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February 16, 2026 |
| Hearing and Feeling God | ||
There are some ideas that have gotten into the church about what the experience of God should be for a Christian. These relate to hearing God and feeling the presence of God. In this study, we'll look at what the Bible says about these.
Related to this, I was asked a question by a friend, "When the Holy Spirit goes silent, will we know, or how will we know?"
Most Christians have the idea that they should be able to hear God, if not audibly, then as a small, still voice or a feeling. There are two problems with that.
The idea behind the "small still voice" comes from Elijah. There is no basis for applying that to Christians.
Elijah was a prophet chosen by God. Therefore God spoke to him frequently. Christians are not prophets. Though many claim to be prophets, I've never seen anyone demonstrate it. I've also seen numerous claims that someone demonstrated it, but when a person tries to track the claim back, no one can found.
There is also a major misunderstanding in the church about what Elijah is doing at the time God speaks with him in a "small still voice." Elijah has gone off the rails because so many prophets have been killed by Jezebel. The whole episode of fire from Heaven that burned up his sacrifice was Elijah, not God. God went along with it so that Elijah's credibility as a prophet would be retained.
So the incidents back at the mountain were God making the point to Elijah that the drama of fire from Heaven accomplished nothing, except making Jezebel angrier, and God's way of turning people back to him is through smaller things like the "small still voice."
Therefore, the "small still voice" was a rebuke to Elijah, not a promise to Christians that their experience of God would be that way.
In the same way that Elijah was a prophet, Jesus' disciples became apostles. God spoke directly to them, as he had done with the prophets. That's why their writings are considered infallible, and mine are not. When the last of the apostles died, there were no more, though there are also many people now who claim to be apostles.
The apostles gave spiritual gifts to people. These gifts included prophecy, healing, and others. As the apostles and these others died, there were no more people like them. In the New Testament, we do not see God speaking to regular people as he spoke with them. There were times when God would speak with a regular person through a dream or an angel, but that happened to only a few people, and only a few times.
Never do we see an apostle saying, “listen for a ‘small still voice’," or anything like that. Never do we hear, "listen to your feelings," or "follow your heart." Christianity is not a "feeling" religion. What we hear instead is this:
The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
None of what I've said should be interpreted as saying that God doesn't speak to people in a voice. I'm only saying that God does what he wants, and he is selective and uses that method rarely.
As I was preparing this study, a YouTube video came up on this topic. A Christian leader was saying what he barely dared to say. God did not speak with him in that way. He talked about all the people who said this was a normal part of their life. He felt that he must be doing something wrong. Eventually he realized there was nothing wrong with him.
With people talking about their experiences with God, he was tempted to pretend that he also had those experiences. His love of the truth kept him from doing that. Other people may have succumbed to that pressure though.
The stories of these experiences present a danger to the body of Christ. We see it especially in Charismatic circles, where it is necessary to have had such experiences in order to be part of the group. This has caused people to fake it and others to delude themselves into thinking they have done it.
The main way that God speaks to his people is through his word, the Bible.
God also speaks to us through the Spirit, though not usually as words. The Spirit guides us in a wide variety of ways, as suits his purpose.
For God is carefully working in you both to desire and to do that thing which you desire. (Philippians 2:13)
God desires to mold each of us so that our desires will match his and so that we will act on those desires to achieve his will. That isn't done through words or feelings. It is done by a changed person doing what he thinks is right.
Another example of this "get up and do what is right" approach comes from Joshua after the Israelites were driven off by the people of Ai.
Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of Yahweh[…] 7 Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord Yahweh, why did You ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to make us perish? If only we had been willing to live beyond the Jordan! (Joshua 7:6-7)
He goes on like this for a while.
So Yahweh said to Joshua, “Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? 11 Israel has sinned, […] (Joshua 7:10-11)
Another good example of this "get up and do what is right" approach comes from Moses. The people were pinned between the Sea of Reeds and the Egyptian forces.
But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of Yahweh which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. 14 Yahweh will fight for you, and you will keep silent.”
15 Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Speak to the sons of Israel so that they go forward. 16 As for you, raise up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea […] (Exodus 14:13-15)
"Why are you calling out to me? Get going." That's priceless. "Yeah, I'm going to do all that stuff, but you need to do the walking."
If we get the idea that our relationship with God should be a certain way and we insist on it being that way, we are pushing God around. He knows how to guide each one of us best. All we need to do is to do what seems right. God will steer us in the ways he knows he can. Maybe it will be a word from a friend. Maybe it will be a sign on the road. Maybe God will bring something to mind. If God needs to convey something in words, he will do that.
