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Transcript 240B — "Was That God Talking to Me or Not?"
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Brother Camping. From time to time I've heard people call in to you, and they say that God has spoken to them in certain ways. And I've heard you make the statement that, "How did you know that that was God speaking to you?" or "Are you sure that that was God who was talking to you, or was it the devil talking to you?"
And I have a question about something that happened to me in the last ten days, that I would like for you to answer me, to sort of clear my mind up on things. I had a bone scan. I went into the hospital ten days ago And the next day after I went in, I "spaced out" on some medicine that they gave me, and I was spaced out the whole time I was in there. And right in the middle of this whole thing, it just seemed like God split the curtains open and communed with me, and just told me not to worry, that everything would be all right, and not to worry, that there wasn't that much longer to wait. And then everything just seemed to close up, and I didn't remember anything else that happened.
Now was that God talking to me or not?
HC: More than likely it was hallucinatory, or it could have been a result of the medicine you had been taking or it could be the result of a lot of things.
CALLER: That's the only thing that was clear during that whole period.
HC: You see, the whole question that we face is this: What is the revelation of God to us? Is the Bible and it alone to be looked upon as the divine Word? Or may we look for the divine Word in another way, and from another source?
You see, if I, for example, were thinking, let's say I was going into an operation, and I was thinking much of the fact that I am in the Lord's hands. All is going to be well, because He never leaves me nor forsakes me. And so on and so on. It's possible that under the medicine I might receive, or under the stress, or whatever thing it is, it's possible that I may believe that God is speaking to me.
But actually, God has spoken to me in His Word. Now He may bring to my memory a comforting verse that I had read in the Bible, that previously had appeared there. But He will speak to me through His Word.
CALLER: Well, I know since this has happened (I was released Saturday), I have had an inner peace that I haven't had in years. And I seem to be closer to God than in a long time. Like you say, maybe He was speaking to me through His Word, and He brought this up in this form, as a matter of letting me know that He still cared.
HC: Your question is a good question. When you have this kind of an experience, and now you find a peace within your heart, you have to ask yourself a very fair question, "Do I have that peace within my heart because I sense that God, in a mysterious and supernatural way, has opened the curtain between the natural and the supernatural, and has specifically spoken to me? And is that therefore the reason that I have this peace? Or do I have this peace because I know what the Bible teaches me, and it has promised me that God will never leave me nor forsake me, and He has carried me through this operation, or through this experience, whatever it is, and therefore I have this peace?" And there's a vast difference, you see.
If your peace is there as a result of your belief that there has been a supernatural opening, where God has spoken to you directly, apart from the Bible, then it's a peace that is not based on a good foundation. You want to place your trust only in what you read in the Bible; the Bible is the Word of God.
CALLER: I firmly believe in every word in the Bible, that it is inspired by God.
HC: But you see, the question that we have to arrive at is: Is it possible that there is an articulated Word of God, a verbalized Word of God, over and beyond the Bible? That is the real core of the question. And that is the heart of the question.
Now I believe the Bible teaches that it alone and in its entirety is the divine Word of God. And any other experience I might have, that appears to be an articulated Word of God, I may not look upon as being a Word of God. It is simply something that has come out of my own mind, or it is hallucinatory, or whatever. But it is not to be looked upon as from God.
Now it doesn't necessarily all have to come from Satan, of course. Our minds, you know, can be very confusing at times.
CALLER: Could it be an angel of God that's doing this, maybe?
HC: No. It would not be an angel of God. It would not be that, because God will not violate His own rules. You see, in the days of the Bible, before the Bible was completed, at that time God occasionally would send a special message by means of an angel, for example, to the Virgin Mary, and to Joseph, in a dream, and so on. And that was par for the course in those days, because God had not completed His Word.
But when God completed His Word, He said we're not to add to the words of this book. And so while angels are present with us, and while angels care for us, as the Bible teaches, they will not break the silence between the supernatural and the natural. They will not add another word to that which we find in the Bible. And if we want to find out God's will for our lives in any way, we are to go to the Bible.
