When the Voice Heard Isn't Jesus

Jesus tells us in John 10:26-27 that those who believe in him also perceive communication, or as I've styled it, impressions, from him. They not only "hear" those impressions, they also respond to them, and as a result, they end up walking with Jesus. Being a believer is to hear Jesus and to walk with him as a result. Such a construct, unfortunately, involves a good bit of subjectivity. 

Like anything sensible and perceptual there’s a lot of individuality in it, and there’s danger in the inexactness of this kind of thing. A person might misperceive what was actually sent; we might receive something not sent from Jesus at all; we might even lose an impression in noise. Yet, there's no question, it’s beyond a shadow of doubt, that believers receiving impressions from Jesus is God’s very will for us. Jesus said in no uncertain terms, his sheep hear his voice.

We sense impressions. Maybe they’re communication from the Good Shepherd, maybe they're not.

That being the case, we have to wonder: how can a believer tell when an impression isn't Jesus? That's a super important question. Toward finding the answer to that query we’re going to run through a list of content types which impressions can bear, but which would mark that communication as not actually from Jesus. This is the Cull List that identifies that it’s not Jesus we’re hearing from.

We’ll start with what we can identify from the temptations of Jesus as found in Matthew 4:1-10.

Fiat. To act by will instead of by wait. 
An inclination stirred by a suspected impression to make something happen in your time instead of God’s time. This is either a misapprehension of something from God or something not from God at all (e.g. Abraham & Sarah's fiat producing Ishmael)

Folly. To test God's response.
An impression to throw caution to the wind, to presume upon the Word’s promise, and take an irreversible dive-- jumping just to see if he catches you-- isn’t from God. It’s merely folly, not the Shepherd.

Fame & Fortune. To aspire to wealth, power and notoriety.
An impression to aspire to or suggesting that we deserve fame and fortune isn’t from God. Such a sensation certainly isn’t from humble Jesus who called us to be the servant of all.

Moving on to the wisdom of Hebrews 2:15...

Fear. To be anxious about dying and facing eternal punishment.

An impression that calls into question a believer's status given the sacrifice of Christ is not from Jesus. Such conviction may come from the Holy Spirit to the unbeliever, but it won't come from God to the one already believing. Such an impression is out and out from the Devil.

And on to James 1:19-20 and Ephesians 4:26...

Fury. To give place to wrath.

If an impression entices you to fury, if it feeds the anger monster, that is not Jesus. We're not speaking of a minor annoyance here, but of a chain reaction of anger that leads to a nuclear explosion. An impression that lights this fuse could be your flesh, it could be the devil, but it isn’t God.

From Colossians 3:2a,5...

Fixation.  
An impression that coalesces our attention into an obsessive focus on something other than Christ is not from Jesus. We are to set, or fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) and to set our minds on things above, an impression to do otherwise is not the voice of God.

Some spiritual sensations are not the voice of Jesus, our shepherd.

That sort can be discounted, even discarded as being counterfeit. The Word of God makes us wise so that we can discern the difference and don’t end up lost in the weeds chasing butterflies. Any impression along the lines above is not from the Shepherd and should be dismissed. Despite the possible drawbacks, God’s word to us is that believers will experience the voice of Jesus. We ought to discerningly listen.

The Bible Tunes Our Ears to the Voice of Jesus

In the description given by himself in John 10:27, Jesus said that a believer in him is one who receives impressions communicated from him and responds to them. So, according to Christ, Christians are those who experience a sensible, interactive companionship with Christ. As the familiar song put it, “He walks with me and he talks with me...” I have suggested some of the ways that communication from Christ is impressed upon us, ways that are not for the elite but for any of us.

There are concerning issues in attempting to apply this to ourselves, however. The individual's subjectivity and credulity can lead to hearing the voice in what isn't the voice. So we need a tool that can tune our "ears" to the voice of the shepherd so we can distinguish that from what isn't the shepherd. We need not only ears that hear, but ears that hear discerningly. The good news is that we have such a tool in the Bible. 

Scripture puts lines on the road, curbs on the highway. It keeps us steering on the course directed by the Shepherd. For the ear that’s been tuned by the Word of God, it becomes a simple task to recognize whether or not an impression is within the lines or outside them, from God or from the flesh, from the Shepherd or from the devil. Jesus quickly dispatched the noise of the devil by using the Word of God and that same Word (plus the New Testament for us) can help us do the same thing.

The Word is a light unto our feet, it shines upon the very place our feet are to fall. It primes our expectancy for the kind of things the voice will communicate so we can readily perceive them when they come. Ears tuned by the Word of God quickly ascertain what steps the voice of the shepherd is impressing us to make and enables us to make them. Kinda like the old, old song: “footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow.”

Of course, we must make the effort to get the Word into us if it is to tune our ears. If one can read that won't present much of a problem in most places, but in other places, there's a huge problem. Bible availability, illiteracy, lack of translations present tremendous hurdles to some folk. If auditory memory served the ancient saints well in this regard, it still can in our day. However, if we have the written Word available to us, why wouldn't we make the effort to tune our ears by it?

Do we want to accompany Christ or not? If we do, the effort invested in turning our ears is of the utmost value.

