0:00:00 - 0:00:26 So maybe you have the question. If God is real, why doesn't he speak to people today? I'd like to tell you that he does. He speaks to people today the same way he always has. And under the same conditions, if there's a difference between today and in the past, it's only that there may be fewer people 0:00:25 - 0:00:48 who fulfill those conditions. Or maybe our society is structured such that these people are not given a podium in any sort of venue where they might be able to get that message out to a large number of people. And a there's a deeper, more important aspect of this question, not only does he speak today 0:00:47 - 0:01:13 , but he can speak to you today. And I'd like to take a minute to just very briefly touch on a few ideas that are from chapter five of a book I wrote called Repentance Making Straight The Way Of God. And um I'll start this by uh sharing a little story, a little analogy. Let's suppose you and I are old 0:01:12 - 0:01:32 friends and we're sitting in your kitchen. And so this is your kitchen. It's a place you go every day. You're very familiar with it. And we're sitting there just sort of catching up and enjoying ourselves. And I say, do you hear that? And you say, hear what? I don't hear anything and I say no, you hear 0:01:32 - 0:01:52 that and you say, hear what, I don't hear anything. And I say the fridge and in that moment you realize that there's a very distinct hum buzzing from right behind you, from the fridge. You say, well, of course, I hear that. I've heard that that the whole time, but I never paid attention to it. That's 0:01:52 - 0:02:22 what God's voice is like. And I am going to tell you exactly how you can hear God's voice, but I need to warn you because there is a very important idea uh with God, which is that the more, um the more obvious His influence is in our lives, the more important it is to recognize and follow what he tells 0:02:21 - 0:02:45 us and what ends up happening is that we are, um, well, we are constantly in a situation where he is withholding how things really are to give us kind of a protective bubble where we can learn just like uh kindergarten for little kids or around your house. You put in the little plug so that they don't 0:02:45 - 0:03:08 shove their fingers in the electric socket. That is how our lives are before we know God. As we get to know Him, the rules we're exposed to. They change a little bit and what I'm about to tell you is of great importance and value. And so once you hear it, you need to realize that you can't UN hear it 0:03:08 - 0:03:35 and you'll be held accountable for everything that God tells you that He's been telling you your whole life. And up until now you've had an excuse to ignore it. You ready? God's voice to you is your conscience. He is speaking to you. He speaks to you every day, all day. As often as you open yourself 0:03:34 - 0:04:03 to him, he's constantly telling you what to do what not to do. Now, that is the most basic lowest order version of his voice, the more you listen to it, the more it will expand because his voice, it's a signal. It's as if you were a radio and you're poorly tuned, you can just sort of hear the static 0:04:02 - 0:04:28 and sometimes a voice comes through the static every once in a while. Now, your conscience, it's higher resolution than that. It's capable of telling you what's best according to your present understanding. And so the more you implement that in your life, the clearer and more constant and more frequent 0:04:27 - 0:04:58 that voice will be. And as you chain together success, successive uh acts of obedience to that voice, that voice will expand, not just in frequency but also in magnitude. And you will begin to have dreams and you will hear voices and you will have visions and you will have visitations and so all those 0:04:58 - 0:05:26 things happen today, just like they always have. And just like in the past, they tend to happen as a suc a successive increasing intensity matching the person's uh interest in these experiences and uh diligence in listening to their content. If the obfuscation, that's all around us in this life intentionally 0:05:25 - 0:05:56 , if it were lifted for just a moment, you would be shocked to see just how much information God sends to all people all the time and how much he sends to specific people at specific times. You'd be shocked to see just what people turn away from and how regularly every normal person you've ever met either 0:05:55 - 0:06:19 has or will have one or more tremendous examples of what you could call special revelation in their lives. They'll have a dream that clearly shows them what the future will be in some aspect and then that very thing will happen or they will have, um, an internal voice that tells them to do something 0:06:19 - 0:06:38 or not to do something where they didn't have any information to, to know on their own, whether that would be a good or bad thing or maybe, uh, it was consequential in ways that they couldn't predict and then either they'll listen to that or not and that very thing will happen and on and on and on. And 0:06:38 - 0:06:59 the more people you get to know in a, an intimate way, a personal way because this isn't something you just tell someone on a bus for the most part, you will find that more and more people have this than you ever thought. The fact is that God speaks to everyone all the time and this varies in magnitude 0:06:58 - 0:07:20 depending on, um, how often we listen to that voice and whether we recognize it, but he does it all the time. And if you want to go into the path of hearing it more frequently and to greater magnitudes, then I encourage you to read this book. It's called Repentance. The author is Me Robert Smith. You 0:07:19 - 0:07:44 can get it for free on my blog upward thought.blogspot.com as a PDF, you can listen to it on youtube for free as an audio book. Again, the channel's upward thought or you can buy it on Amazon for print cost. I really, really encourage you to look into hearing God's voice more often in your life. It's 0:00:00 - 0:00:26 So maybe you have the question. If God is