John K. Jenkins Sr - Discerning The Voice of God - Part 2

Open your Bibles very quickly to the book of Hebrews, chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5 today is part two of a series I started last Sunday. This is the second part and the final lesson in this series we call " Discerning the Voice of God.» Say that: «Discerning the Voice of God.» Look at your neighbor and say, «The pastor 's going to teach about Discerning the Voice of God.» Now look on the other side and say, «This is a Bible study,» so the pastor is bringing Bible study to you because you’ve never been to a Bible study. Go ahead, tell them.

The book of Hebrews is a letter written from an unnamed person to Jewish Christians who have converted from Judaism to Christianity. These converted Jews are facing challenges and difficulties in their Christian walk and have contemplated and are considering returning to Judaism. How many of you accepted Jesus but encountered some trouble and thought about quitting? One, two, three, four, five. All right, I see we have some people who just don’t tell the truth. Yeah, at some point in your life, if you haven’t reached that point, keep living; I promise you’re going to get there. Everybody has to go through a stage in their journey where they hit something that makes them want to quit. It’s life. It’s marriage. It’s work. It’s church. It’s everything. Anything worth having will likely involve struggles that go along with it.

So these Christians who converted from Judaism have now hit some bumps in the road, and they are wrestling with going back. This writer writes to them to try to encourage them to stay the course. In chapter 5, beginning at verse 12, here is what he says to them: «For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.» Stop right there; stick a pin. He says, as long as you’ve been walking with God, and in this walk with Christ, you ought to be at a place where you can help teach somebody else. Instead, you need to be taught again.

To be honest, the church is full of people like this, who by this time ought to be able to teach others, yet they haven’t reached a place of maturity or knowledge where they can help someone else in their walk. That 's who he’s talking to — people who haven’t matured and grown. He says, «You need to learn again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you’ve come to need milk and not solid food.»

Verse 13: «For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.» Verse 14: «But solid food belongs to those who are of full age.» Somebody say «full age.» That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Wow, that’s profound. He says, when you get to a place of maturity, «full age,» you should be eating solid food. You can tell who those people are because they have, by reason of use, exercised their ability through maturity, enabling them to discern good from evil.

The reality is we live in a culture where people can’t tell the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong. We are calling wrong right and right wrong. Our thinking has become skewed — the opposite of God’s thinking. Human reasoning has superseded God’s reasoning. I think it’s crazy that our communities are now contemplating legalizing marijuana. We didn’t kill hundreds, maybe thousands, of people from drunk driving, and now we’re going to let people get high and then drive. That 's crazy! Y’all don 't have to say amen; I know some of you use drugs. I thought I would get a little more amen from the 10:00 crowd. I thought the 12:00 crowd would be the ones really silent on that point, but I see we have some smokers in the camp here today.

We are operating in the opposite way of God, and we haven’t been able to discern between good and evil. My assignment today is to try to teach you about hearing God’s voice. The most important thing you’re going to need in life is to hear the voice of God, and you must be able to tell the difference between God’s voice and the devil’s voice. Not every voice you hear is the Lord’s voice. Can I get an amen right there? If you’re not careful, the reality is that when the devil talks to you-in fact, if you get a vision in the middle of the night and it’s from the devil, he will not be standing at the foot of your bed in a red suit with a pitchfork, horns, and a tail. He will be like an angel of light. He will appear to be dressed like an angel; he will sound like an angel. In fact, the devil can quote more verses than all of us in here put together! The devil doesn’t come to you in a demonic way. He doesn’t have a grating, scary voice; he sounds melodious, angelic. He sounds heavenly.