In the second part of the series, Carl shares personal testimony of how God has spoken to him through the years. It is imperative we seek to hear God for ourselves. By doing so we will be better equipped to fulfill God’s plan and calling for our lives. In this session, Carl gives specific examples of how God shows us things to come (Jn 16:13), in order to forewarn us of impending temptation, amongst other examples. As we practice reading God’s word each day, we should earnestly listen to the still small voice of Gods’ Holy Spirit. Join Carl now to find out more…
Here is a complete transcript of the podcast…(below)
Friend, I’d like to continue the second part of my session, which was live at Denver House of Prayer, and it’s entitled, God Wants to Communicate. Once again, I’d like to apologize for the microphone rubbing on my collar, and it will be fixed in the next recording, friend. Let’s listen now. The temple of the Holy Ghost is in you, which you have of God, and you’re not your own. You’re not even your own. There is a call on your life, friend. How many have discovered the call? How many are actively doing the call? And maturity is really the thing that calls you to the next level. It’s not the power and the pizzazz and the gifts. It’s the maturity. Amen.
The Holy Spirit, God’s voice, is a teacher and agent of truth. He wants to speak directly. We seek God the Father in accordance with his word. We don’t seek angels or miracles or signs and wonders. Signs follow the word preached. That’s how it works. If we start seeking those things, we’re going to fall into deception. Paul said, I did not come in wise words only, but in the power and demonstration of God’s word. When he preached the word, those signs followed. And many cults have fallen into deception because they followed angels that announced themselves with new revelation, and that revelation is not truth, friend. The canon is closed in Scripture. There’s no new revelation. There may be illumination on existing revelation, but there’s no new revelation. The word is the primary way. The ‘logos’ written word becomes a ‘rhema’ when it’s spoken.
Or a word in the Logos can be quickened, and it can spring off the page. How many have had those? When you’ve read the word of God, it sprung off the page. Then you have the eyes of your imagination or heart, which is not an open vision. Like I said, if I had an open vision, I could see angels in here and demons, possibly, if the Lord did that. Right now, when I’m talking about vision, I’m talking about closing your eyes and using your imagination, or seeing pictures or images come into that imagination. That is how he speaks to me primarily, because I’m quite a visual person. That’s how I’m wired. You may be more auditable. You may be more kinesthetic. You may be more feeling orientated. Like I said in the example before, a gentleman had a frozen shoulder. I didn’t know that. My right arm was hurting, and I felt like something’s not right here. I asked him, is your shoulder hurting? Yes, we prayed for him. He was healed. Sometimes the Holy Spirit works through feeling. Don’t discount that. It could be a mild pain. And then dreams. I don’t dream that much. My wife dreams a lot more, and she’s had amazing dreams come to pass. Like meeting her husband. But anyway, apart from that, sorry. You cannot choose the way God communicates.
Simple as that. Dreams that come to pass are powerful, but sometimes they can be warning dreams. I’ve had two warning dreams. When I first got born again many years ago, God showed me a car that was being renovated. I saw this old Mustang. It was just pounded out and just in a real mess. Then I could see it being refurbished in this dream. And he said, I am restoring your life. I’m rebuilding your life back to where I want it to be. And that was the first dream. The same night, I had another one. I heard a knock at my door. I was living in an apartment at the time. The door was straight ahead. So I’ll go and look through the actual, what do you call it, the keyhole, the little people. So I went there and looked through. And the other side, this thing was looking at me with the most evil eyes I’ve ever seen. It was like dark. But I felt peace and safety because I was inside the apartment. I knew the door was locked. So I was like, that’s OK. I mean, the enemy’s there, but he’s not going to get in, right? Now I looked to my side. I had a side entrance door where the garden entrance was. Sure enough, that figure that was outside that door was in the room. What the impression I got was, you’ve got your eye in front. You think you know where the enemy is. He’s going to try and sneak in through the side.
