hi I'm Professor Timothy Moore and this is the course Christian spirituality Unit Nine being led by the Holy Spirit and so I want to focus on how we can know that we are being led by the Holy Spirit and we need to begin by looking at some verses about the nature of the Holy Spirit and uh we'll we'll start with this statement and then we'll look at a couple of support verses for this uh the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity God is Triune Father Son and the Holy Spirit the holy spirit
is the empowering presence of God in our lives and the directing intelligence of God for our lives Galatians 5:116 says so I say let the holy spirit guide your life some translations say allow the holy spirit to guide your life some translations say yield yourself to the Holy Spirit then you won't be doing the things that your sinful nature craves verse 22 says the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control there's no law against these things it's saying if these things are happening
in your life the spirit is controlling your life and the law of Christ uh loving God loving people is happening and so it's not a list of what's required or forbidden the holy spirit is just relationally in charge of your life and uh so verse 24 those who belong to Christ Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there and since we are living by the spirit let us follow the spirit's leading in every part of our Lives let's pray about that together Holy Spirit I
pray that you'd give us Grace and understanding to allow you to lead us in every part of our Lives just as this scripture says this is your word it is inspired by you and so enable us to live this out to the end that people see Jesus shining through our lives in whose name I pray amen I have found in uh certain groups certain denominations s um people are hesitant to talk about listening to the Holy Spirit and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and Empower their lives um I've heard people say uh pastors even
professors say it's too subjective people can claim the holy spirit is saying anything and everything and so what they mean by that subjective means to be drien driven by feelings and emotions and objective is to be driven by facts and understanding and so we want to try to make a shift so we're going to attempt to move away from the subjectivity of listening to the holy spirit being led by the holy spirit so it's not being driven by feelings and emotions we want to move away from that into objectivity when it comes to listening to
or being attuned to the spirit of God and so in order to do that we're going to have to answer a question and that question is this how can we know with certainty that we're being led by the holy spirit of God is that even possible if the holy spirit of God is speaking to us intern Ally is there a way are there some tests some filters that we can use to determine if we actually are hearing from the Holy Spirit and being led by him if we're not hearing an audible voice and personally I
know I'm I'm I am certain of the fact that the Holy Spirit leads my life and I've been a pastor and uh a teacher for 34 years years now and I've never heard an audible voice so is there a way if you don't hear an audible voice is there a way to know for certain the holy spirit is speaking to you and that's what we're going to uh tackle in this uh lecture and so um I believe there are three filters that we can use use three filters three tests whatever we want to call that
um that will enable us to shift from being subjective and emotion-driven to objective and fact driven okay and the first thing is aligning with scripture that's the first filter the second filter is this and we're going to I'm going to explain all three of these things what they mean scriptural evidence for these things and and how we can apply them to our lives but number one is aligning with scripture number two is reflecting all three three transcendentals and I'm going to explain what the transcendentals are in a few moments and then eliminating competing voices so
these are the three filters that I believe if we apply to what we sense the holy spirit is saying to us we can move from being subjective to being objective and and know with a degree of certainty that the holy spirit is leading us and empowering us to do the Lord's work in our lives or to make the right decisions for our lives so let's talk about alignment with scripture 2 Timothy 3:16 Says all scripture is God breathed it's useful for teaching rebuking correcting training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly
equipped for every good work so so the word of God is inspired by God that word that's translated inspired or God breathed is theas it's a Greek word Theos God Nas which means to breathe like pneumonia but it's also the word for the spirit Numa is the Greek word for spirit and so the scripture is God breathed it's Spirit inspired and Jesus in John 16:13 says when the spirit of of truth comes and that's very important that he calls the Holy Spirit the spirit of Truth keep that in mind he will guide you into all
truth that's what the Holy Spirit does he's the spirit of Truth and he guides us into all truth Jesus said he will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard he will tell you about the future he will bring me Glory by telling you whatever he receives from me there's a a beautiful progression of Revelation that is uh it's very deep and we don't have time to get into it in this lecture however I will say Jesus came to this earth the Bible says sent by the father Jesus said I
don't speak on my own authority I only speak what the father gives me John chapter 5 and and and so he spoke what the father gave him he did what the father told him to do even though they are co-equal and co-eternal Trinity God the Father God the son and God the Holy Spirit there is uh there is a a Doctrine called the kosis where the U the members of the Trinity submit the themselves to one another especially for a period of time and so when Jesus came to the Earth 33 and a half years
