Recently, I have read several posts by people in the Reformed community about this very question and they are adamant that the answer is, No. In fact, they are nearly beside themselves over this. How silly. And utterly sad. They have reduced the entire Christian life to a book.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God
I have considered a couple of ways to approach this and have decided to offer a few anecdotes.
My own testimony includes the Lord speaking to me (I wonder if this means they would say I have been deceived from the beginning and never really saved at all). As I wrote in an earlier blog post: I had been to church and come under conviction of sin. I was confused by this, “So I left and took a walk to think this through. While on this walk, I had the most wonderful encounter of my life. I became aware of a presence in front of me, a little above me. And then these words, ‘I am Christ. I am alive and I am God. Trust me with your life and I will take you to the true God.’ ” I went home and did just that. I trusted Him with my life and He did indeed bring me to the true God. He got me, and I got God.
Shortly after coming to Christ I had a dream and in the dream God spoke to me and said, “Look behind you.” And I saw God going on and on, endlessly. He said, “That is My past. Now turn around.” And I saw the same thing going on and on in the other direction. He said, “That is My future.” The eternalness of God.
About a year later, I spent much of a Sunday afternoon in anguished prayer, on my face on the floor, seeking the Lord. Then it was time for church. On the way I heard the hymn, Were You There? The Holy Spirit revealed to my heart that if I had been the only person ever lost, Jesus would have died for me. And the love of God was shed abroad in my heart! Amen!
I developed the habit of taking walks to talk to the Lord. One night I was struggling with the question, Do I trust Jesus once and that is good for all time, or do I have to have an act of trust every morning (in order to be saved)? If the latter, I was in trouble, because I was not doing that. While on this walk the Lord revealed to me my heart: ‘If the blood of Christ does not avail for me, then I have no hope.’ In other words, I am trusting Christ every minute of every day! I was excited!
One Saturday night I was on such a walk, praying about the service the next day and my message. And the Lord spoke to me: “Offer Christ.”
On another such walk, I was praying for the church and my teaching series on the Church. The Lord revealed to me, “I am the only one who can say ‘My church.’” Oh how this word did free me to teach the truth about the church!
I remember another time praying about what to preach the coming Sunday. I was kneeling in the living room of the house. The Lord said to me, “Revelation 2:1-7.” I had to look it up! But that is what I preached on that Sunday.
After I had been in York a few years (maybe 5) I pursued an opportunity in another church. I had met with the pastor and we had discussed this and had come to the point of scheduling a time to candidate. As I was praying about this, God woke me up one morning at 5 am and told me that it was not time to go, that I had not finished what He had sent me there to do and then showed me exactly what it was He wanted me to accomplish. As soon as it was respectable, I called my friend and told him I couldn’t come and why, and then set about doing what the Lord had shown me to do.
One Sunday morning my oldest daughter came up to me after church. She was just a young girl at the time. She said, “Daddy, God spoke to my heart this morning. He told me I was His child.” I had not preached about that at all that morning, it was just the Lord bearing witness with her spirit that she was a child of God. Several years later, another daughter, also a young girl at the time, came to me and told me that God had spoken to her about the church I was pastoring. She had written it down. It was a prophecy and I shared it with the church.
Does God speak to us today? Yes. Always through His Word, but in other ways as well. Sometimes a leading; sometimes a feeling – I had begun teaching through Daniel, but I never did feel good about it; at some point in the second chapter I told the church, “I don’t think I should be teaching this right now…”; sometimes in a dream – I’ve had two or three such dreams; sometimes a ‘word’ as I have related above. Did any of this constitute “new revelation”? No, at least not in the sense of a new teaching, a new doctrine, a new revelation of God. None of it added anything to the Bible. Just the living God speaking to His children, to guide and comfort them.
Does this do away with the Bible? No. With reading and studying the Bible? No. Do these feelings, thoughts, or dreams supercede the Bible? No. In fact, if I have a “word” that contradicts the Scripture, then that word, whatever it is, is not from God. I know that there are dangers in this. I have heard them and seen them, just like you. I had a man “prophecy” over me once in a prayer meeting, and when the meeting was over, I couldn’t recall the first word. Pretty sure that was him and not God! But as you can see, there have been other times when God did speak and I knew it. And remember it. Do we need to spend time “listening for a word from God”? No. You have the Word of God, seek Him there. As needed, God will speak to you that word of guidance and comfort. And you will know His voice.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me
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