How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 5 — The Inner Witness and the Still Small Voice

How to be led by the Spirit of God comes down to one place: God leads His children from the inside, through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit in their spirit, not through signs in the sky or the loudest voice in the room. In this fifth message of the series, Dr. William P. Hohman explains how a renewed soul clears the way for that inner witness, and why Elijah had to learn to listen for a still small voice instead of the wind, the earthquake and the fire. It continues from How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 4 — The Spirit Leads and the Word Renews the Soul.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the teaching, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for learning to recognize His voice.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at New Testament Church Ministries on Father’s Day and posted on June 23, 2020. The teaching begins a little before the 27-minute mark, after worship and communion. Pastor Hohman thanks the many people who wrote in to say the Holy Spirit had started leading them since the series began, and announces that today he will start teaching on the inner witness.

His concern is that many people give their lives to Jesus and never change. God translated us out of the kingdom of darkness, he says, so that our lives would grow better and better under His leading, which is why learning how to be led by the Spirit of God matters so much.

Trust With Your Heart, Not Mere Mental Agreement

The foundation text of the series is Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Pastor Hohman stresses that the heart here points to the inner man, the spirit. That is where real trust in God lives.

Trying to get the mind to trust God is difficult, he says, because the mind relates to the things of this world. Some believers only agree mentally with what God has done without letting their spirit act on it. Then they wonder why nothing happened for them. They are relating to God with their head rather than spiritually, and they find there is no staying power in it.

When we trust from the heart and acknowledge Him in everything, God promises to direct our paths. In other words, He will lead us, and His leading always moves us from where we are to something better. Jesus said the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but He came to give life more abundantly (John 10:10). God wants to increase you and see the curse that sin tied you to fall away.

Pastor Hohman remembers saving twenty dollars from mowing lawns at age 12, setting it down in a store while helping his sister, and losing it. Jesus, he says, purchased abundant life for us, and many believers leave it sitting on a shelf instead of learning to be led by the Spirit of God into it.

Spirit, Soul and Body: The Soul in the Middle

To explain why change is often slow, Pastor Hohman turns to 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where Paul prays that God would sanctify us completely and that our whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless. Growing up in a traditional mainline church, he was taught that soul and spirit were the same thing. They are not, he says, and the difference matters for anyone who wants to be led by God.

We are a spirit. To live on this earth, God gave us an earth suit, the body. Between the two sits the soul, which he describes as a kind of mediator that lets the spirit relate to this fallen world. He adds that there is only one Mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

When we are born again, we become new creations and old things pass away (2 Corinthians 5:17). But the soul still carries everything it learned in the world, and Scripture tells us not to love the world or the things in it (1 John 2:15). Breaking those ties can be painful, but it is not impossible with God.

Proverbs 20:27 says, “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” God enlightens and guides us through our spirit, not our emotions, intellect or physical senses. Pastor Hohman warns against well-meaning Christians who decide God is speaking because they saw an eagle or a butterfly. That is how people get misled. The leading of God comes from within.

Sons and Friends at the Father’s Table

Pastor Hohman then describes a picture from Hebrew family life as he teaches it. The father would sit at the table with his sons and share his plans: clearing the trees in the back field, planting a new crop, saving to surprise their mother with a gift. When a servant came in, the conversation changed. The servant simply received instructions, cut the trees, pull the stumps, plant the seed, without being told why.

Jesus changed that relationship for us. He no longer calls us servants but friends, if we do what He commands (John 15:14–16). The pastor adds a further picture: if a servant was faithful and loved the family, the eldest son could ask the father to adopt him, and that servant would then sit at the table as a son. Jesus said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.”

How will we bear that fruit? By hearing Him. In John 10:27 Jesus says, “My sheep hear My voice,” and a stranger’s voice they will not follow. Pastor Hohman explains that doing what the Word says sharpens our hearing. The more we neglect what it says, the more distant His voice becomes and the harder it is to hear.

The Implanted Word Saves the Soul

James 1:18–21 says God brought us forth by the word of truth, then tells us to lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and to receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. Pastor Hohman’s reasoning is simple: if the Word birthed us into God’s family, we should live by the Word. Owning a Bible is not the same as having the Word implanted.