here he was submitted to the father well what Jesus teaches in John chapter 16 is uh when he ascends back to the father he sends the holy spirit so the father sent Jesus then Jesus sends the Holy Spirit and Jesus says the Holy Spirit won't speak on his own authority he will give you my words so just like Jesus spoke the words of the Father the Holy Spirit speaks the words of Jesus he said he will not speak on his own but he will tell you what he's heard he will tell you about the future
he will bring me Glory by telling you whatever he receives from me so for this moment I want you to go back to that that first phrase of how Jesus describes the Holy Spirit he calls him the spirit of Truth and then John 17:17 when Jesus is praying what they call the high Priestly prayer before he goes and and uh he goes to the Cross to be crucified for our sins before he goes through uh all of that the trial and and the beatings and and the suffering of the Cross he prays this beautiful prayer
and and it is uh John chapter 17 the whole chapter is this prayer and in verse 17 he he's talking to the father and he says make them talking about us his followers his Believers make them Holy by your truth teach them your word which is truth and so the connection I'd like for you to make is that the holy spirit is the spirit of Truth Jesus says father make them Holy by your truth your word is truth and so do you see the alignment so the holy spirit is a spirit of Truth the word
of God is truth the spirit of God will always speak in alignment with the truth which is the word of God and so the first filter am I hearing from the holy spirit is this is it in alignment with God's word does it in any way contradict what Jesus taught us in the New Testament so that's the first filter the second filter are the transcendentals so what what do we mean uh when we use in in theology in Christian theology what do we mean when we use the word transcendental when theologians speak of transcendentals they're
typically referring to three aspects of God's character the first aspect is truth the next one is goodness the next is Beauty and so the way this is expressed is all truth is God's truth if it's truth it comes from God all goodness is God's goodness and so if something is truly morally good and right then it comes from The God Who is always good and morally right he's the source of it and then Beauty all beauty is God's Beauty if it's truly beautiful it comes from God as the source of that beauty all truth is
God's truth all goodness is God's goodness and all beauty is God's Beauty those are transcendental statements and so how does this apply to whether or not we're hearing from the Holy Spirit I I want to give some script Ral uh foundation for these three things and then we're going to I'm going to answer that question and so we say God is good and and all goodness flows from God right Psalm 11968 says you are good and do only good teach me your decrees God is good John 14:6 Jesus said I am the way the truth
and the life no one can come to the father except through me God is true he is good he is true he's truth itself and then Psalm 274 says one thing I ask from the Lord this only do I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to Gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his Temple so God is good he is true he is beautiful and someday we will will Gaze on the beauty of the Lord so answering that um that
first question how do these transcendentals move us from subjective feeling to objective fact in the leadership of the Holy Spirit Well the transcendentals themselves have to become questions and so the first question God is good all goodness comes from God and so the first question is if you're sensing that the Holy Spirit may be leading you to do something first question is is it good the second question is is it true is it true is it real and the third question is is it beautiful because the holy spirit is God in us and he is
good he is true he is beautiful so every everything he says will be simultaneously good and true and beautiful if it um if it's not all three of these things it's probably from us or it's probably from the world it's not from the holy spirit because he speaks these things woven together the third thing that we have to do the third filter that it's um important to use is eliminating competing voices the biblical framework the biblical view is that there are two Realms and only two Realms there is the kingdom of God and there is
the domain of darkness and so uh God Holy Angels redeemed people they're all working in this realm called the kingdom of God and the the kingdom of God the the word for kingdom is basah in the biblical language of Greek basah means uh to have full Authority and so the kingdom of God is the place where God has full Authority and so Jesus made statements if you don't understand that that kingdom is the place where God has full Authority some of the statements of Christ don't make sense like um people were asking about the asking
him about the kingdom and Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you um they were thinking about the kingdom of God being a specific place outside of themselves and Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you so what did he mean he means what God wants to do is have full Authority in your life he wants his kingdom to be set up in your heart so that you yield your life to him and he he's the one calling the shots he's the one uh making the decisions and so we yield to God as
God he's truly God he's in charge that's the kingdom um there's also a spiritual Realm that is the kingdom of God and even and Heaven itself is called the Kingdom of Heaven is part of the kingdom of God why because God's in full control God is in in charge in heaven the Angels the Holy Angels stand at attention ready to do whatever he says the moment he says it and so God is exercising full full Authority in the kingdom of heaven and so there's a place of God's full Authority and people and Angels being yielded
to his full Authority that is called the kingdom of God and then there is just one other realm that the Bible talks about and that is the domain of darkness and that's the realm of Satan Fallen Angels called demons and unredeemed people who were focused uh on themselves on worldliness and the things that are being promoted by the kingdom of darkness and so there are people who are in and oriented toward the kingdom of God and there are people who are in and oriented toward the domain of Darkness that they live their lives oriented toward
