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I sat staring at nothing. My mind was full of the global glory of God. "I keep watch over the nations." He had said this to me. It was not just that he had said it. Yes, that is glorious. But he had said this to me. I heard the words as clearly as if at this moment I recalled that my wife said, "Come down for supper whenever you are ready." I know those are the words of my wife. And I know these are the words of God.

Marvel at this. Stand in awe of this. The God who keeps watch over the nations, like some people keep watch over cattle or stock markets or construction sites—this God still speaks in the 21st century. What effect did this have on me? It filled me with a fresh sense of God's reality. It assured me more deeply that he acts in history and in our time. It strengthened my faith that he cares about me and will use his global power to watch over me. Why else would he come and tell me these things?

It has increased my love for the Bible as God's very Word, because it was through the Bible that I heard these divine words, and through the Bible I have experiences like this almost every day. The very God of the universe speaks on every page into my mind—and your mind. We hear his very words. God himself has multiplied his wondrous deeds and thoughts toward us; none can compare with him! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told (Ps. 40:5).

And best of all, they are available to all. If you would like to hear the very same words I heard on the couch in northern Minnesota, read Psalm 66:5-7. That is where I heard them. O how precious is the Bible. It is the very Word of God. In it God speaks in the 21st century. This is the very voice of God. By this voice, he speaks with absolute truth and personal force. By this voice, he reveals his all-surpassing beauty. By this voice, he reveals the deepest secrets of our hearts. No voice anywhere, anytime can reach as deep or lift as high or carry as far as the voice of God that we hear in the Bible.

It is a great wonder that God still speaks today through the Bible with greater force and greater glory and greater assurance and greater sweetness and greater hope and greater guidance and greater transforming power and greater Christ-exalting truth than can be heard through any voice in any human soul on the planet from outside the Bible.

This is why I found the Christianity Today article "My Conversation with God" so sad. Written by an anonymous professor at a "well-known Christian university," it tells of his experience of hearing God. What God said was that he must give all his royalties from a new book toward the tuition of a needy student. What makes me sad about the article is not that it isn't true or didn't happen. What's sad is that it really does give the impression that extra-biblical communication with God is surpassingly wonderful and faith-deepening. All the while, the supremely glorious communication of the living God that personally and powerfully and transformingly explodes in the receptive heart through the Bible everyday is passed over in silence.

I am sure this professor of theology did not mean it this way, but what he actually said was, "For years I've taught that God still speaks, but I couldn't testify to it personally. I can only do so now anonymously, for reasons I hope will be clear" (emphasis added). Surely he does not mean what he seems to imply—that only when you hear an extra-biblical voice like, "The money is not yours," can you testify personally that God still speaks. Surely he does not mean to belittle the voice of God in the Bible that speaksthis very day with power and truth and wisdom and glory and joy and hope and wonder and helpfulness ten thousand times moredecisively than anything we can hear outside the Bible.

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April (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51