THE INNER VOICE
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If we read the Bible, we see that God spoke to and through many prophets. Some prophets also had visions. Did prophets hear an 'inner voice'? Did they perceive it as an audible voice?
God can communicate in different ways. I suspect the experience of Biblical prophets differed from prophet to prophet. God spoke with Moses as a man speaks with His friend, but other prophets would receive revelations through dreams, visions, and dark sayings.
If you talk with believers who have perceived God speaking or communicating with them, whether through the gift of prophecy or just through receiving direction, it can come in different ways. Some people just suddenly know something. This might fall more into the 'word of knowledge' category.
For example, if you are praying for someone and suddenly know some traumatic event, relationship problem, past sin, or mundane problem the person is praying about. I was praying for a man at a church retreat altar call I'd just met a couple of times at church and did not really know. He said I was praying out loud about the things he was praying for silently. I prayed for him to get another car. I did not know the backstory, but the wheel on his used car was making a strange noise when he drove it. While I was praying this, he was praying about his car. For me, I'd get either ideas about things to pray for that came to me. I had experienced that many times, and had people ask me how they knew things about them. I think of it as 'word of knowledge.'
Prophesying can come as a flow of words, so you might consider that to come through an 'inner voice.' In my own experience, it does seem like I get sentences that come to me, like a conversation, but not an external voice. I could not say what the voice sounds like. It is similar to how I think, insofar as I don't actually hear a voice with a certain tone when I think, but there are words. But I don't have people ask me, "How do you know that about me?" if I just think of someone and tell them.
I have only experienced this a few times that I can recall, but another way of getting some kind of message from the Lord is a picture in my mind's eye. I don't generally think in pictures. I tend to dream in unrealistic color and it doesn't look real. I would have great difficulty building something in my mind and turning it around. Some other people have very visual minds. So the picture in the mind's eye thing may stand out to me more, since my mind does not come up with these things all the time.
I consider the picture in the mind's eye thing to fall into the 'vision' category. Other visions are probably 3D experiences that look like real life, like you are there. An angel woke Peter up and led him out of the prison cell. But Peter thought he was in a vision. He could smell the smells, feel the air, and feel the ground beneath his feet, but he thought that was a vision. So I wonder what the animals in the sheet vision was like for him.
Sometimes an individual might get a picture in his mind that is a revelation for a particular person or a situation. Some people just flow in this. They pray for you and get these visions, which give them direction to pray or they get an interpretation, hopefully, as to what they mean.
I do not think we can say these things are limited to Israel or the church, since Balaam could hear God and even prophesied. But when it comes to dreams, we have examples of Gentiles having dreams given by God in the Old Testament. And there is a passage in Job which talks about how God warns men through dreams. Sometimes, dreams, like visions, can be had to interpret. Prophecies can also be hard to interpret. God told Moses that he would speak through visions, dreams, and dark sayings.
But not every 'inner voice', dream, or thought is from God. If someone asks 'Is the inner voice God speaking?' It depends on which voice. People have their own thoughts. Maybe demons can put thoughts in some people's minds. The Holy Spirit can also speak to people. Angels might be able to as well. They certain can in supernatural experiences where one sees the angel as we see in the Bible.
God can communicate in different ways. I suspect the experience of Biblical prophets differed from prophet to prophet. God spoke with Moses as a man speaks with His friend, but other prophets would receive revelations through dreams, visions, and dark sayings.
If you talk with believers who have perceived God speaking or communicating with them, whether through the gift of prophecy or just through receiving direction, it can come in different ways. Some people just suddenly know something. This might fall more into the 'word of knowledge' category.
For example, if you are praying for someone and suddenly know some traumatic event, relationship problem, past sin, or mundane problem the person is praying about. I was praying for a man at a church retreat altar call I'd just met a couple of times at church and did not really know. He said I was praying out loud about the things he was praying for silently. I prayed for him to get another car. I did not know the backstory, but the wheel on his used car was making a strange noise when he drove it. While I was praying this, he was praying about his car. For me, I'd get either ideas about things to pray for that came to me. I had experienced that many times, and had people ask me how they knew things about them. I think of it as 'word of knowledge.'
Prophesying can come as a flow of words, so you might consider that to come through an 'inner voice.' In my own experience, it does seem like I get sentences that come to me, like a conversation, but not an external voice. I could not say what the voice sounds like. It is similar to how I think, insofar as I don't actually hear a voice with a certain tone when I think, but there are words. But I don't have people ask me, "How do you know that about me?" if I just think of someone and tell them.