that domain and there's just the two so there are voices at least three three sets of voices that are originating in the domain of Darkness that are trying to compete with the voice of the holy spirit in our lives and the first one is just purely satanic it's satanic and demonic and and uh we can describe this body of U of of voice as lies and temptations and accusations um we're going to see scripturally um where where that comes from but that the word Satan means accuser he's called the tempter Jesus calls him we're going
to see this the father of Lies he he's the one who came up with the the whole concept of lying and so lies and temptations and accusations are the satanic voice what I call the satanic voice then there's the secular voice secular means without God and so godlessness and self-sufficiency describe the secular voice and the third voice is the self-centered voice it's a voice of entitlement and arrogance and so let's focus on the satanic voice uh for a moment John 8:44 this is Jesus and Jesus is talking to extremely religious people the religious leaders of
Israel Pharisees and Sadducees these people were using religion to control and manipulate the M masses they didn't have a true relationship with God they had a list of what they required the things that were required or forbidden according to them they did not have a relationship with God and Jesus says to them in John 8:44 you are the children of your father the devil and you love to do the evil things he does he was a murderer from the beginning he has always hated the truth because there is no truth in him when he lies
it is consistent with his character for he is a liar and the father of Lies this is how Jesus describes Satan Satan used to be an archangel named Lucifer who uh Isaiah and Ezekiel indicate that he led all of the other Angels called the hosts of Heaven in the worship of God but there there came a moment when he said they should be worshiping me I'm so beautiful they should be worshiping me and Jesus said I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven so Lucifer which one means the one who Bears light that's what Lucifer
means the one who Bears the light falls from heaven to the Earth and he becomes Satan which means the accuser and Jesus describes him as the father of lies and he is the the primary force and motivation behind the domain of darkness and so the next voice that has to be eliminated is the secular voice godlessness and self-sufficiency the Bible describes this in Romans 1 verse 18 it says but God shows his anger from Heaven against all sinful Wicked people who suppress the truth by their wicked wedness so secular people the secular voice suppresses the
truth by wickedness it says they know the truth about God because he's made it obvious to them God doesn't hide himself uh if we went on well we are going to go on verse 20 it says for ever since the world was created people have seen the Earth and Sky through everything God made they can clearly see his invisible qualities his eternal power his divine nature so they have no excuse for not knowing god there there is clear design intricate design no matter how far we go away from Earth throughout our galaxy other galaxies and
and the entire universe we always see in incredible intricate design if we go the other way that that's what we call the macrocosm the big the big picture the entire universe incredible design in the universe and if we go uh into the the realm that we can't even see called the microcosm the realm of the cell and Beyond the cell the the realm of of atom Atomic uh particles atoms and protons and neutrons and quirks and and all of these uh these microscopic incredibly microscopic but now we know things that exist and have incredible power
and design there's incredible power and design in the macrocosm of the universe there's incredible power and design uh in the microcosm uh someone I I read somewhere that the that one cell in the human body has more complexity than a major city design and so one cell in my body has more complexity than Seattle Washington the the city of Seattle and a single cell and and our bodies have billions of cells and so God has made his existence evident that's Romans 1:20 you have to suppress the the truth about God through wickedness and unrighteousness to
say I don't I don't believe there's a God I don't believe we can know that there's a God and I'm going to live my life as though God does not exist that's the secular voice just making decisions without even taking God into consideration much less giving him the The Authority the BOS Elia the full control of of Life of your life that's being sec and self-sufficient and so first voice is the satanic voice the second voice is secular godlessness and self-sufficiency and the third voice is this self-centered voice of entitlement and arrogance James 4 verse
one says what is causing the quarrels and fights among you don't they come from the evil desires at War within you you want what you do not have so you scheme and kill to get it you are jealous of what others have but you can't get it so you fight and wage war to take it away from them yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it and even when you ask you don't get it because your motives are all wrong you want only what will give you pleasure and so
James is is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit about this self centeredness that exists in humanity apart from God and how this self-centeredness and yielding to the voice of entitlement and arrogance causes every quarrel and fight and War and so there are these voices in the world the satanic voice the secular voice the self-centered voice so once something is run through the filter of the transcendentals and the completing the the competing voices excuse me are eliminated and and we started with it aligns with scripture so you've got this this uh this feeling that