He compares the soul to a lock. A key is jagged because it has to lift every tumbler to its own height. The wrong key will not turn. When you wash your mind and soul with the Word of God, it lifts every tumbler, the lock opens, and what is already in your spirit can flow out into your soul and your body, your family and your workplace.

That is why, he says, you do not need a better job; you need a better soul. Stop grumbling at work and help your employer succeed, because that is what you were hired for. A renewed soul finds favor, and it makes room for the inner witness to be heard.

3 John 2 ties prosperity and health to the soul: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” Because of that, Pastor Hohman warns against staying close to people who constantly tear you down. Evil company corrupts good habits (1 Corinthians 15:33). Not everyone can go with you to the next place God has for you, and Jesus promised a hundredfold return to those who leave things behind for His sake (Mark 10:29–30).

David said the Lord restores my soul and leads me in the paths of righteousness (Psalm 23:3). A restored soul lets us be led onto the paths where the abundance is. If a berry path has no berries, he says, change paths instead of walking the empty one year after year.

The Inner Witness: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God

The first key to being led by the Spirit of God is the Word, and God will never contradict it. In 2 Peter 1:16–19, Peter recalls the Mount of Transfiguration from Matthew 17. He saw Jesus glorified and heard the Father’s voice from heaven, yet he says we have something even more sure in the prophetic word. Stay with the Word, he says, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

He notes that the word heart there, kardia in the Greek, speaks of the soul, the mind and emotions. As the Word shines into the soul, the life of God in your spirit begins to flow out and bless your marriage, family and job. He points to Isaac, who sowed in a time of famine and reaped a hundredfold the same year (Genesis 26:12).

The second key is the inner witness. Romans 8:14–16 says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,” and that the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Nobody can argue Pastor Hohman out of being born again, he says, because the witness is inside him.

An egg broken from the outside kills the chick; broken from the inside out, the chick lives. Faith works the same way, as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Real leading always comes from the inside out.

Adam shows what that relationship was meant to be. He walked with God in the cool of the day, and nowhere does the Bible show him begging for a meal or clothes. God had already provided, and the first place He showed Adam, Pastor Hohman says, was where the gold was (Genesis 2:8–12). Adam simply spent time with the Lord, and the inner witness grows the same way.

So he begins each morning by saying, Father, tell me again. Christians who say they never hear God, he adds, have often not trained themselves to listen. A child taken from his mother at birth would still learn her voice once he lived with her; among ten thousand children, he would know when she called his name.

Elijah and the Still Small Voice

The longest story in the sermon comes from 1 Kings. Ahab and Jezebel led Israel into Baal worship, and Elijah declared that it would not rain until he said so. After three and a half years of drought, Elijah called the prophets of Baal to a contest. They cried out all day and even cut themselves, while Elijah mocked their silent god. Then Elijah rebuilt the altar with twelve stones, one for each tribe, drenched the sacrifice three times, and fire fell from heaven and consumed everything (1 Kings 18:30–39).

Then came Jezebel’s threat. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah ran for his life, sat under a broom tree and asked God to take his life. Pastor Hohman explains that a spiritual attack pushed Elijah into living out of his soul. An angel fed him twice, and he went in the strength of that food forty days to Horeb, the mountain of God.

In the cave, God asked, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah answered with an excuse: he alone was left, and they were seeking his life. Pastor Hohman notes that when we are led by our souls, everything turns inward. It becomes all about me and my survival, and we back away from what God called us to do. That, he says, is an unrenewed soul, not God.

God sent a strong wind that broke the rocks, then an earthquake, then a fire, but the Lord was not in any of them. After the fire came “a still small voice.” God was showing Elijah that He is greater than everything Elijah had been reacting to, and that His leading comes quietly, as a still small voice within.

God asked again, and Elijah repeated his excuse. Only when he began to listen did God give him clear instructions: anoint Hazael, anoint Jehu, anoint Elisha. God also told him He had kept seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed to Baal, and Obadiah had already hidden a hundred prophets in caves (1 Kings 18:4). Elijah was never as alone as his soul told him.

The lesson, Pastor Hohman says, is to stop and spend time with God without always asking Him for something. Not every voice you hear is God. New believers often say “God said” about everything before they have learned to tell their own thoughts and the enemy’s voice from the Lord’s. Everyone will miss it at times; when you do, get up and keep going.

