through First Kings nineteen,
point these things out to people Collossums three fifteen, and
being led by the spirit in Roman's eight Iglatians five.
Those passages do not teach when people say that they teach.
So when you have opportunities to teach through those passages,

(52:28):
address that issue. You know, take that take that argument
out of their quiver, as it were, so that they
when they go to use that language, they thinking, oh, okay,
hold on, but that's not what that's describing. And then
as pastors, we should be using biblical language to communicate
biblical things instead of saying the Lord told me, I say,
you know what, I just I felt like I needed

(52:48):
to come and do this, and so I wanted to
do it, and I'm doing it. Rather blaming God for
it or trying to give God credit or whatever desires
in your heart, you don't know that. I can just
know in the moment, I have a strong desire to
do this, and so I want to do it. I
don't use the language I was led by God or
God told me. I used biblical language like I felt convicted,
I felt guilty, or I felt encouraged, or I was

(53:11):
comforted or I was strengthened the Lord, the Lord encouraged
my heart. All of that is biblical language, rather than
the Lord spoke to me and told me that I
shouldn't be discouraged. Well, that's not biblical language communicating biblical concepts.
So as leaders, we should make sure that our language
doesn't misrepresent God in any way, doesn't misrepresent his word.
It's clear, it's biblical. And then we should try and

(53:32):
help people to think biblically and understand these passages in
biblical ways.

Speaker 9 (53:38):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, well said, Well said, so Jim. Final question,
what do you think or what do you hope that
Christians will take away from reading your book God Doesn't Whisper,
or watching the AGTV series God Doesn't Whisper, or even

(53:58):
watching this video? So what do you what do you
hope will happen? What do you hope that Christians will
take from these conversations?

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Two things, If if the questioning of the hearing from
God methodology is new to you, and you've never thought
this through before, you've never been exposed to that before,
then what I hope you'll take away is to start
to question some of the presuppositions and assumptions that you've
made and some of the things that you've heard brought
to you over the years. Give give the book a try,

(54:29):
walk through the video series, however, it needs to get
exposed to this, really think through and answer the question.
Do these passages teach what these people are saying that
they teach in their context? Not do I want these
passages to teach that, but do they actually teach that? So,
if you've never been exposed to this, and you're right
now you're kind of bristling and you're thinking, Oh, you've
just taken away my whole relationship with the Lord because

(54:50):
now I don't hear God speak, and you're suggesting that
God can't speak, and you're suggesting that God is silent today.
That's not what I'm saying at all. Give the give
my entire critique. I would appreciate that. Second, if you've
been under this and you're realizing you're starting to come
out of this false methodology, and what I hope you'll
take away from it is that there is a realm

(55:12):
of freedom and encouragement and liberation that's available to you
to not be under the suppressive burden of thinking that
you can't make any decision in life unless you first
hear from God. Because these people in this methodology will
say that you should never make any of the big
decisions unless you hear from God on this on what
the issue is. But the question is, you don't know

(55:34):
what's a big decision and a small decision. You don't
know if the shirt that you decide to wear on
any given day might determine the outcome of somebody's life
or eternal destiny. You don't know that. You don't know
which decisions are big. You know, is your decision to
go for Mexican instead of Chinese for lunch? Does that
mean that you're not going to be able to witness
to the Chinese waitress when you could have had the

(55:55):
opportunity to do that, and now she goes to hell.
You don't know what a big decision this small decision is.
You don't need to do that. You can trust and
rest in the providence and the sovereignty of God. You
can make decisions according to Scripture and rest easy at
night knowing that you have walked in obedience to the Lord,
and you don't have to feel like you're waiting for
God to whisper some special secret to you. You don't

(56:16):
have to wait for God to tell you what it is,
and He's decided for you to do. You can walk
in obedience to the Word of God. Read it, enjoy it,
and know that in Scripture, God is speaking to you,
and you can walk in obedience to that and live
a God honoring God, glorifying obedient Christian life on the
basis of the Word of God written down in the Bible.

Speaker 9 (56:36):
Amen. Amen, very very good. And it really is a burden,
this whole this whole thing really is a burden script
to Christians. And one of the things that Jesus makes
clear is that you know he doesn't want He's not
here to burden you know, Come to me, are you

(56:57):
who are weary and burden? And I will give you rest.
But boy, if you have to, if you have to
worry about a small decision like what shirts you're going
to wear, or what parasocks you're gonna put on, or
what restaurants you're going to go to, man alive. That
is heavy, That is a heavy burden. And Christ doesn't

(57:18):
want to do that. He wants to free you with
the Gospel. He wants to free you with the good
news that His word is sufficient for you completely, completely. Jim, Jim,
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much
for taking time out of your busy day and coming on.
I'd love to have you come on again and talk
about spiritual warfare, so would you be willing to do that.

Speaker 12 (57:43):
Often.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
It's been a great conversation, it really has.

Speaker 9 (57:47):
Folks. If this has been helpful to you, please please
pass this video along again. I will make sure that
you have all of the links that you need to
get the information. The AGTV link, Steve book links, all
of that will be in the intube description. Folks, thanks
so much for watching, and Lord Willing, we'll see you
next week.