you think may be from the Lord this direction that you think may be from the Holy Spirit number one does it align with what the Bible teaches does it align with scripture number two does it align simultaneously with the transcendentals is it good is it true is it beautiful and have you eliminated these competing voices the satanic voice the secular voice the self-serving self-centered voice if so the only voice left is the holy spirit is it simultaneously good beautiful and true yes it's the holy spirit is it one of the competing voices no it's the
holy spirit so this is these are three filters that increase the objectivity instead of just saying well I feel like God wants me to do this you've actually moved a away just from feeling and emotion into a more objective position because you have discerned this aligns with scripture this aligns simultanously with what is good and beautiful and true and this cannot be a satanic voice of lie accusation and Temptation it can't be a secular voice of godlessness and self-sufficiency it can't be a self-centered voice this is not about me this is this is something that
I feel is going to glorify God and benefit others you're listening to the Holy Spirit you're being led by the Holy Spirit now a practice that um a practice that I do a practice that our uh our staff at our church Christ the King Hope Church Church does a practice that I lead all of our uh DMI disciplemaker Institute uh students to do is called Listening Prayer uh most people know um that you you're supposed to talk to God and and there's not so much a deficit of talking to God as there is listening to
the Holy Spirit listening to God uh Jesus said my sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me and the scripture says he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit is saying and so uh there's a defin deficit of listening so I want to quickly hit some key points of Listening Prayer the focus of Listening Prayer is uh Psalm 4610 be still and know that I am God uh set aside quiet time to focus solely on God often the hardest part of Listening Prayer creating space to be quiet you can
make space by waking up a little earlier taking a walk sitting somewhere with few distractions finding a consistent time in your daily routine to be still so this morning I woke up really early before anyone in my house was up and I spent some time with the Lord and uh I thought about and wrote down what I felt like he wanted uh me to teach in this lecture after I wrote that down I took a walk and uh we have a a small farm in the scet valley and so I walked out to the backside
of our farm where there's a creek and I I sat there and I asked the Lord to speak to me I was still I was quiet and I asked the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart and he did about a few things and run those things through the filter does it align with scripture is this simultaneous uh expression of the transcendentals I don't have to think through those things anymore uh it just automatically runs through the filters because um that's what I've been doing for years and I ask the Lord um uh at times
uh Lord I want to know that this is from you please eliminate the competing voices so that I can be very clear on this this is what you're telling me to do and he's faithful to do that so find time to be still and quiet and ask the Lord to speak to your heart if you're going to be led by the holy spirit of God you got to create space for him to speak and that's what we call Listening Prayer there's uh there's an Ask uh always involved with Listening Prayer 1 Samuel 3:9 it said
he said to Samuel go and lie down again and if someone calls again say Speak Lord your servant is listening and so Samuel heard someone speaking to him he didn't know who it was and the high priest uh told him uh the next time that happens say Speak Lord your servant is listening and the Lord made it clear that he was the one speaking to Samuel and so what I've written here is ask the Lord to silence other voices as you focus on him begin your time by praying something like this father God keep any
voice other than the Holy Spirit from distracting me help me focus on you speak Lord your servant is listening in the name of Jesus Christ my Lord amen and sit in silence and listen for the leadership of the Holy Spirit um there always going to be some distractions uh I remember this morning um the creek that run through our little farm uh I've been waiting for the salmon to get in that Creek they haven't been in there uh until this morning and so I was sitting listening to God and a big king salmon ran up
the creek and uh and so that was a bit of a distraction but I talked to the Lord I said Lord thank you for that thank you for making that salmon thank you for letting me see that but they going to be distractions and so Hebrews 12:2 says fixing our eyes on Jesus the Pioneer and perfector of our faith for the joy set before him he endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God this verse is a verse that I use uh often when I am
distracted if I'm trying to listen to the leadership of the Holy Spirit and I'm getting distracted and my mind wonders then I'll quote this verse okay Fix My Eyes on Jesus Jesus the author and finisher of my faith that's what one translation says for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame and he sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God and so a verse can be used to retrain your focus to to realign yourself there to hear the spirit of God and so just know this
distractions will happen and that's okay um I use a Bible verse like that as a reset uh if you get distracted or your mind wonders uh reread a verse have a verse it doesn't have to be this one but this one works for me and the last thing is uh the Revelation uh again Jesus John 16:13 the spirit of truth will guide you into truth he will reveal things to you Jesus said he will tell you about the future um the Holy Spirit Delights to speak to people's hearts about what's going to happen uh related
to the kingdom he he reveals things to his kids and uh and it's a beautiful thing it's just like me sitting with one of my six kids and and I know something really Good's about to happen and I just uh I can't keep it a secret it's like I gotta tell you this and so uh so I'll share it with them and uh and it's a there's a joy in that same thing with God same thing with the holy spirit so when the spirit you believe the spirit is speaking to Your Heart Take note of
