Jane Hamon – How to Discern the Voice of God

It's an honor to welcome Jane Hamon to The Shaun Tabatt Show to share about her book Discernment: The Essential Guide to Hearing the Voice of God (Chosen Books, 2019). 

It’s an honor to welcome Jane Hamon to The Shaun Tabatt Show to share about her book Discernment: The Essential Guide to Hearing the Voice of God (Chosen Books, 2019).

OVERVIEW

00:01:01 – Meet Today’s Guest, Jane Hamon – Jump to section

00:03:13 – Jane explains the gift of discernment. – Jump to section

00:04:26 – Jane shares some of the ups and downs of growing in the gift of discernment. – Jump to section

00:09:53 – Jane explains how spiritual discernment helps us to identify when God is speaking to us. – Jump to section

00:12:40 – Jane offers concrete examples of how discernment helps us identify and understand the work of angels and demons. – Jump to section

00:15:28 – Jane shows how discernment is a key component in effective spiritual warfare. – Jump to section

00:17:59 – Jane shares why activations are a critical part of growing in the gift of discernment. – Jump to section

00:21:57 – Jane talks about the one thing she hopes every reader takes away from Discernment. – Jump to section

00:22:48 – Jane prays for the listeners. – Jump to section

00:24:30 – How to connect with Jane and get your own copy of Discernment. – Jump to section

About the Book:  We are living in such critical times today that it is imperative for believers to learn to use every tool given to us by the Holy Spirit. We are called to be kingdom influencers–to discern the times in which we live, to discern the moves of the Holy Spirit, and to discern angels and demons.

With extensive expertise and personal experience, prophetic leader Jane Hamon takes a deep dive, biblically and practically, into one of the least known and most unused gifts of the Holy Spirit, covering the following topics:

  • discerning the presence of God
  • discerning the times
  • discerning angels and demons
  • discerning the hearts of people around you
  • acting wisely with what you discern
  • walking in wisdom and balance
  • and more

This book will help you operate in greater spiritual authority and walk in wisdom as you help build God’s kingdom on earth.

Jane Hamon - Discernment - 308

About the Author:  Jane Hamon serves, with her husband, Tom, as senior pastor of Vision Church at Christian International. In their more than thirty years of ministry together, they have built a thriving local church, ministered in more than fifty nations, and helped to lead Christian International Ministries, founded by Dr. Bill Hamon. A clear prophetic voice and eloquent teacher, Jane travels extensively, ministering at national and international conferences, consulting with leaders, conducting prophetic workshops and teaching at Bible colleges. She is frequently featured on a variety of Christian television programs. A gifted storyteller, she has sprinkled her three books–Dreams and VisionsThe Deborah Company, and The Cyrus Decree–with rich personal experiences, extensive research, and valuable teaching. Jane attended Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas, and later received a bachelor of theology and an honorary doctorate of divinity from Christian International School of Theology. Jane makes her home in beautiful Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, where she enjoys fulfilling some of her favorite roles in life as a wife, mother, and now “Mimi” to her growing number of grandchildren.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

(Opening clip)

JANE: I believe that if people will hear the voice of God they can change their world and I believe that is exactly what the end result of this is going to be. Whether you’re hearing the voice of God about demonic things, angelic things, the presence of God, the voice of God, the practical things of how do we move forward, how do we discern properly. If we hear God’s voice it will change your world and it’ll change your family, your business, your ministry. Anything that God’s asked you to do must start with hearing the voice of God.

(Theme music)

SHAUN: It’s time for another episode of the Shaun Tabatt show, a podcast where I connect you with thought leaders from across the globe digging into some of my favorite topics like personal development, marketing, spirituality, and pretty much any other shiny object that happens to catch my attention. Today my special guest is Jane Hamon and we’re going to be discussing her new book Discernment: The Essential Guide to Hearing the voice of God. Jane welcome to the show.

