How many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of:
“The Holy Spirit was telling me to_____”
“God told me to ____”
“The Spirit placed it on my heart to ____”
I don’t know about you guys, but every time I hear someone use the Holy Spirit as the authority for some decision they made…it scares me. I see these people as potentially dangerous. Because in so many words, they’ve elevated themselves to God himself.
And to oppose their actions or decisions…you run the risk of feeling like you’re going against God.
How do we know if it’s really the Holy Spirit that’s telling you to do things…and it’s not simply your own personal desires, emotions, fears, impulses, or preferences?
I remember in 2021, when I was trying to find a wife on eHarmony, I came across a Caribbean woman who told me she moved to Miami because 1) God told her to in a dream and 2) some pastor in a church claimed to have the same dream telling her to move to the States.
I remember thinking to myself… “If it’s my job to lead my family as God calls husbands to do (Ephesians 5), how do I know she won’t have a dream with God telling her to do something that goes against my decisions?”
That might sound like I’m overthinking things…but one could argue that you haven’t thought about it enough.
What if she says God told her it’s okay for our son to start dressing like a girl if he wants? What if she says God that told her to go celebrate a gay wedding? What if she says that God told her to divorce me because she’s no longer happy and she deserves to be happy?
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Of course, all of this could might make me sound like hypocrite, right? Because I’m quite sure I’ve used the statement, “I feel like the Holy Spirit was telling me,” on some number of occasions.
And yet, if you asked me, “How do you know it was the Holy Spirit that told you to do this or that?”…I’d have a good answer for you.
I’d say, “Because it was in accordance with the Bible.”
Can you say that? Do you say that?
Consider the words of 1 John 4:1, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
I’m not trying to be argumentative. There’s a great many mysteries in which I don’t have the answers to everything. And far be it from me to tell anyone that they’re straight up lying. I don’t know that. So, I can’t say with absolute certain that they’re lying.
However, even in the New Testament…when Paul and the Disciples of Christ were going throughout the Mediterranean, preaching the Good News and starting up churches…we saw a number of false prophets and fake apostles rising up also claiming to be followers of Christ.
If you read the Book of Romans and the Corinthians, where Paul had to deal with these fake Apostles besmirching his name and criticizing him…Paul’s answer to those who were torn between believing him and these false prophets lay in the preachings themselves.
Are the False Prophets giving you teachings that are in accordance to what Christ taught? If the answer is no, then they’re fake.
Similarly…if your answer to the question of “How do you know if it was the Holy Spirit telling you to do something?” is anything along the lines of, “I just feel it in my heart…” with no Biblical support…Again, I’m not saying you’re completely wrong. But I believe it’s incumbent upon you to ask yourself more questions.
Even if you want to say, “Well, I know God is love. God wants me to be happy, so this is clearly the right decision and the Holy Spirit moving through me or talking to me…”
I’d ask, “How do you know that God is love? You say God wants you to be happy, but where is that written?”
Ladies and Gentlemen…the point of all this…is that you need to read the entire Bible for yourselves.
Not just parts of the Bible, not just the few Scriptures you cherry-picked to prove your point or justify your actions…the entire Bible.
Earlier, I quoted 1 John 4:1. It instructs you to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.“
The best way to know whether they are from God is to go to the Bible itself.
Now let’s go back to my earlier concerns in dealing with the hypothetical wife.
If she says that God told her it’s okay for our son to dress up and act like a girl, what does the Bible say about that? (Deuteronomy 22:5)
If she says that God wants her to go and celebrate a gay couple getting married, what does the Bible say about that? (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
If she claims that God wants her to get a divorce even though I haven’t cheated on her, but she just wants to be happy, what does the Bible say about that? (Matthew 19:9)
This doesn’t mean that none of us will make mistakes, stumble, or sin. But claiming that the Holy Spirit or God told you to do something that the Bible explicitly tells us NOT to do, this is wrong.
And in my opinion, using the Holy Spirit to justify your actions or decisions when the actions contradict what the Bible says is one of the highest levels of evil in this world. Because you run the risk of leading beginner Christians astray with the thinking, “if its okay for her and she’s a Christian, than it should be cool for me too.”
Even when it comes to little things like, “Oh, I see that bad boy over there with his gang tattoos and the gun on his hip. God is telling me to go befriend him and yes, I might sleep with him even though we’re not married, because I want to change him and bring him to Christ”…you’re playing with fire.
My brothers and sisters…right now, we are living in a society and culture where millions claim to be Christians but they don’t know Christ.
We are living in a dangerous world where, without even realizing it, our feelings have become our own gods, where right and wrong isn’t based on any doctrines, but how we feel.
Your feelings can be manipulated.
Influence is real.
Peer pressure is real.
And in this world where so many are taking their advice and opinions from Social Media, your feelings will bring you, our culture, and all of society to ruin.
Because every action, every decision, every thought that goes against how the Holy Bible calls us to live is NOT the Holy Spirit. It is Satan, his wicked demons, or it’s just you indulging in your own immorality.
The only way for to discern the truth, is to go to the source. Read the Bible for yourself.
If you don’t…and you claim that it was the Holy Spirit that told you to do ____…I’m sorry, but you are dangerous and I have every right to guard myself against you.