I have only experienced this a few times that I can recall, but another way of getting some kind of message from the Lord is a picture in my mind's eye. I don't generally think in pictures. I tend to dream in unrealistic color and it doesn't look real. I would have great difficulty building something in my mind and turning it around. Some other people have very visual minds. So the picture in the mind's eye thing may stand out to me more, since my mind does not come up with these things all the time.
I consider the picture in the mind's eye thing to fall into the 'vision' category. Other visions are probably 3D experiences that look like real life, like you are there. An angel woke Peter up and led him out of the prison cell. But Peter thought he was in a vision. He could smell the smells, feel the air, and feel the ground beneath his feet, but he thought that was a vision. So I wonder what the animals in the sheet vision was like for him.
Sometimes an individual might get a picture in his mind that is a revelation for a particular person or a situation. Some people just flow in this. They pray for you and get these visions, which give them direction to pray or they get an interpretation, hopefully, as to what they mean.
I do not think we can say these things are limited to Israel or the church, since Balaam could hear God and even prophesied. But when it comes to dreams, we have examples of Gentiles having dreams given by God in the Old Testament. And there is a passage in Job which talks about how God warns men through dreams. Sometimes, dreams, like visions, can be had to interpret. Prophecies can also be hard to interpret. God told Moses that he would speak through visions, dreams, and dark sayings.
But not every 'inner voice', dream, or thought is from God. If someone asks 'Is the inner voice God speaking?' It depends on which voice. People have their own thoughts. Maybe demons can put thoughts in some people's minds. The Holy Spirit can also speak to people. Angels might be able to as well. They certain can in supernatural experiences where one sees the angel as we see in the Bible.
I did. But not for hearing an inner voice, but hearing an audible voice from an external source.
Yet I didn't give my testimony before the natural minded, since they Holy Ghost already knows them. I didn't give my testimony to the spiritual minded because they already know the Holy Ghost. But rather, I gave my testimony before the carnal minded because you sow seed on stone so the lost can see. But I digress.
It was on a ex-christian website in which any member that acknowledged a belief in the Bible or a Supreme Being were labeled and marked a yellow cross. I didn't even know how hard their hearts were until I contacted the ADMIN and apologized for giving them the impression that I was a Christian so the might want to remove the avatar since it wouldn't be right to let people think that I was speaking as a Christian.
Being new to the site at the time, I didn't really know how to proceed and when the ADMIN wouldn't remove it I asked the LORD what I should do. I didn't hear an inner voice, didn't hear an audible voice and can't really say it was it was my reasoning but rather I decided that I was already standing on 1 Peter 4:16.
In case the you don't recognize any significance to the yellow cross you might consider reviewing the following links: LINK LINK
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1939-1941/jewish-badge-decreed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge
While I didn't start the thread, which was entitled "Why does God only speak to the mentally ill", I will let you come to your own conclusion the premise of the thread based upon a couple of responses made prior to my post giving my testimony.
But one thing I can testified too also is they don't mind insulting and debasing anyone who believes and what they believe
Would you consider that the following quoted statements would be sufficient to communicate to the reader that the person was stating that they heard and audible voice from an external source?
Or will you construe that the person was conveying that they were hearing an inner voice?
While I did not get the response I was expecting which was to get insults and called names, or at least to the extent I estimated I would. But I did get a few.
But I must admit that you are right, I did not get the response I would have like to which would have been questions for the plausible reason that I could have heard the sound of the audible voice of the LORD since the sound of the wind is produced by the motion of air molecules so it must mean that the word is produced by the pnuema of the flesh.
I have had conversations with God and write them down. It's not physically audible though. I find writing down prayers/conversations that have answers, is another way of accepting God without it being - in the one ear out the other, as I see people do when they go to Church, and probably many pray without listening for an answer as if you are sending God no-reply emails?!
Ok I appreciate you sharing your story, I'm not going to get in the way of you chatting on the internet in places like this about "The Inner Voice." Chatting on the internet anywhere telling some people I hear an inner voice is not something I would do. Of course from what is said in The Bible God does communicate with people in several special ways. I hope you find what it is you are looking for.
I guess if you can't discern between someone saying a external voice or inner voice, or you might believe that the sound of the audible word comes from within. So if faith comes by hearing then are you sure you are not hearing the inner voice of God when you read the scriptures?
But what I find a little strange is that you are claiming that you wouldn't go on the internet and tell people you hear the inner voice of God because you don't hear the written word of God when you read the Bible. So if not God then who do you hear when you read the Bible?
But what I find a little strange is that you are claiming that you wouldn't go on the internet and tell people you hear the inner voice of God because you don't hear the written word of God when you read the Bible. So if not God then who do you hear when you read the Bible?
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