JANE: It’s great to be with you today Shaun.

SHAUN: Let’s begin our conversation with a bit of what you might call the Jane Hamon origin story. So for the listeners who are encountering you for the very first time in our talk today, what are a few things they absolutely must know about you?

JANE: Thank You, Shaun. I was not raised in a Christian home. I was saved at the age of 14, filled with the Holy Spirit of the age of 16, and a few months later I had an encounter with God in my bedroom where God spoke to me in an audible voice. Now, this surprised me for a couple of reasons. Number one nobody had told me that God was still speaking today, so that was kind of shocking. Number two was that he called me to preach to the nations. He called me to operate in a teen ministry with my coming husband. We would travel to the nations of the world, we would preach the Word of God, and that we would hear his voice. Every bit of that, it was theologically shocking. It was shocking because I already had plans for college and the direction of my life, but God completely changed the direction of my life by his word and so it was an amazing encounter.

From there I married into a very prophetic family, the Hamon family. For those of you that might know my father-in-law Dr. Bill Hamon, he is considered to be the father of the modern prophetic movement. And for the last 38 years I have been in this family and we have pioneered the prophetic with teaching the Saints that every single person who is born again should be able to hear the voice of God and as we hear the voice of God we can go out and we can change our world, because one word from God absolutely changes everything. My husband and I have pastored a church here in the panhandle of Florida for almost 35 years. I have three kids and seven wonderful grandkids, so that is Jane Hamon in a nutshell.

SHAUN: That’s awesome Jane. Thanks for giving us a little snapshot of who you are and a bit of your background, that’s always helpful. And like we were talking about before the interview I had a chance to spend some time with your father-in-law earlier this year and even at his age, he is a powerhouse of energy. I’m only 41 and I struggled to keep up with him. I was like oh my gosh, wow! I love to see all that God is doing through your family.

JANE: Thank you.

SHAUN: In terms of the word discernment, we hear that used and thrown around in a lot of different ways in our Spirit-empowered publishing space and our ministry circles. So in terms of what you cover in this book, how would you define the gift of discernment?

JANE: Another word for discernment is the word distinguishing and so sometimes what we need to do is be able to distinguish what is the voice of God versus our voice, the voice that’s in our head. What is the voice of the enemy? What is the voice of God saying and how is he moving in the earth today? Distinguishing between what’s demonic and what’s angelic, because we have things happening in the earth throughout history that have formed major world religions that were demonic spirits manifesting and passing themselves off as angels from heaven. And of course, Paul said, “If I or any angel from heaven preaches any other gospel to you, then let him be cursed.” So we have to have our spiritual eyes and ears open I believe in this era of time, this era in the earth now more than ever before to understand what is the voice of God and what is the will of God for the people of God to align to.

SHAUN: I was a part of the early conversations about this book, so I know this is a topic you’ve been pursuing and teaching on for multiple decades and I’d be curious to hear what were some of the challenges you faced in your journey as you developed in this gift. This isn’t something that just happens overnight. There have been many experiences and many hours that have poured into what we see in this book, so talk to us about some of the peaks and the valleys of the journey.

JANE: Well I would say that in the beginning days there seemed to be more valleys than peaks. You know it was interesting because my father-in-law laid hands on me and activated this gift after I received a prophecy saying that the Lord had given me a gift of discernment.

I’ve always been quite a people person and suddenly it was literally like a curtain went up in my mind and I could see and hear conversations. I could see what was happening and it was pretty intense. I would go to church and I would hug people and after I would hug them I’d be like, “Aaaaahhhh, stop,” because I was suddenly seeing and hearing.

Two weeks after he activated this gift in me I went back to him and said, “Would you put your hands back on me and take this gift back? I don’t want this gift. This gift is awful because of what I’m seeing and hearing.” He said, “No it’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. You’re gonna have to learn how to walk in it and manage it.” So the earliest days were learning how to process what I was seeing and hearing in a godly righteous way without becoming critical or judgmental against the people of God.

