When I hear people saying God told me this, God told me that, I know one, God isn't telling them all those things; two, there's just a big show, and I'm not meeting the real person; three, there's brokenness inside. They really need help. A person like that usually is unstructured in their life, and create havoc in a church where you're trying to flow and develop things in the spirit. You have to actually bring them into discipline where they have to learn to structure their life and stop just listening to every impression that comes, because they've got turmoil in the soul, and haven't learnt to filter out what's God and what isn't. So both extremes happen, but none of you are in that extreme. You're all here in that happy group who will just be opened up to listen to God, aren't we wonderful? Okay then, so again just summarising it again: when God speaks He speaks into our spirit, get the idea? And it'll come up as an impression which comes into your mind, and then you just focus on that, and then begin to speak and act on what God gives you.
As you speak and act on it, then the spirit of God moves, and that's when people get touched. Okay? Well let's give them a clap and thank them for helping out. [Applause] Good stuff, thank you. Okay, so are you getting an idea now about how all of this works, because I want you to understand it clearly and [laughs] there, we'll see. Now I want to just give you two or three examples out of the Bible just to support what I've been saying, then we'll get you to do an activation, how about that? [Silence] Oh, there was a lot of enthusiasm there, that's right! [Laughter] Okay, so again this is not in your notes today but it will be there tomorrow, so let me just give you a few examples. You might want to just jot them down if you wish to, but let me just give them.
The first one is found in Habakkuk, Chapter 2, Verse 1. He said I will stand on my watch, and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what the Lord will say to me. Notice this word, I will watch to see what God will say. So he did a couple of things. Number one, he positioned himself to be quiet. This is important to hearing the voice of God, you've got to quiet yourself down, so when I get to do activations with you we'll get you to do a couple of things. One of the things we'll get you to do is to pray in tongues so your spirit becomes energised, alive with the flow of the Holy Spirit. The second thing we'll get you to do, is just be quiet and focus your attention to just listen for a flow of spontaneous thoughts that come, then the third thing is we'll get you to then identify what you're thinking or feeling or what's happening, and speak it out.
Okay, so Habakkuk positioned himself to hear God, quietened himself, and then he focussed on intuitive flow of seeing, hearing. That's how he got it, and he was able to discern it. God spoke to him by a picture. In 1 Samuel 3:10, you remember the story of Samuel, and Samuel was lying down, and the Lord came and spoke to him and said Samuel! Samuel! And he jumped up and ran to Eli. Why did he jump up and run to Eli? Very simply, he heard something so strongly he thought it was Eli. He didn't recognise that it was God's voice, so it takes time to recognise the voice of God speaking to you. You've got to practice until you get used to oh, that is the voice of God, I'm recognising Him speaking to me. I know that's God speaking - and there are a number of ways we can get that. A third example there is in Mark 2, Verse 8, it says Jesus perceived in His spirit that they were reasoning. He perceived in His spirit they were reasoning, so it was He knew something. Now what was going on, get the picture, Jesus is speaking - now get this - He worked out what they were thinking. How did He figure out what they were thinking? He felt it in His spirit what they were thinking.
Now you've probably had an experience like that, where you were talking with someone, or they were talking, and then suddenly you felt something about that person, a thought rose up. You just perceive it in your spirit. You can't shake it off, you just know you can feel it's there. So the third example is the one we saw at Acts 14:9, where Paul looked at the man intently and saw he had faith to be healed. How did he see it? He perceived it in his spirit. There was a knowing inside, so you'll discover then that all of the moving in the spirit, moving in the supernatural, comes out of intimacy or connection with the Holy Spirit, where we learn to recognise His voice and act on it. The more you act on it, the easier it is to recognise. The more you practice walking with God and listening and responding to His impressions, the more easily it comes to you. It's like Jesus said, if you have ears to hear, more will be given. If you don't have ears to hear, even the little you have you lose, so it's like you have to use it or lose it. You've got to continually develop listening to God in your personal private life, so it flows out of devotion.
Okay then, so the last thing I'll finish this session with, and then we'll get you to do something. There are other ways that people receive revelation of course, but what I want to show is just some things about the revelations God gives. There are a couple of checks that you want to run by anything that you think God has given you, and here's what they are. Number one - so these are tests of revelation. If you think you've got something from God - you'll find this on Page 19 in your notes - number one, does it agree with the Bible? If it doesn't agree with the written word of God, the Holy Spirit wrote the written word of God; will He who wrote that Bible tell you something different to what He wrote? Not going to happen, so if you come up with a revelation, and you say that God has spoken to you this thing, but it's contrary to what the written word of God says, you got it wrong. You've actually just got it wrong, and it's come either just as a random thought, it's come out of your own desires or thoughts and perhaps that's how you got it - but you got it wrong.