Through the Word we build presuppositions that inform our readiness to hear. By the Word we inform our decisions to go with an impression or to deny it. Applying the Word we inform our “after-action reports” where we assess whether or not we actually heard and acted on the Shepherd’s voice or if we blew it in some way. The Word informs, the Word tunes our ears to hear, it presets our perspective.

We will never confidently discern the voice of the shepherd without the Word. However, we must not let our experience inform our understanding of the Word, rather we must let the Word inform our experience. Experience read into the Word will lead to distortion and error. The Word examining our experience allows us to discern the good and exclude that not from the Shepherd. If you’re going to hear the voice clearly, and grow in that skill, you’ve got to be in the Word!

Hearing the Voice of Jesus

Can Christians expect to experience communication from Christ?

John 10:26-27, I think, leaves no doubt on the subject. Jesus said directly, without any ambiguity, that those who believe are his sheep, and those sheep can and do hear his voice.

Hearing the Voice of the Shepherd

Christ's statement should preclude any problems with the concept, but a decent portion of the church has been laboring for centuries (since the Reformation anyhow) under an erroneous teaching that claims that believers cannot and should not expect to hear Jesus' voice. That thought arises from an overextension of “Sola Scriptura,” positing that we have the written word and that is the only communication we need. Of course, that leaves countless numbers living before Gutenberg and all the believers living in non-literate cultures with no "voice" at all.

Justin Peters, famous for his "discernment ministry," has quipped “If you want to hear from God, read your Bible. If you want to hear Him audibly, read it out loud." Clever perhaps, but merely fencing with a straw man, for Jesus wasn’t referring to an actual audible voice anymore than believers are actual sheep. Believers who say they want to hear from God are not looking for an audible voice, at least not the vast majority, rather they're looking for an experience of spiritual communication. So Peters’ quip is just silliness.

Jesus did not say that his sheep understand the Bible, even through Holy Spirit illumination, but that they hear his voice. Although it is true that the word used for "hear" (ἀκούουσιν) can mean understand, its combination with the word "voice" (φωνῆς) in the phrase makes it clear that a sensory experience was in view by Christ. This was not a statement about the Bible, it was a statement about an experience. Since "hear" was in the indicative active, I take the force of this as meaning that if it is now, his sheep are hearing his voice.

Jesus referred to the natural, physical experience of hearing in real time to describe what would have to be the supernatural, spiritual experience of perceiving him communicating to believers in real time. The conclusion, it seems to me, is that Jesus has a way of affecting those that believe in him sensorially, and those believers have a way of understanding those impressions and responding to such. Should we expect to experience Jesus communicating with us? Absolutely!

It is clear that Jesus was NOT talking about his sheep getting something out of the Bible, though they absolutely do, but of experiencing him communicating to us.

Definitionally, at least according to Jesus, a believer is someone whom Jesus is communicating with, and who discerning that communication as from Christ, acts upon it by accompanying him. English texts generally translate the Greek verb (ἀκολουθοῦσίν) as, “follow” rather than "accompany," as they do in just about every instance of this word in the Greek New Testament. Does that matter? It could.

When we think of the word follow, we don’t think of “accompany.” We think of something more akin to baby ducklings following their mama, or rats following the Pied Piper. Is that what Jesus meant? No! A Greek lexicon readily demonstrates the nuanced point: he meant that those hearing believers came to and hung out with him-- going where he went, doing as he did. It's the very picture of his disciples, whom Jesus called "friends" rather than mere followers.

Being a believer is being sensitive to the impression of Jesus' communication and responding to it by walking with him in it.

It means hearing his voice. Does that describe you?

Ways the Voice of Jesus Impresses Us

I think the bottom line of John 10:27 is clear: believers will be guided by sensible impressions from the Lord. Really, there's nothing new in that, God had been impressing people for as long as people had been around. Of course, that kind of thing wasn't widespread before Christ came, only a small, exclusive company ever had the privilege of hearing God's voice. The new thing since Christ came is that Jesus put this "hearing from God" in inclusive terms-- every believer will hear.

In other words, Jesus gave a new definition to the word “believer.” Jesus said that if one is a believer in Christ, that one will receive the guidance of impressions from Jesus and would follow after him as a result. So how do we experience these impressions so we can follow? There is no way to touch on all the possibilities, so let me give but a few examples, just so we get the idea.

Nudges: good shepherds know how to talk using a staff. The staff of our Shepherd is felt via unshakable, strengthening convictions. In these situations we just know we’re not supposed to go that way, but this. Like Paul being prevented from preaching in Asia.

Dawnings: sometimes the voice is a sudden awareness or understanding rising up within us. Like Peter’s confession of Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Stirrings: the voice can cause a flutter or burning of heart. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Revelations: the voice can drop sudden knowledge into our awareness of what one would not know otherwise as it did for Paul on a ship bound to sink.

Visions: the voice can be communicated in the midst of a vision as in Acts 9:10-12; 10:10-20; & 18:9-10.

Visitations: like Christ to the upper room or on the road to Damascus.

There are those who don’t believe in such things anymore. They are doomed to live spiritually parsimonious lives not knowing their very nature as believers promises so much more. Those who do believe the Good Shepherd still leads by impressing his voice upon the believer so they can follow find companionship walking with the Lord.

On a cautious note, there are some issues. The individual's subjectivity and credulity can lead to hearing the voice in what isn't.