Living by the Inner Witness This Week

Pastor Hohman tells of speaking at a hall in rural Upper Michigan without a clear word. Praying in a small graveyard across the road, he sensed the Lord say a woman there was a drug addict who would be delivered. After the message, a woman stood and said it was her; she gave her life to Christ and was set free. That inner witness, he says, made the difference. Here are steps drawn from the message:

• Start the day with Him. Before anything else, say, Father, tell me again, and give Him time to speak.
• Spend time without a list. Some days, come into His presence only to be with Him, the way Adam walked with God.
• Implant the Word daily. Read it until it is in you, so it can turn every tumbler in your soul.
• Guard what fills your soul. Turn off the constant bad news and limit time with people who only tear you down.
• Test what you hear. God never contradicts His Word, and He leads from within, not through eagles or butterflies.
• Obey and get up again. Doing what He says makes His voice clearer; when you miss it, keep going.

He also says living on ninety percent after the tithe goes further than living on a hundred percent, pointing to the promise of good measure, pressed down and running over (Luke 6:38). He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself (1 John 5:10), and God promises to put His Spirit within us and cause us to walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

Timestamped Outline

• 26:50 Teaching begins: starting the inner witness
• 28:54 Born again but never changed
• 29:58 Proverbs 3:5–6: trust with your heart
• 32:14 The money left at the store
• 33:14 Spirit, soul and body: 1 Thessalonians 5:23
• 36:33 The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord
• 38:59 Sons and servants at the Hebrew table
• 41:10 My sheep hear My voice: John 10:27
• 42:16 James 1: the implanted word
• 43:26 The key and the tumblers of the soul
• 46:26 3 John 2: as your soul prospers
• 49:44 Psalm 23: He restores my soul
• 50:50 2 Peter 1: a more sure word
• 54:34 Romans 8: led by an inner witness
• 56:54 Adam walked with God
• 59:17 Training yourself to hear His voice
• 1:02:16 Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel
• 1:05:46 Fire falls on Mount Carmel
• 1:07:52 Elijah runs for his life
• 1:11:09 The still small voice
• 1:15:21 Not every voice is God
• 1:17:55 Tithing and 1 John 5:10
• 1:20:20 The meeting in Upper Michigan
• 1:26:53 Invitation and closing prayer

Led by the Spirit Series

This message is part of a six-part teaching series at NTC Ministries. Start at the beginning or keep going:

• First message: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 1 — Born Again by the Holy Spirit’s Leading
• Previous: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 4 — The Spirit Leads and the Word Renews the Soul
• You are here: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God, Part 5 — The Inner Witness and the Still Small Voice
• Next: How to Be Led by the Spirit of God #7 — Righteousness by Grace, Not by the Law

Frequently Asked Questions

Is every thought I have about God His voice?

No. Pastor Hohman says plainly that not every voice you hear is God. Some of his own thoughts, he admits, are simply his, not evil, just not the Lord. Discerning the inner witness from your own mind and the enemy’s voice grows with time in the Word and in His presence, and everyone misses it sometimes along the way.

Why does the sermon spend so much time on the soul?

Because the soul is where most believers get stuck. The spirit is made new at salvation, but the mind and emotions still carry old patterns from the world. Pastor Hohman teaches that an unrenewed soul either holds back the life of the Spirit or lets it flow like a river. Elijah under the broom tree shows what happens when a believer starts living out of the soul.

Can I lose the ability to hear God?

Pastor Hohman’s point is the opposite. You can lose your voice or your hearing, he says, but no one can take away the still small voice inside you. What dulls it is neglecting what the Word says. The more we do what He says, the clearer His voice becomes, and he expects people who spend quiet time with God to find His voice increasingly precious.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Proverbs 3:5–6 — trust in the Lord with all your heart
• Proverbs 20:27 — the spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord
• 1 Thessalonians 5:23 — spirit, soul and body
• John 10:27 — My sheep hear My voice
• James 1:18–21 — the implanted word
• 2 Peter 1:16–19 — the prophetic word confirmed
• Romans 8:14–16 — the Spirit bears witness with our spirit
• 1 Kings 19:1–18 — Elijah and the still small voice
• 1 John 5:10 — the witness in himself
• Ezekiel 36:26–27 — a new heart and a new spirit

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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