And about five days later, I had a major temptation. And I overcame that temptation. But when it was happening, I felt like that was the Holy Spirit telling me, this is what I was talking about. In fact, when it was occurring, on the inside of me, it was like, this is what I was telling you about. Don’t do it. Now I was only saved about three or four days. I mean, I was real fresh in the spirit. Amen? Now that’s when the enemy comes. He comes, right? When you’re a little baby, you don’t know any better. You don’t know the word, right? The devil doesn’t play fair. Amen? He just doesn’t play fair. But the truth is, God has always got a counter strategy. My professor says the devil’s playing checkers, but God’s playing three-dimensional chess. Right? So he’s always got a counter strategy, right? I’m sure you guys here can tell me some of your dreams that came to pass and visions, et cetera. I know he’s done it. This is open versus closed questions. What I mean by that is, a closed question is, what day is it? Wednesday. There’s no really any other answer than that. It’s the middle of the week, maybe you could say. How old are you? 22. Boom. Straight away. Closed. It’s a closed question. When Jesus said, whom do men say that I am? Whoa, that’s an open question. That has many responses. And when I reviewed this, when I did the masters, I found out that 63% of the time, Jesus asked open-ended questions more than he did closed.
An open-ended question is, tell me about yourself. That’s open. Let’s explore this topic. Open. Let’s discover this together. Open. Right? So you start out here and you go large because the range of answers can be very large in scope. Whereas with a Wednesday or a 22 years of age, you’re there. Right? Did you have a good day today? Yeah. Yeah, I had a good day. Thanks. Jesus was open in the way he asked questions. You could be compromising in your life and he could say something like, is this what you dreamed about? Well, not really. I’ve made a few compromises here in my life. I’d like to be somewhere else.See, a question is a very powerful thing. A question asked by God is infinitely powerful. It can cause you to change your life. So open-ended questioning is more powerful than closed. I’m saying all of this to say, be open to how God communicates to you. Be open to what he says.
Check your heart. The first thing I do if I struggle to hear from God is I check my soul. Not my spirit, my soul. The mind, the will, and the emotions. Have I picked up some bitterness? Have I picked up some resentment? Have I picked up some unforgiveness? And oftentimes we don’t think we have. We’ve actually just buried it. And the Lord is just, he’s got there with his pinprick and he’s just, excuse me, that has not been resolved yet. If you don’t resolve it, you get more and more callous and the skin builds up. In fact, you won’t even be able to feel the pinprick anymore to get our attention. Friend, we don’t want to be there. We want to be receptive, right? David’s strength was in his spirit. He had a contrite heart before God. He was humble. He was open to correction. That’s why I believed he was loved so much and he did so many great things for God.
So God created us to hear his voice. The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both. Hey, God made us, right? He made everything so he can communicate. It is not based on what we have done or our righteousness. He can speak to anybody. He can speak to the sinner. He can speak to the unsaved. He can speak to the saved. He can even speak to pastors. Amen. Thank you. God already knew he was naked. He already knew. He was actually inquiring about Adam’s spiritual condition, inquiring about his spiritual condition. God already knew he was naked, right? It’s not a surprise to him. And God does the same with us. Have you talked to your sister in a year? No. Why? I don’t want to go there. That kind of thing. Everything is purposeful with God, okay? I’ve talked several slides here. We’ve talked about God communicating.
We’ve talked about how he communicates with a still small voice, through the word of God, through dreams, through visions, etc. What we’re going to do now is we’re going to spend 5 to 10 minutes listening to see what he says. Yeah, far out. An activation, amen? Now, I don’t want you to do a dream activation. We don’t have beds. You can do that tonight. Michael got it. He’s the only one who got it. But anyway, so that you can do hearing the voice of the spirit, the still small voice, right? You could close your eyes and through the eyes of your heart, he could show you a picture. That would be a vision activation. He could tell you a scripture. He could tell you to tell your friend something to encourage them. That is a prophetic activation. To prophesy is to comfort, exhort, and encourage. That’s prophesying in the New Testament. It’s not fortune telling. It’s not forth telling, whatever you want to call it. There are aspects of the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom, certainly as part of the gifts of the spirit.
