Transcript Does God Speak Today?

Does God Speak Today?
Deep Questions
Does God Exist?
 Does God Really Care?
 Was Jesus the Son of God?
 Does God Speak Today?

“Where there is no prayer from the heart, there
is no religion”
Auguste Sabatier
God speaks, but do we listen?
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SEEK: The Greatest Treasure
hunt of all
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LISTEN: Tune into the right
frequency…
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FOLLOW: The WORD dwelling
among us?
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OBEY: Spiritual Tattoos on the
body of the church…

TRUST: God’s Promises
"The days are coming," declares the
Sovereign LORD, "when I will send
a famine through the land— not a
famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of
the LORD.”
Amos 8:11
Seek…
But if from there you seek the LORD
your God, you will find him if you look for
him with all your heart and with all your
soul.
Deuteronomy 4:29
I love those who love me, and those who
seek me find me.
Proverbs 8:17
….and you will FIND
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and
you will find; knock and the door will be
opened to you.”
Matt 7:7
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matt 5:5-7
'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every
word that comes from the mouth of God.'
Matthew 4:4
The Distracted Ear
“Pay attention, Job,
and listen to me; be
silent, and I will speak.”
Job 33:1
The Reluctant Ear
Jesus looked at him and loved
him. "One thing you lack," he
said. "Go, sell everything you
have and give to the poor, and
you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come, follow
me."
At this the man's face fell.
He went away sad, because
he had great wealth.
Mark 10:21-22
Do we really listen?
“Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your
hearts”
Psalm 95:7-8
“But everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not put them into practice is like a
foolish man who built his house on sand.”
Matt 7:26
Is God’s Message Hidden?
Suddenly the fingers of a
human hand appeared and
wrote on the plaster of the
wall, near the lampstand in
the royal palace. The king
watched the hand as it
wrote. His face turned
pale and he was so
frightened that his knees
knocked together and his
legs gave way.
Daniel 5:5-6
How Does God Speak Today?
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The voice of conscience
Directly to us: The Holy Spirit
• The listening ear
• Meditation, Prayer, and Praise
• Wisdom through testing: the refiner’s fire
Through reading the Scriptures
• The Law and the Prophets
• The Life of Jesus

Through His Church
• Tradition e.g. Wisdom, Liturgy, Creeds
• Leaders: ‘on this rock…’
• Gifts of the Spirit: Teaching, Prophecy, Encouragement
• Living Body: A testimony
‘Even the Stones would cry out’
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The voice of conscience
• You cannot do wrong and
feel right. It is impossible!
Ezra Taft Benson
“I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
Luke 19:40
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men
“In every heart there is an
emptiness that only God
can fill with his son
Jesus Christ.”
Blaise Pascal
Eccles 3:11
Tablets of Stone?

The Old Covenant
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The Law –Moses & The Ten
Commandments
The Prophets
The Promise of the NEW Covenant
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of
Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I
will put my law in their minds and write it on their
hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my
people.”
Jer 39:33
“I will pour out my Spirit on all people.”
Joel 2:28
Living Words
• Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
Psalm 119:105
• “Everything in the Scriptures is God's Word. All of it
is useful for teaching and helping people and for
correcting them and showing them how to live”
2 Tim 3:16, CEV
• “from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures,
which are able to make you wise for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness, so that the man of God may
be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:15-17
The WORD made his dwelling
among us…..
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. He
was with God in the beginning.
John 1:1
“But in these last days he has spoken to us by
his Son, whom he appointed heir of all
things, and through whom he made the
universe.”
Heb 1:2
…and you will KNOW the FATHER
No one knows the Son
except the Father, and no
one knows the Father
except the Son and those
to whom the Son chooses
to reveal him.
Matt 11:27
While he was still speaking, a
bright cloud enveloped
them, and a voice from the
cloud said, "This is my
Son, whom I love; with him I
am well pleased. Listen to
him!"
Matt 17:5
Meditation & Solitude
• But his delight is in the law of the
LORD, and on his law he meditates
day and night.
Psalm 1:2
• Jesus

After he had dismissed them, he went up on
a mountainside by himself to pray. When
evening came, he was there alone Matt 14:23
Prayer
“This is how you should pray:
“Father, may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
Give us each day the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation.”
Luke 11:2-4
The Church as God’s Word to the
World
“By their fruits you will recognise them” Matt 7:20
We are to God the AROMA of CHRIST among those
who are saved and those who are perishing..
1 Cor 2:15
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“The only hermenutic of the gospel is
a congregation of men and women
who believe it and live by it”
Leslie Newbigin
Spiritual Letters

PAUL
“You yourselves are our letter,
written on our hearts, known and
read by everybody. You show that
you are a letter from Christ, the
result of our ministry, written not
with ink but with the Spirit of the
living God, not on tablets of stone
but on tablets of human hearts.”
2 Cor 3:3
The LOVE test
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If I speak in the tongues of men and of
angels, but have not love, I am only a
resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
1 Cor 13:1
Love in action
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and
within reach of every hand.
Mother Teresa
God can speak through us!
Jesus on the Emmaus Road:
"Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with
us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"
Luke 24:32
Philip to the Ethiopian
"Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip
asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to
me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Acts 8:30-31
 God speaks through PEOPLE who love him and
believe in him.
A Promise to HOLD
“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to
me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find
me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be
found by you," declares the LORD
Jer 29: 12-14
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have
sent.”
John 17:3
For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, neither angels nor
demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will
be able to separate us from the
love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
The Prodigal Son by
Ruth Tietjen Councell