From the time I was a child before I was ever saved, I saw demons. I could just see them. It freaked me out. It put a spirit of fear on my life, but then after discernment got activated I could see and I could hear them even more clearly, so it gave me an ability to be able to set people free from the things that were binding them. It gave me the power of God and the thrust of the Holy Spirit to be able to say, “You know what? I see this is what’s operating in your life and we have authority over that so we can break the power of that demonic spirit.”

Of course, seeing the operation of angels was equally as important, to understand that only one-third of the angels fell, so there are twice as many good angels as bad devils. We need to be able to see angels in operation and understand what their function is, but I would say my greatest challenge probably was dealing with becoming critical, becoming judgmental towards people, and the remedy for that was that the Lord put two very mercy motivated men in my life, Bishop Hamon and my husband Tom Hamon. I would share with them what I was seeing and I would feel very emotional initially about what I was seeing and they would say, “You know gifts are given to edify the body, that means to build up the church not to judge.” Another part of the discernment is you have to know if this is a wolf. You have to know if this person can’t receive mercy because they’ve got an agenda that won’t submit to being delivered.

There was a man that came into our church one time and he looked good. He lifted his hands in worship. He did all the right things, but every time I was around him I got so angry and that was an emotional response to the gift of discernment that was happening inside of me and I got so angry. He joined our church and every time I saw him I wanted to knock his head off. I’m sorry, that’s exactly how I felt. I just wanted to knock his head off and I would have the words playing in my heart, this is not to judge people, this is not to criticize, but after he was in our church one month we discovered that he had seduced three young women and taken all their money. I kind of reverted back and thought maybe I should have just hit him the first time I saw him, but know I don’t teach that, okay.

I do believe that we have to know how to discern if this is something that God’s giving us as a key to bring people into deliverance and sometimes we have to discern if this is mercy or judgment. Sometimes having the opportunity to say, “You know what, this is a wolf who doesn’t want help, who doesn’t want correction, and so we have to separate them from the body and that’s a hard thing.” Paul even said, “Beware of false brothers.” So we have to be wise in how we handle that. I think that the gift of discernment though because of some of the challenges to emotions and how people react to what they’re discerning really have to be married together with the spirit of revelation and wisdom.

In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 17 and 18 Paul prays for the church at Ephesus and says, “I pray that you have the spirit of wisdom and revelation.” and I think that that’s really necessary to walk in a right way, because I find that with this gift so many people that actually have this gift operating in them have done one of two things out of their hurt or out of their challenges. They’ve either done completely the wrong thing with what they’ve discerned. They judge people, they’ve been unkind, or they cut people off. That’s not what God’s asking us to do. Or because they don’t know what to do with what they see they just shut the gift down entirely. I think that as people learn that this is a gift of the Holy Spirit, this is something good that the Holy Spirit has given to us to always be able to walk in a place of triumph, then I think people will begin to take the lid off of that gift and be able to give themselves permission to discern, the Spirit of God discerning demons, discerning angels, and sometimes even discerning false brothers that are in our midst.

SHAUN: Jane thanks for giving us some good background context for the ground you cover in the book. Next, let’s dig into a couple of specific chapters. You cover a wide range of topics, but I picked some of the ones that I thought our listeners would be particularly interested in.

First, let’s have you talk to us about discernment and hearing the voice of God. Working in the Spirit-empowered publishing space I see lots of books about hearing the voice of God. I can’t say that I’ve seen a lot of books specifically about discernment and how that relates necessarily to hearing the voice of God, so talk to us about how those two connect and why that’s important.

JANE: I think part of the biggest challenge in the prophetic is discerning the voice of the Lord over your voice and understanding what it is that God is saying. Here at our ministry Christian International, we’ve taught people for the last 35 almost 40 years how to discern the voice of God. When you’re praying, when you’re believing God to give you a word or to give you direction, that you can discern what God’s voice sounds like over your voice.