Letting God steer us in the way he wants and trusting him to do that is a difficult step of faith for everyone.
One way I've heard of for abusing God is the idea of "praying through to an answer." If you haven't heard of it, the idea is that you begin prayer with the intent to keep praying until you get an answer. That is not a Biblical idea. It is pushing God around.
This feeling is frequently discussed. As a young Christian, I sometimes felt it too. I do not know what causes this feeling, though I wonder if it is just the euphoria of conversion wearing off.
What we can say is that the Bible never mentions it. Therefore we should not consider it an indication of anything in our relationship with God. God is always present.
Yeshua answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me keeps my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and we will make our lodging with him.” (John 14:23)
There are no conditions on that verse.
Feeling is not the test: Emotional experiences like chills, tears, or visions are not reliable indicators of God’s presence. The Bible warns that such feelings can be subjective or even deceptive if not rooted in obedience and holiness.
Presence is known through obedience and faith: The true evidence of God’s presence in your life is a transformed heart and life that aligns with His Word (2 Corinthians 5:17). As Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” (John 14:23 above)
You can trust His presence even without feeling it: John MacArthur said, “You can’t feel the presence of God … But I do know this: He’s here.” Faith is the assurance of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1). (Some AI)
There are people who have committed mortal sins, yet they still believe they are Christians and God is in them, though the Bible says these people are completely separated from God. How is it possible that they can be unaware that God is no longer with them? The reason is that God's presence cannot be felt.
That paragraph about the sinners of mortal sins leads into our final topic.
The Bible doesn't speak clearly about this change in the activity of the Holy Spirit, so most Christians are unaware of it, but there will be a time when the Holy Spirit will no longer guide believers as he does now. This applies to unbelievers as well, in the way the Spirit guides them. This change is done so that the anti-Christ can arise to do Satan's work.
Our question at the start was "will we know when this happens" or "how will we know." We've already settled that there won't be a feeling of presence that disappears. In fact, my reading of the verses related to this leads me to think that the Holy Spirit does not leave us.
The verses, as I've said, indicate that he only stops guiding us. That would mean the Holy Spirit could continue with his other roles. That would be consistent with the purpose for this change, to cease interfering with the anti-Christ.
That introduces the question: "How exactly do little people like me interfere with the anti-Christ?" Christians do it every time they say no to evil and tell others not to go along with evil. Unbelievers do it because they are guided to see evil as wrong and say no to it. Together all these little people are enough to keep the anti-Christ from doing what Satan wants.
It seems we have an open and shut case for saying we will not know, but there is this "seal."
And he said, “Do not harm the Earth, neither the Sea, nor the trees, until we seal the Servants of God on their foreheads.” (Revelation 7:3)
So, not only does the Spirit cease guiding, but the believers receive a seal. A seal had many purposes. As we see in Revelation, it could be used to close a scroll in a way that you would know if anyone had opened it. It was also used to mark ownership of property.
Certainly this sealing is marking God's people as God's property, but is there more to it?
This verse is similar to the verse about the mark of the Beast, but we need to understand the differences.
It is possible, then, for the sealing to be more than marking us as property, possibly "impressing" some knowledge into us. The verses do not give us the slightest hint about what that knowledge could be.
Revelation is clear that some Christians will turn away from Jesus after that time. So the knowledge would not prevent that.
If we think of the knowledge from the perspective of mitigating the damage from losing the Spirit's guidance, then the knowledge could be a complete, accurate Bible contained in our minds.
Those seem like reasonable thoughts, but maybe they aren't.
There is no reason in the Bible for us to think that we can feel the presence of God.
The Bible strongly supports the idea that God can make himself "heard in words," but there is no reason to believe that this should be the everyday experience of every Christian.
Expecting God to guide you in some way of your choice, such as speaking, is pushing God around.
The evidence of God's presence in you is the changes in you. We also sometimes see events come together in our lives that make us think, "God had his hand in that."
When the Spirit ceases guiding us, we will not be able to feel a difference in the presence of God. We may be able to know the change has happened in other ways though. If the sealing does result in an impression of knowledge into us, that would be evidence that the change has happened.
We could also notice it in the decisions that we make. They would frequently not turn out right. I don't just mean they don't turn out the way we expected, but they would form a pattern of turning into disasters.