If you’ve ever wondered if God is speaking to you, this resource will help you know if He’s not. This sermon draws upon my experience of deception and offers five insights to help you distinguish the Deliverer from the deceiver.
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A part of me finds it hard to understand how she could have just sat there. How could anyone have been so insensitive to her sister’s needs?
We don’t know how many guests they had in their home that day but there had to have been more than a few. Jesus had not been travelling alone when He had arrived in Bethany. Not long before this, Jesus had appointed and sent out seventy disciples and we know they had all returned to Him. How many of them and how many others were with Jesus travelling through to Jerusalem, we can only speculate.
The Gospel of Luke tells us it was Martha who had welcomed Jesus into their home. It was Martha who had welcomed Jesus into their home, it was Martha who was distracted with her serving, her ministry, and it was Mary who was just sitting there.
Another part of me finds it so easy to understand how Mary could have been just sitting there. This is the part of me that perfectly understands how anyone could have been so insensitive to her sister’s needs . . .
Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Mary was listening to her Lord. And Mary seems to have been so okay with this that there’s no indication she tried to defend herself when Martha stormed over to Jesus and in front of all their guests, demanded that Jesus tell Mary to get up and help her.
Mary didn’t need to defend herself:
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (ESV, Luke 10:42)
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, Jesus said, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen “the good part” as it reads in the New American Standard Bible or “the better part” as it says in the New Revised Standard Version or “the best part” as it is written in the New English Translation Bible. I am not going to take this away from her.
We don’t know how Martha responded to Jesus’ defence. We don’t know if she took off her apron and sat down next to Mary. We don’t know if she continued her serving indignant. We don’t know if she went back to serving at peace. What I think we can presume, however, is that Mary did not leave Jesus’ feet.
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This desire to sit at Jesus’ feet–this desire to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to the Word of God is not peculiar to Mary. Neither is it peculiar to Mary and me. This desire to walk with God, talk with God, listen to God, know God is so natural to many of us, and why? The Bible says this desire was given to us by God!
The book of Genesis tells us that when God created humanity, there was something different about this creation. Unlike the heavens and earth; unlike the sun, moon and stars; unlike the plants and animals, birds, fish, sky and sea; when God created humanity, He created humanity in His likeness, and when He created humanity in His likeness, He created us with the same desire to walk and talk with Him that He had to walk and talk with us. (Genesis 1:26, 27, 3:8)
Before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:4 and 5 tell us, God planned to have a family. God planned to become a father, in the metaphorical sense of the word; He planned to adopt us as His children. The very reason Jesus came from heaven to earth, John 17:3 says, is that God wanted us to know Him. God wanted us to live in loving relationship, in perfect communion with Him, and the problem? Someone else wanted to be God!
“And war broke out in heaven,” Revelation 12:7-9 says, “Michael and His angels fought against the dragon. The dragon fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” Isaiah 14:12-14 says, “How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’” (NKJV)
Like the Most High. That was Satan’s ambition. He couldn’t be the Most High so he was going to be like the Most High. And to the sincere among God’s children who longed to walk and talk with God in the way God created them to walk and talk with Him, Satan would present himself like God so they might think they were communing with God and because they wanted to live for God, Satan could hold them captive to do his will! (2 Timothy 2:26)
If Satan had only tempted humanity to sin and only caused the separation between God and us, that would have been more than enough. It would have been more than enough for us to have to live with the unfulfilled longing, the imperfect communion we now have with God.
But that wasn’t enough for Satan. Satan wasn’t satisfied with just causing this separation, he now takes advantage of it. And unless we are more informed and discerning than I was, Satan will trick us into thinking we could be talking with God and he will entice us by telling us what we want to hear. He will groom us with signs and wonders and manipulate us with guilt and fear until we know nothing of the freedom for which we have been freed!
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You may have already read my story of deception. You may already know that I spent eight years following what I thought was God’s voice. You may also know that I concluded, after I had my mental health checked, that I had been following the voice of the deceiver. This is still not an easy experience for me to talk about but I am now being asked what I believe is a critical question today and this question is:
“How can I know if it’s God speaking to me?”
As our world moves further from modernism into mysticism, some wonderful things are happening. We are not content to know about God; we want to know Him personally. We don’t want to just search the Scriptures; we want to know the One of whom they testify. (John 5:39) But if we are ignorant of the wiles of evil, even if we are presumptuous about the protection of Good, I have learnt that we can fall victim to the enemy!
Now before anyone thinks I’m going to answer today’s question, I’m first going to ask some questions of my own. And before anyone thinks I’m going to help you know if it’s God speaking to you, I’m first going to help you know if it’s not. The questions I’m going to ask are simply based on my experience and while you may not identify with my illustrations, they may prompt you to think of someone else who will.
Q1. How do you believe Satan speaks to God’s people today? (Trick)
I can’t say I’ve ever asked this question before and it’s possibly one you’ve never heard. Usually, we ask “How does the Bible say God speaks to His people today?” and we assume knowing the answer will keep us safe. But given what the Bible says about Satan, given his description, if the Bible says God speaks to His people in a particular way, how do you think the deceiver will try to speak to us?
Maybe one of the best ways to illustrate this is with the magicians in the story of the Exodus. As God sent each of the plagues on the land of Egypt, the magicians tried to imitate what God was doing through trickery, and I believe this is exactly what happened to me. (Exodus 7:14-11:10)
When I started “hearing” what I thought was God’s voice, it reminded me of the still, small voice that spoke to Elijah and the way God promised to speak to His people in the book of Isaiah. (1 Kings 19:12, Isaiah 30:21) When I would “turn to the right” or “turn to the left,” a thought would pop into my mind telling me “which way to go” and if you’ve already read my story, you know where I literally ended up!
Q2. How might Satan make you want to believe it’s God speaking to you? (Entice)
You’ve heard it said that we believe what we want to believe, yes? So if Satan has been able to make you think it could be God speaking to you, what is it now going to take to make you want to believe it is? What would you love God to tell you right now? What do you most want to hear?
As much as we might wish this wasn’t true, the Bible warns us that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light and tempts us in our weakness, and I can testify to both. (2 Corinthians 11:14, Hebrews 4:15, James 1:14)
When I began listening for God’s voice, what I desperately wanted to know was God’s will. I had been battling with my health for almost a decade and as a previously higher achiever, I felt like a comparative failure. It had taken seven years for me to complete a four-year degree and when I had needed time out of my first job, I had spiralled into depression. Not wanting to risk any of this happening again, I thought if I could just know God’s will, I could be successful, even if that was only in His eyes, and guess what I was supposedly told in my first impression?!
Q3. How might Satan convince you it’s God speaking to you? (Groom)
Although hearing what we want to hear might make us want to believe it’s God speaking to us, that doesn’t mean we won’t question if it’s God speaking to us and if you were brought up with the same distrust for subjective experiences that I was brought up with, you too might take a bit of convincing. So how might Satan do that? How might Satan convince you it is God speaking to you?
Looking back, I can’t believe I fell for exactly what Jesus warned about. In Matthew 24:24, Jesus spoke about signs and wonders being used to lead God’s people astray and that’s precisely what happened to me.
Over and over, when others or I would question if it was God speaking to me, I would experience the supernatural. I would be told something that would happen in the future or something else I couldn’t otherwise know. Sometimes I would be told just a Bible reference and not knowing the verse, I would grab for my Bible and I would be so amazed by how perfectly the verse spoke to my situation that I would think the Holy Spirit was applying God’s Word to my life!
Q4. How might Satan get you to do what he tells you to do? (Manipulate)
Let’s say you started out thinking it could be God speaking to you and you not only wanted to believe it was God speaking to you but you were then convinced it was. What is it going to take for you to now do something you’re told to do that you’re not comfortable doing? How might Satan get you to do that?
In retrospect, I can only begin to list all the ways I was manipulated into doing what I thought was God’s will. Not only did my eight-year experience start with a power set-up–with an impression that “God” would be my senior pastor and I would be His assistant–but there was a constant emphasis on faith and surrender: on trusting and obeying.
I was also bombarded with appeals to Bible teachings and appeals to church traditions, and there were promises of reward. The temptations always seemed “good”; I wouldn’t have thought they were of God if they didn’t. And on the rare occasion when I didn’t do what I was told to do, I would be quoted Bible verses like “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” and unlike Jesus whom Satan also quoted Scripture to, I fell for it! (Deuteronomy 6:16, Luke 4:1-13)
Q5. What might your life look like if you do what Satan tells you to do? (Control)
It wasn’t until the end of my eighth year of experiencing what I thought was God that I experienced “God” in a way I could no longer justify. Up until that point, although I had been told many things I had questioned, I had always been able to justify these things because I had seemingly been told them during silent prayer or they had reminded me of Bible stories or as I said, they had appealed to Bible teachings or church traditions.
I also had a concept of God’s will that appealed to my need for security. I trusted that God was All-Knowing and All-Powerful, and I trusted that He was Love. I therefore felt safer letting God take the lead in every area of my life and even when this had extended into the minutia, when I had been told things like when and what to eat or what I couldn’t wear or listen to, I had assumed that the extent to which “God” was leading me was the extent to which He cared for me.
The day I was told to buy bed sheets for an assigned price, however, the alarm bells rang in a different way and if you’ve already read my testimony, you will be familiar with this story. In the weeks before this encounter, I had been told to buy particular pieces of furniture which I had thought could make sense if God was leading me to set up house. Why I would need God to tell me to buy bed sheets, however, and why I would now be impressed to be careful with my money and why I would also be told exactly how much to pay for the sheets unnerved me.
Wanting to rule out the possibility of having made a mistake, however, the possibility that I may have heard from God wrong, I decided to experiment. Not knowing where I could buy quality Queen bed sheets for A$39.00, I thought I would just get in my car and start driving.
No sooner had I pulled out of the driveway that morning than I was immediately told to turn left. I was then told to turn right, drive however many kilometres, get on whatever motorway, take whichever exit until I finally found myself in a shopping centre carpark over an hour from my house in Sydney’s Western Suburbs.
Presuming the sheets were inside the shopping centre, I began walking towards the entrance. As the automatic doors opened, I could see all the shops were on one floor. I could also see the shop I might be looking for; on its window was the word “Sale.” And there I found them, a set of Queen bed sheets, and at 70% off they were A$39.00. It was later that night that a similar thing happened only this time I was told to turn down a long, dark road!
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This, friends, is what I now believe life looks like when sincere Christians unknowingly do what Satan tells them to do. And this is how I believe we can know if it’s NOT God speaking to us. If Satan is able to trick us into thinking we could be talking with God and He is able to entice us by telling us what we want to hear; if he is able to groom us with signs and wonders and manipulate us with guilt and fear, with time he will also control us until we’re literally turning left and right at his bidding!
This, friends, is not what the Bible says life looks like when we walk and talk with God. When Jesus invites us to sit at His feet–and yes, I said invites us, not commands us–when Jesus invites us to sit at His feet like He invited Martha to sit at His feet, He doesn’t want to trick us or entice us or groom us or manipulate or control us; He wants to free us!
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus said, “because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed.” (NASB, Luke 4:18)
“If you continue in my word,” Jesus told the Jews who believed in Him, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31, 32)
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free,” the apostle Paul urged the Galatians, “stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” (NASB, NRSV, Galatians 5:1)
“Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” How did Paul tell the Ephesians to do that?
“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.” (NASB, Ephesians 6:10-13)
For more on what it means to put on the full armour of God, stay tuned!
Copyright
© 2017 Sue Redman
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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