Dear Sovereign Redeemer and other friends,

The modern church is overrun with people who are certain that God whispers in their ear practically every day. Never mind that so much of the “God told me” talk is proven to be objectively false after the fact or contradicts God’s specific revelation, the Bible.

It turns out, and not surprisingly, that this is not a new phenomenon. Here is a humorous portion of Charles Spurgeon’s “Lectures to My Students” (the chapter “On Commenting”, p586), which in spite of the humor makes an incredibly important point:

“A batch of poems was sent me some time ago for The Sword and the Trowel, which were written by a person claiming to be under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit. He informed me that he was passive, and that what was enclosed was written under the direct physical and mental influence of the Spirit upon his mind and hand. My bookshelves can show many poems as much superior to these pretended inspirations as angels are to bluebottles; the miserable doggerel bore on its face the evidence of imposture. So when I listen to the senseless twaddle of certain wise gentlemen who are always boasting that they alone are ministers of the Spirit, I am ashamed of their pretensions and of them.”

Can anyone just say it like Spurgeon? Methinks he would have a thing or two to say to many of the authors represented in our local Christian bookstores, offering their shaky doctrine and the fruit of their own inclinations as the voice of God.

If you need the voice of God, Genesis through Revelation will more than suffice.