“And the disciples approached him and said,
‘Why do you talk to them in parables?’
He answered and said to them,
‘To you it is given to understand the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.’”
Matthew 13:10-11
Some years ago, a woman who considered herself a teacher in God’s kingdom tried to convince Sister Lou that Lou was a teacher, too. Cornering Lou before she left my Bible study that night, she told Lou, “We’re all anointed to teach.” To which Lou replied, “I’m anointed to listen.”
That was a wise response.
It is no small blessing to be anointed to hear and to understand the word of God. With the anointing to hear God’s voice comes authority from heaven to testify to what you have heard, and when you confess what you have heard from God, people feel that heavenly authority in you. You do not have to claim authority to speak, as false teachers do; the authority will be in what you say because of the power of the One who said it to you. Sister Lou’s testimonies carry far more weight in heaven than anything that headless woman had ever taught her disciples. The authority to hear carries with it an authority to speak. Anything that is truly from God, no matter how small it seems, is infinitely greater than anything that is of man, no matter how great it appears to be.
In the Old Testament, God’s faithful prophets felt discouraged at times because of the multitude of false prophets in Israel who claimed to be anointed to speak for God. Nevertheless, whenever God’s prophets spoke what they had heard from God, the realness of God shone through them, and that realness had an authority in it which false prophets could only claim to have. God encouraged His prophets with these words:
Jeremiah 23
28. The prophet who has a dream [from me], let him tell the dream! And he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? says the Lord.
29. Is not my word like as a fire? says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
There is no comparison between what is truly from God and what false teachers claim to have from Him, and those who are truly searching for the truth recognize the difference. If God ever speaks to you, you are given authority from heaven to testify to it, to bear witness to His voice. Do not be discouraged by the many voices that contradict you. The testimonies of God’s saints will overcome this world and everything that is in it. They will stand forever, “but a lying tongue is but for a moment” (Prov. 12:19); it “is a vanity tossed to and fro by those who seek death” (Prov. 21:6), a most hated thing in the sight of God (Prov. 6:17), and it will be cut out (Prov. 10:31).