No one’s denying that. But prophecy in its purest form is not that. It’s encouragement. So everybody just relax. Don’t get nervous. We’re not going to have you come up and tell you what you heard necessarily. If someone wants to share what they heard or if they saw, that’s great. We’re all chilled here. You know, we’re in love. Amen. There’s a little bit of an uncomfortable flavor with any challenge. But once you step through that barrier, wow, it’s great. Because you’ve met the Lord in faith. You’ve said, Lord, I believe that you can speak to me tonight in this crazy room with all these strangers and the guy’s got a funny accent. I still think you can do it, Lord. When we do these little activation’s, incredible things can come. I’ll tell you a story right now, which is freaky, but it’s true. I was doing a word of knowledge activation, right? I was in Houston, and we were sitting down like this.
And this lady was very nervous. She’s like, I’ve never really heard the voice of God. I don’t really know what I’m doing. She kept saying it over and over. She’s very nervous. I understand that. So while we were doing the word of knowledge, she kept saying, all I’m seeing is Willy Wonka and the Oompa Loompas. That’s all I’m seeing. Right? Now, that same day, now, I used to work in the oil industry. That day, we had a dress party where we dressed up as people. I dressed up as Willy Wonka, and I had three Oompa Loompas with me. That was in West Texas, in Midland area. Three hours later, I’m sitting in a classroom just like this, and this lady says, all I can see is Willy Wonka and the Oompa Loompas. Now, was she hearing from God? She sure was, right? So what I’m saying is you don’t even realize sometimes that you’re hearing from God, even when you’re seeing something. What you’re seeing could be so bizarre that it may not make any sense to you until you open your mouth, right? So, like I said at the beginning, and obviously it’s been not so easy here because we’ve had some interruptions and people coming in and out, and I’m very grateful for that. But the point is, God speaks to you in different ways. Now, one of you may get a verse. One of you may see something, right? One of you could have something like a pain or something that you need to pray for somebody.
I’m leaving it open. I’m not going to say God does this x, y, and z. This is the box I’m putting him in. No. All right? There is no judgment here, okay? It’s what God chose you. And if you don’t get anything at all, you know what? We’re still going to love you, even if you don’t get anything. Amen? Friend, that first night we did something very unique. I taught on God wants to communicate, and then we actually practiced this with the people present, and it was so powerful. We had words of wisdom, words of knowledge, prophetic words, and people saw things over other people to encourage them. Friend, if lawyers can practice law and doctors can practice medicine, then we have the right to practice the presence of God. You know, friend, many people are interested in the gifts of the Spirit, but they’ve never, ever applied their faith in that area. That night, God allowed us, in an atmosphere of love and acceptance, to practice the gifts of the Spirit with amazing results. We were so blessed. Like I said, this is not a normal session. I would be teaching normally, but I started to give an extreme example of a lady who saw me dressed as Willy Wonka with three Oompa Loompas. Are you kidding me? That is such a sharp word of knowledge.
It encouraged me immensely. There is no other way she could have known that, except by the Spirit of God. I just flew from Midland, got off the plane, and drove to my teaching session. That same night, she described to me in detail what she saw me doing only a few hours earlier. Nothing but the Spirit of God could have done this, friend. But not only that, sometimes when we do these practice activation’s, we can hear some of the most incredible things that can actually encourage us for real life. We can hear, you know, issues in our physical body that need to be addressed and need to be appraised for. So friend, it was such an exciting session. We’ve got other topics coming up, and they will be more formalized teaching. But in every single church service, we take time to worship God, and we take time to sow into the gospel. Friend, I look forward to meeting you in one of our sessions. Until tomorrow, good night, God bless, and remember to spread the good news.
https://carljosephministries.com/podcast/god-wants-to-communicate-part-1-live/
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/if-you-want-to-hear-god-quiet-your-mind
Title: God wants to communicate: Part 2 (LIVE)
Related keyword searches:
