Was That the Voice of God or Daffy Duck? (Part 5)

 

Yesterday, I saw a photo on Facebook from a progressive website, showing eight potential Republican presidential candidates – Santorum, Cain, Kasich, Huckabee, Perry, Walker, Jindal, and Carson – with these words written in bold script over the photo: “Any politician who declares, ‘God told me to run for President,’ should have to prove it in court.”

The comments for the photo included the following:

“Fortunately, God isn’t telling us to elect them.”

“God is sure hedging His bets.”

“I think the only thing they need to prove is their sanity.”

“Some of these idiots truly believe God spoke to them.”

“God said that. She’s just messing with y’all.”

“God seems confused.”

“God likes the clown bus to be full.”

“They’re nuts and it’s actually their dogs who are telling them to run for President.”

“It’s not God they hear, it’s the man under the ground: Satan.”

(These were some of the reasonable comments, but there were many foul ones, too.)

If we think that we’ve heard the voice of God and then decide to tell everyone that God has said something to us, we had better prepare ourselves ahead of time. Because once we open our mouths, everyone will become a judge.

And this is actually scriptural.

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. (1 Corinthians 14:29)

The Lord encourages us to seek Him to hear His voice, but at the same time, let’s also seek Him for His wisdom, too. You see, once we hear His voice, then we have to make decisions on what to do with what we’ve heard.

Do we keep His words to ourselves? Do we tell others? If we decide to tell others, how do we tell them? Do we say, “Thus saith the Lord?” And so forth.

My advice is to pray something like this ahead of time:

Lord, give me Your wisdom because it is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality or hypocrisy so that I know what to do with Your words. (Based on James 3:17)

(Continued in Part 6)