what comes to your mind and heart God speaks in various ways through scripture through songs images thoughts or Impressions write down the things I encourage you write down the things that come to your mind that you sense may be from the Holy Spirit I've got so many full journals from 34 years of Walking with God and and listening to the Holy Spirit and there's so many things that I can go back to and I can see the holy spirit said this was going to happen and it happened he's faithful to do what he reveals that
he's going to do in alignment with scripture simultaneously reflecting the transcendentals and it looks nothing like the competing voices of the Dom L of darkness and so the recap does it align with God's word the Bible does it reflect all three transcendentals does it reject all competing voices have you spent time listening for the leadership of the Holy Spirit if so you can truly level up in the confidence of knowing that the holy spirit is leading and empower in your life we ask the Lord to speak because the Lord speaks John 10:27 Jesus said my
sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 10-2 says that the spirit of Lord the Lord makes us know the Deep things of God and he makes known us the wonderful things God has freely given us the Lord speaks and and I know it's Easter but can we go to Seminary for about five minutes because we do need some explanation about the way that the Lord speak speaks because Stan is talking to Barbara right now saying this guy's here inv voices we're out of here give me give
me these five minutes okay because what I mean by the Lord speaks Mike is that he reveals and he unveils he speaks and there are two words in the original biblical language the New Testament language of common Greek that are translated he speaks or the word or reveal or unveil two words two categories of the way God speaks and one is logos and and as a as a theologian it's kind of a pet peeve of mine that people say logos because it's not Lambda Omega gamma Omega Sigma it's Lambda Omicron gamma Omicron Sigma you guys
get all that okay Omega is O Omicron is a it's logos not logos thanks for letting me get that off my chest but logos is the way God reveals himself that we can perceive naturally okay so through our five senses Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible so for ages people didn't even have a Bible but there was a book theologians call it the libram naturai the book of nature from the the beginning God spoke through what he made Romans 1:20 says that the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen through the things
that he has made so that all people are without excuse so if you if you look at the macrocosm of the universe there's great design in the universe if you look on the sumat toic level or if you're just in the woods and you see a little star flower there's design there and God is saying something about himself when you look at the Majesty of mountains and and the eagle soaring God is saying something about himself it's logos we can see it we can hear it we can smell it we can taste it we can
observe the movement God is speaking God is revealing God is unveiling are you with me so nature is divine logos the word of God the Bible is divine logos because we can hear it we can read it right we can receive it naturally and so that's Divine logos Jesus is logos and in fact that's one of the words used to describe him when John starts his book The Gospel of John it starts like this in Arcane an halagos in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and
the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us and we beheld his glory the glory of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth so nature is logos the word of God the Bible is logos Jesus Is God revealed in human flesh so Jesus is logos but there's another type of Revelation from God and that's described as Rama Rama and Rama it's the spirit of the Lord speaking to person personally okay so let me see if I can illustrate before I illustrate I Googled Rama the transliteration is r h m a i I
Googled it and this definition came up I'm not going to tell you right now where it came from I'm going to tell you after we look at it arama is a whisper from the holy spirit that illuminates or unveils something from God causing a deep inner Assurance for a follower of Christ you know where that came from Wikipedia I Googled Rama read a Wikipedia article about Rama and I was like wow what a wonderful explanation about how the Holy Spirit speaks to our spirit so anybody here ever been on Old Day Creek Road okay our
farm is up Day Creek all right so periodically I drive over old Day Creek Road and there's a lake anybody seen that Lake on the left that lake is called Judy Reservoir and Judy Reservoir if did you guys um has anybody been to the bathroom in here today people are going should I raise my hand do anybody have coffee here today anybody turn on a f wash your hands today all of that came from Judy re Reservoir there's 1.5 billion gallons of water in Judy Reservoir that Gadget PUD sends to eight 8251 12 people it
comes from up on the mountain old old Day Creek Road it it feeds the valley and so you lowlanders get your water see we're not lowlanders we're up we're up River we got we got a well that goes down into an aquafer that's cool all year long don't you get too uh jealous okay and so we turn that tap on and it's cool water makes me think of that old cowboy song but I won't sing it but Melissa and I worked hard yesterday and every few hours we'd go and I'd turn on that cool water
and I'd get a drink or if you go and you take a hot shower or you water your garden we had we were over we were seeding um for our horses seeding pasture grass and we you have to keep that stuff wet for about 30 days for it to really take off and so water right you water your garden you water your seeds Judy Reservoir is logos 1.5 billion gallons but when you get a drink of water that's Rama when you take a shower that's Rama when you water your garden that's Rama
