Hearing God’s Voice Produces Faith

Yesterday we’ve looked at the first Greek word which is, in English, translated as ‘word’, logos. The second word, rhema has a different meaning, though at times, of course, they overlap. The word rhema means specifically, a spoken word. It is not a rhema unless it’s spoken. God’s Word, God’s counsel is settled in heaven forever, whether it’s spoken or not, it’s there; it’s eternal. But a rhema is only a word that is spoken. Now listen to what Jesus says in Matthew, chapter 4, in verse 4, and He uses the word rhema.

He answered and said,

“It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

Every rhema that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So, there’s the counsel of God, eternal, unchanged, complete, in heaven. But we don’t know the whole counsel of God. We cannot apprehend with our finite minds the whole counsel of God. But God measures it out to us in a rhema, in a word that is spoken to us, in a word that becomes personal, in a word that we receive personally. So, man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. The total counsel of God is imparted to us in portions as we’re able to receive it, rhema by rhema by rhema. The implication of what Jesus said is that God has a rhema for us each day. Man shall not live by bread alone, but every day the proceeding Word of God, the rhema that comes out of the mouth of God shall be his portion for that day.

In a certain sense he was comparing that with natural bread. And as natural bread feeds the natural body of man, so that proceeding, personal word of God feeds man’s inner being, his spirit. It nourishes his spirit. And we need the one just as much as we need the other. To keep our bodies alive, we need natural bread. To keep our spirits alive and healthy, we need the spiritual bread, the proceeding Word, the personal word, the voice of the Lord coming to us. So that’s the difference between logos and rhema. Logos, eternal in the heaven, unchanged and rhema, coming down to us, personal, a word that we hear, something that’s spoken.

And so you see, in Romans 10:17 it has to be rhema. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the rhema, the Word of Christ. If it weren’t spoken, we couldn’t hear it. We can’t hear the logos; that’s eternal; that’s the counsel of God in heaven. But we hear the rhema that brings that little portion of God’s counsel we need at any given moment to us, personally, and that’s how faith comes. I hope I will not offend you, but the Bible doesn’t say faith comes from reading the Bible. Lots of people think it does. Why not? Well, if you are honest, many times you read the Bible and hear nothing. All you have is black marks on white paper in front of your eyes and you can go through that process for an hour and get no faith. But another time you can just pick up the Bible, open it, and one sentence leaps out of the page, and you say, “That’s it; that’s what God’s saying to me right now.” I can’t tell how many times that’s happened in my life. Sometimes quite accidentally, I just open the Bible, the Holy Spirit focuses my eyes on a verse, God says, “That’s it; that’s My rhema.” And when you hear that rhema, that’s a lot more than reading the Bible. That’s the personal Word of God. That’s God’s voice speaking to you and faith comes by hearing the spoken Word of God.

It all centers around hearing God’s voice. “Obey my voice and I will be your God.” “If thou shalt listen diligently to the voice of the Lord, then none of these diseases will come upon you.”