CALLER: This just seemed to real and so genuine end so sweet, that it just you know, I really wanted to talk to you about it, to see how you really felt about it.
HC: You see, frequently there are those who have had a dream. And the dream has been very, very vivid. Now we all dream, every night. And sometimes our dreams are completely submerged in our subconscious, so that we're not even aware that we've dreamt. But occasionally we'll have a dream that is very vivid, so vivid that we can almost remember every detail of the dream.
Now there are those who are exercised by these dreams. They really believe that God has spoken to them in this dream. Now this is where the problem arises. The dream in itself was not bad. The dream is typical of what people have. But it depends on how we look at that dream. The moment we look upon that dream as the voice of God, then effectively we are saying, "I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, but I also believe that God has spoken to me in this dream. And now I have two sources of divine truth. I have the Bible, and I have this dream. Both are authoritative for my life."
And this is what the Bible warns against. It says we're not to add to the words of this book. The Bible alone is the authority for our life.
So if I would have that very vivid dream, and regardless of how holy and marvelous and wonderful the dream is, I would recognize, "Okay It's a dream. It's not a message from God. It came out of my subconscious somewhere. I'm not to look upon it as the voice of God at all. The only voice of God is what I read in the Bible." Then I'm on safe ground, you see.
CALLER: Before this happened, this incident that I just told you about, the doctors and nurses didn't tell me until I was ready to leave the hospital, but they told me, for that spell, that they did not expect me to make it through. They did not expect me to live. And they said there seemed to be a change in my life.
And so how do I explain to somebody else, as a Christian, something like this?
HC: First of all, doctors and nurses do not know what God's program is for you or for me. A lot of times they will make certain speculations, or guesses, as to what will happen. Sometimes they say, "Well, this is a fairly normal operation. The possibility of dying on the operating table is very remote." And that person can still die on the operating table.
On the other hand, a person can undergo quite severe surgery, where the likelihood of coming through seems to be fairly remote. And yet everything goes well, and there is healing, and everything comes along very well. You see, God is the one who takes life, ultimately. God is the one who can care for us in these various difficult times. And doctors and nurses don't know that much about what our bodies can take, and so on.
CALLER: But I have two good Christian doctors, and they realize this. And they know that my faith is the one thing that has carried me through, and has caused me to outlive the prognosis that I should have been dead twenty years ago. They know that my faith in God is very strong, and they know that God has really looked after me.
HC: All right. When you talk about this experience, all you have to do is very humbly indicate that God cared for you. He brought you through a very difficult experience, and God in His mercies cared for you, so that you came back to health again.
Now it could have been God's merciful plan for your life that on the operating table He took you. And that isn't bad, either, you know. To leave your body and to be present with the Lord if you are indeed a born again believer, is not to be despised in any way. But it was God's program that you not die on the operating table, and He cared for you. Now insofar as . . .
CALLER: That's the most wonderful feeling in the world, to just know that He cares
HC: Yes. Now He teaches that in His Word. Now had He taken you on the operating table, He would have been caring for you. The fact that He restored you to health again indicates He cares for you. The Bible teaches that whatever happens, if we belong to Him, we know it is for our good. It is best for us. And in this you rejoice, you see.
Now the fact that you had this particular experience on the operating table, where it seems like God was speaking to you, I would discount that. I would simply say that, "Well, okay, I had what appeared to be a very vivid dream, but I know that that comes out of my mind. I know that if I want to know what God has to say to me, I have to look in the Word."
CALLER: Does God speak to any of His children, in this dispensation, at all?
HC: Through His Word. Through His Word God speaks to us. Otherwise God would be violating His Word. Then we would have the situation where each one has his own source of divine truth. He can have the Bible, plus whatever God is bringing individually to that person. And that would mean that you have all kinds of gospels. In fact, this is exactly the reason that we have an increase in other gospels.
CALLER: Well, thanks very much. You cleared up a whole lot for me, and I appreciate that very much.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.