Church History & Function #8 - Discerning God's Voice
About this sermon
In “Church History & Function #8 - Discerning God's Voice,” Pastor Dean Odle presents a Scripture-centered message about the Holy Spirit, holiness, the condition of the church. Drawing especially from John 10, John 16, John 17, Psalm 60, the teaching emphasizes that the Holy Spirit leads, equips, corrects, and strengthens believers who yield to God. Odle connects that foundation with the conviction that God calls believers to reject compromise and pursue practical holiness.
Chronological teaching outline
Select a section heading to play the sermon from that moment.
Odle focuses on the Holy Spirit while working through John 10, John 16, John 17. The message argues that the Holy Spirit leads, equips, corrects, and strengthens believers who yield to God. It connects this with the conviction that God calls believers to reject compromise and pursue practical holiness. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on the soulish life while working through Romans 8, Proverbs 23, Peter 5. The message argues that natural emotion and self-directed reasoning must yield to the Holy Spirit and the mind of Christ. It connects this with the conviction that the Holy Spirit leads, equips, corrects, and strengthens believers who yield to God. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on the condition of the church. The message argues that the church is called to recover biblical faithfulness instead of accommodating compromise. It connects this with the conviction that prayer expresses dependence on God and prepares believers to hear and obey Him. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on pride and humility while working through Timothy 4, Obadiah 1, Romans 10. The message argues that spiritual pride blinds people to correction, while humility receives truth and depends on God. It connects this with the conviction that biblical faith trusts God’s character and acts upon His promises. The practical emphasis is to trust God’s promises and refuse decisions governed by fear.
Odle focuses on holiness while working through Proverbs 11, Proverbs 15, Proverbs 24. The message argues that God calls believers to reject compromise and pursue practical holiness. It connects this with the conviction that the Holy Spirit leads, equips, corrects, and strengthens believers who yield to God. The practical emphasis is to remain watchful, grounded in Scripture, and ready to obey Christ.
Odle focuses on spiritual leadership while working through Proverbs 24, Hebrews 3. The message argues that leaders are accountable to teach faithfully, serve the flock, and model the character they proclaim. It connects this with the conviction that the church is called to recover biblical faithfulness instead of accommodating compromise. The practical emphasis is to test the teaching by Scripture and apply it through faithful obedience.
Odle focuses on Bible prophecy while working through Obadiah 1, Daniel 9. The message argues that prophecy should produce discernment, readiness, and faithfulness rather than speculation alone. It connects this with the conviction that Saul’s decline illustrates the danger of insecurity, partial obedience, and resistance to correction. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on prayer while working through Jeremiah 29, Zechariah 10, Ecclesiastes 5. The message argues that prayer expresses dependence on God and prepares believers to hear and obey Him. It connects this with the conviction that demonic influence must be answered through Christ’s authority and the freedom He provides. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Odle focuses on Bible prophecy while working through Acts 10. The message argues that prophecy should produce discernment, readiness, and faithfulness rather than speculation alone. It connects this with the conviction that Jerusalem is presented as a biblical and prophetic focal point in God’s purposes. The practical emphasis is to remain watchful, grounded in Scripture, and ready to obey Christ.
Odle focuses on the condition of the church while working through Proverbs 11. The message argues that the church is called to recover biblical faithfulness instead of accommodating compromise. It connects this with the conviction that prayer expresses dependence on God and prepares believers to hear and obey Him. The practical emphasis is to seek God in prayer and act on what Scripture requires.
Open each passage and read it in its complete biblical context.
Read and follow along
Read representative excerpts here, or open the complete indexable transcript to search every timestamped section.
Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
- 0:00:03
foreign students out there we want to welcome you uh online this is fire and gray School of ministry we're in church history and function and today we're going to be talking about we're moving or we're moving from history on into church function today and so today what we're going to be talking about is Discerning God's voice or in other words how to be led by the Holy Spirit how to make sure you're hearing the voice of God and not the voice of Satan or seducing Spirits The Deceiver it's very very important because truly the Church of Jesus Christ must hear his voice the true church must hear his voice and be led by the Holy Spirit and I would say that this to me is one of the most important aspects of course learning the scripture Paramount you got to know the Bible learning the scripture staying in the scripture reading the scripture that's the only way you're going to be able to discern if you're hearing correctly because the holy spirit will never break those principles that are in the written word we're going to talk about that but Discerning God's voice being led by the Holy Spirit I printed out my notes then I leave them at home but luckily I have them on my phone so this morning first of all let's just turn to um we're going to turn to and you can just leave this up and flip back and forth from time to time if you want to but also with the scriptures but we're gonna go to John 10 27. first this morning so let's everybody turn there to John 10 27 of course this is something I have preached on over the years but um this is something that really you shouldn't you should commit what we're going to go through today in this class to memory it's that important um anyway John 10 27 Jesus said my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me now the word again the president tends Greek verbs here I had to search these out because even in my Hebrew Greek keyword Study Bible they don't have the abbreviations on these verbs here for some reason I don't know they just left it out but so I looked it up in my uh parsing God to New Testament Greek verbs by Nathan ehan so when he says my sheep hear my voice this is a present tense Greek verb and I know them and they follow me the word follow is also a present tense Greek verb so Jesus says my sheep hear my voice in an ongoing continuous Manner and presently they are
- 0:03:05