real, why doesn't he speak to people today? I'd like to tell you that he does. He speaks to people today the same way he always has. And under the same conditions, if there's a difference between today and in the past, it's only that there may be fewer people 0:00:25 - 0:00:48 who fulfill those conditions. Or maybe our society is structured such that these people are not given a podium in any sort of venue where they might be able to get that message out to a large number of people. And a there's a deeper, more important aspect of this question, not only does he speak today 0:00:47 - 0:01:13 , but he can speak to you today. And I'd like to take a minute to just very briefly touch on a few ideas that are from chapter five of a book I wrote called Repentance Making Straight The Way Of God. And um I'll start this by uh sharing a little story, a little analogy. Let's suppose you and I are old 0:01:12 - 0:01:32 friends and we're sitting in your kitchen. And so this is your kitchen. It's a place you go every day. You're very familiar with it. And we're sitting there just sort of catching up and enjoying ourselves. And I say, do you hear that? And you say, hear what? I don't hear anything and I say no, you hear 0:01:32 - 0:01:52 that and you say, hear what, I don't hear anything. And I say the fridge and in that moment you realize that there's a very distinct hum buzzing from right behind you, from the fridge. You say, well, of course, I hear that. I've heard that that the whole time, but I never paid attention to it. That's 0:01:52 - 0:02:22 what God's voice is like. And I am going to tell you exactly how you can hear God's voice, but I need to warn you because there is a very important idea uh with God, which is that the more, um the more obvious His influence is in our lives, the more important it is to recognize and follow what he tells 0:02:21 - 0:02:45 us and what ends up happening is that we are, um, well, we are constantly in a situation where he is withholding how things really are to give us kind of a protective bubble where we can learn just like uh kindergarten for little kids or around your house. You put in the little plug so that they don't 0:02:45 - 0:03:08 shove their fingers in the electric socket. That is how our lives are before we know God. As we get to know Him, the rules we're exposed to. They change a little bit and what I'm about to tell you is of great importance and value. And so once you hear it, you need to realize that you can't UN hear it 0:03:08 - 0:03:35 and you'll be held accountable for everything that God tells you that He's been telling you your whole life. And up until now you've had an excuse to ignore it. You ready? God's voice to you is your conscience. He is speaking to you. He speaks to you every day, all day. As often as you open yourself 0:03:34 - 0:04:03 to him, he's constantly telling you what to do what not to do. Now, that is the most basic lowest order version of his voice, the more you listen to it, the more it will expand because his voice, it's a signal. It's as if you were a radio and you're poorly tuned, you can just sort of hear the static 0:04:02 - 0:04:28 and sometimes a voice comes through the static every once in a while. Now, your conscience, it's higher resolution than that. It's capable of telling you what's best according to your present understanding. And so the more you implement that in your life, the clearer and more constant and more frequent 0:04:27 - 0:04:58 that voice will be. And as you chain together success, successive uh acts of obedience to that voice, that voice will expand, not just in frequency but also in magnitude. And you will begin to have dreams and you will hear voices and you will have visions and you will have visitations and so all those 0:04:58 - 0:05:26 things happen today, just like they always have. And just like in the past, they tend to happen as a suc a successive increasing intensity matching the person's uh interest in these experiences and uh diligence in listening to their content. If the obfuscation, that's all around us in this life intentionally 0:05:25 - 0:05:56 , if it were lifted for just a moment, you would be shocked to see just how much information God sends to all people all the time and how much he sends to specific people at specific times. You'd be shocked to see just what people turn away from and how regularly every normal person you've ever met either 0:05:55 - 0:06:19 has or will have one or more tremendous examples of what you could call special revelation in their lives. They'll have a dream that clearly shows them what the future will be in some aspect and then that very thing will happen or they will have, um, an internal voice that tells them to do something 0:06:19 - 0:06:38 or not to do something where they didn't have any information to, to know on their own, whether that would be a good or bad thing or maybe, uh, it was consequential in ways that they couldn't predict and then either they'll listen to that or not and that very thing will happen and on and on and on. And 0:06:38 - 0:06:59 the more people you get to know in a, an intimate way, a personal way because this isn't something you just tell someone on a bus for the most part, you will find that more and more people have this than you ever thought. The fact is that God speaks to everyone all the time and this varies in magnitude 0:06:58 - 0:07:20 depending on, um, how often we listen to that voice and whether we recognize it, but he does it all the time. And if you want to go into the path of hearing it more frequently and to greater magnitudes, then I encourage you to read this book. It's called Repentance. The author is Me Robert Smith. You 0:07:19 - 0:07:44 can get it for free on my blog upward thought.blogspot.com as a PDF, you can listen to it on youtube for free as an audio book. Again, the channel's upward thought or you can buy it on Amazon for print cost. I really, really encourage you to look into hearing God's voice more often in your life. It's 0:07:44 - 0:07:50 critically important for you to encounter passive, greatest joy and peace in this life and in the life to come.