Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

The Sovereign has spoken! Hear Him!

Consider the command of that voice. The thundering command. This is the God of Scripture.

When God speaks, it is authoritative and powerful. He is not merely a sovereign, but the Sovereign God. The Creator and Sustainer of all things.

The god speaking to so many today is so weak, effeminate, and needy. He is not Lord. He is not Master. He is not King. He is not Sovereign. The god who speaks so commonly in churches today and in the hearts of professing believers is not the God of Scripture.

Hear Him speak. Hear who He reveals Himself to be. No man then may hear the whisperings of his own heart or the claims of so many unqualified men in the pulpit, their claims of what God spoke to them, and continue to think that is God once he has truly heard God in Scripture. That’s not God. It’s their own hearts, at best.

The man who sets his heart to the text of Scripture and truly hears God will not be swayed by his own thoughts of Him.

Be careful of your low view of such a high and holy God that you would be so foolish as to hear your own heart and ascribe those words to Him. Understand your own sinful heart and its desire to reign. Submit it to God. For many foolish men teach that God is leading you through whispers and impressions. This is to the delight of your sinful heart. It is not submitted to God, showing rebellion against His revealed Word and authority by seeking its own rule, following the voice that reveals what is in agreement with its own heart, and obeying the voice of another. Rebellion is not merely casting aside the name of God, but taking up His name and following the voice of one’s own rebellious heart and doing so in His name.

Be careful is not a gentle suggestion. It is a warning of very real threat to your own soul, and that threat is your own heart’s desire to reign and be its own god. Such men heap up teachers who promise they can hear God speak to them personally and be led by that voice because it says what they love.

When the beauty of God is revealed, it is not some superficial, soft, sentimental, or ornamental beauty. It is perfection. It is holiness. It is perfect power. It is all His glory on display. It is the commands of the Sovereign sent forth to His subjects. It is the rule and power and authority of God on perfect display. And as many are His foes, thinking themselves autonomous and reigning over their own lives, rebelling against Him or seeking to overthrow Him, He laughs. He has ordained all things. He is sovereign over all things. They are no threat to His reign, His power, His majesty, or His kingdom. His beauty is more than our eyes can behold as creatures. For even men fall in awe before His created heavenly host. What shall we think but that men who claim such unique intimacy with God have made trips to heaven, or have had the King of glory sit on their beds and chat with them, or lie down with them in the afternoon and whisper to them, or give them new revelation just for them or for their church each week? Is that the Sovereign God reigning and ruling over all things, who has established all things and worked all things from beginning to end? Has He failed to give us a completed Canon that rules every man, everywhere, perfectly and in order, according to His sovereign will, and by which we are all led by the same power, the same authority, the same commands, and led by the same Spirit to obey and enabled to do so?

Rogue and rebellious are many pulpits. Dissatisfied with the Sovereign’s, the King’s, the Master’s commands. For to seek something new, something fresh, is to throw off the perfect and complete Word of God and claim the Spirit of God is leading a rebellion with new words, new revelations.

The Sovereign has spoken. The King has issued His orders. The Master has given His commands. And every precious saint, near and far, past and present and future, are alike ruled and commanded and are alike empowered by the Spirit to obey His commands, finding comfort and strength in that perfect, immutable, authoritative, complete Word of God.

He has spoken. Yet many will not be satisfied with what He has spoken. They love not His commands and love not His voice. Another voice they follow, for He has said that they will do so. They will heap up men who tell them what they want to hear. Many are such men. And many are they who love their new words, new revelations, the freedom and power promised to them that sets them apart from church history and from those Christians with their Bibles, doctrine, theology, and discernment today. They claim that they ought to be hearing God speak to their own hearts and to obey what they hear in their heart as the command of God. They follow their Master. Their heart is their Master. They obey. And they call it by the Name of God.

Blasphemous are the prayers and praises of many men who know not the voice of the Shepherd, the Master, for their hearts follow another and they believe they follow Him. They love the voice of their master and they follow him, for he speaks their own desires. They corrupt the Master’s Word to their own benefit, twisting it and distorting its beauty to have it say what they want it to say and to claim the Master is speaking something new through His Word just for them. They show their contempt for the holy and Sovereign God and the Master of the house, the King, by throwing off His commands and giving new meaning to His Word just for them. They don’t love Him. They don’t obey Him. They obey the voice of their own heart.

The one who has come to set his heart and mind under the Master’s Word finds there His Word authoritative, sufficient, powerful, immutable. His heart rejoices in that perfect Word. He is enabled by the Spirit to follow the voice of His Master and obey His commands. The Master’s voice he does not despise. And the more he looks into His Word, the more he is changed and being changed more to the image of the Son by the powerful and effective work of God in him. He is cared for and secure in the truth and in the commands and instruction of the Sovereign and his Redeemer. He seeks not a new word but finds the Master’s Word sufficient and powerful. There is assurance and peace in the finality of the Word and that the same Word spoken to the early church is authoritative and sufficient for the bride today.

Many today know Him not. They follow another master. They are ruled by their own hearts that have been baptized in spiritual language, and having powerful experiences, have validated their delusions. They increasingly set their hearts and minds against the Master and hate even the language of such. They know Him not. They are led by another.

There is one Lord! One Master. He has spoken. In His Word. Will we obey Him or the voice of our own hearts that unqualified men and rebellious women lead many to follow and claim it is God? The same men lead by claiming He speaks to them, giving them new words. That itself should send men fleeing. For the Master has spoken! Who will we follow?