hearing my voice and I know them and they follow me very important all right now let's go to another verse since we're in John go to John 16. Jesus speaking he said when he speaking of the Holy Spirit when he the Holy Spirit has come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come he shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you so here Jesus says that when he the comforter the Holy Spirit the Holy Ghost as the King James says the spirit of Truth when he will come first he's going to guide you into all truth all right now what's important here is to understand that Jesus stated there over in John 17 that the word of God is true so the Holy Spirit let's just understand this because we're talking about being led by the Holy Spirit Discerning God's voice the holy spirit is always going to lead you into the truth of God's word the sound Doctrine The rightly Divided scripture he's always going to he's never going to violate ever any principle any moral aspect any doctrinal aspect of the scriptures if you hear any kind of voice have any kind of dream or Vision have any kind of Prophecy or Prophecy from someone to you anything that violates any principle any Scripture any sound Doctrine any rightly divided truth from the word of God is deception it is an imposter it is a counterfeit it is Satan trying to deceive you this is why it is so important to continue to read study meditate memorize learn the word of God and be really established in sound Doctrine and principle and when I when I'm talking about principle I'm talking about principles of humility principles of submission to Authority and all these different from God is not going to lead you to violate those things that's that's one of the things you need to understand and we're going to get more into that as we go now I want you to turn to uh this one was not in my notes but it just kind of came to my mind so let's go to Revelation chapter 2 this is something that is repeated throughout Revelation two and three as Jesus is speaking through the Apostle John to the seven churches which are in Asia he says this over and over again he that hath an ear let him hear right he that hath the near let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches think about that let's let's go over look at verse verse 29 the same chapter
- 0:06:08
you see Jesus speaking to a different Church that one that part there was to the Church of uh to the Church of Smyrna we go over to verse 29 he says it again to the Church of thyatira and he says he that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches if you back up I even passed one in verse 7 . he's at hathan ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the church so you see where it's a thing God wants us to hear what the holy spirit is saying let's let's go to Romans chapter 8. and it's not just what he said it's what he's saying okay because the spirit wants to speak to us I mean sometimes he just wants to tell us uh what book in the Bible to read that morning sometimes the I have the Lord tell me read Psalm 60 or something like that and I'll read that and I'll be like wow that was God speaking to me you see what I'm saying through Psalm 60. um or whatever Isaiah 60 one time that happened um but let's go to um let's go to Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 verse 14. of course you could read this whole chapter it's excellent talking about being led by the spirit and not by the flesh not by the carnal mind and then he says this for as many as are led by the spirit of God they are the sons of God now let's look at that where it says they for many as are LED that is a present tense Greek verb ongoing continuous action taking place in the present for as many as are led by the spirit of God they are the sons of God so it is Paramount there are many many many many Christians or people that claim to be Christian they claim to be you know they claim that they know Jesus but they're not led by the spirit of God at all they don't allow that they don't permit that they are led by their carnal nature they're led by their carnal mind and they're led by their emotions and most of the time they think that that when they get emotional about something that that's the Lord speaking or leading them or whatever um actually let me just say this about the danger between being led by emotions remember first Thessalonians 5 23 let's let's just do this real quick so I want to talk about being being the danger of being led by emotions but let's lay the foundation real quick because we're not in a hurry this morning so go to first Thessalonians 5 23 first Thessalonians 5 23 declares Paul said he said I pray God that your whole
- 0:09:08
spirit soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ so this is something as we're talking about this this morning I guess I need to kind of segue into this a little bit here that we have a spirit we have a soul and we have a body and you need to you need to really understand this and there's been you know watch my knee the great Chinese Apostle wrote a three volume set on it's called the spiritual man he said that now think about this this man was an apostle this man planted churches this man led many many people to the Lord discipled many people uh was persecuted in prison tortured and ultimately died for his faith in Jesus um he wrote the book the spiritual man about about the spirit soul and body and it is an in-depth teaching of Holy Spirit Revelation and one of the things he said in the preface of that book is that you need to be saved 10 years to fully understand this book now how many people say that it's usually hey I wrote a book by my book no it was he he said you need to be saved and we're not talking about Americans saved 10 years that's that's almost funny these days because uh 10 years in a mega church doesn't make you really what watch when he was talking about 10 years say big difference we were talking about really born again really on fire for God really really seeking God really studying the word he said you know you're not like that you're not going to even understand this but he talks about and simplifying he talks about the spirit soul and body and I'm going to give you the simplified version the spirit Man part of us has our conscience what is our conscience our conscience is where we are we have the ability to discern right and wrong this is also the place where God has written his law his word what is right and wrong inside of us instinctively every human being every man woman every person knows instinctively it's wrong to murder it's wrong to commit adultery you know it's wrong to lie um so that's in your in your spirit man that's you have a conscience you have an intuition now the intuition is when that's your ability to perceive uh things in the spirit realm that may be good or bad now this for the Christian the Holy Spirit amplifies this when he comes in he amplifies this and this becomes the Discerning of spirits and we'll talk about that more later but your intuition is where you discern you don't you don't really have knowledge of something but you discern or feel or sense the spirit working behind it either it's God or an evil spirit and
The complete timestamped transcript is published as a crawlable reading page so every sermon topic remains searchable without making this video page unnecessarily heavy.
Read and search the complete transcriptThe overview attributes the sermon’s interpretations and disputed claims to the speaker; inclusion does not indicate independent verification.