I think that we have to be able to discern in our churches and even in our church life. We have to be able to discern the Spirit of God in a setting where perhaps everything may look right, but it feels wrong. I remember one time I went into a church and everything looked right. Everything looked beautiful, but I had a very strong discernment reaction in my spirit. It was jumping up and down and I felt sick to my stomach, recognizing that something very unclean was in operation.

When I began to preach I had everybody lift their hands and I took authority over whatever those things were. I didn’t call anybody out. I didn’t call anything specifically out, but I called it out specifically enough to where those demonic things would know that they needed to be shut down and there was breakthrough. Three days later major infidelity and immorality were uncovered in the leadership of the church. That’s a function of discernment and that came not because of a demonic thing, that came because God sent a prophet in to discern and uncover some things in a godly way. I didn’t expose anybody publicly, but it gave the opportunity for repentance and it gave an opportunity for the leadership of that church to come into a right place of repentance.

Revival broke out in that church about two years later after they had dealt with all those issues. God will sometimes give us a discernment that feels very uncomfortable to our soul. That’s where we’ve got to have wisdom on how to bring that word forth in a way that is life-giving and not death-dealing. I believe that God will always do that and give us the ability to do that so that His plans and purposes can break open.

SHAUN: Next talk to us about discernment and angels and demons.

JANE: Okay, well that’s always a fun subject isn’t it? I think that’s one of the functions of the church. Jesus said these signs will follow those who believe. In Mark chapter 15 verses 16 through 18, it says “You’ll cast out devils.” Now how can we cast out a devil if we can’t discern what the devil is? Sometimes the devil can be an actual demon and sometimes it can be a hidden vow that the person has made that a demonic power is riding on. Sometimes it can be a demonic structure over a church, just like that last example. Sometimes it can even be something demonically situated over a territory or a nation and when we start operating in the gift of discernment, God gives us an ability to identify those things and to begin to bring deliverance either on an individual level or sometimes even on a corporate or national level.

As God begins to bring the clarity of how those demonic things have been functioning, now, in the same way, I think that we need to also discern what the angels are doing over a church, over a business, and a nation. I was in the nation of South Korea last year and during that time I had an open vision where I saw what the angels in heaven were doing. At the time it was very tense between North and South Korea. I think the North had fired some missiles into the sea and there was a lot of talk of war and a lot of hostility and opposition was building and the talk on the ground was a lot of talk of war. Once again what the Lord showed me in the heavens is this angel that was reading from a scroll and I couldn’t understand what the angel was saying, because I eventually figured out it was speaking in Korean. Then the Lord gave me the ability to understand what he was saying. What the angel was doing is he was reading from the scrolls in heaven about all the different things that the prophets had spoken over Korea for the last twenty-thirty years. As the angel decreed this, the troops, the armies in heaven, the angelic force in heaven was mobilizing and they were saying, “It’s time, it’s time. Can you believe it’s time?”

So knowing that there was a readiness to have some things happen and then of course three or four months later you saw the first historic meetings between North and South Korea where that 38th parallel was actually crossed and it’s because the angels of God went before that meeting and began to prepare the way for what’s going to take place. Now obviously not all the problems are solved, but I believe it sets some things in motion to show us how the angels in heaven are cooperating with us on the earth and responding to our prayers.

SHAUN: Next let’s go to what is probably a close second to angels and demons and that’s discernment and spiritual warfare. How do those connect?

JANE: Yes of course. If we’re going to discern demons, we have to understand that it’s not a matter of just seeing the demonic structures or the demonic entities that may be binding a person, church, or a nation, but it’s actively engaging in spiritual warfare. I know that some people say, “Well Jesus won all the victory when he died on the cross.” I agree that Jesus purchased that victory for us when he shed his blood and when he rose triumphant over death, hell, and the grave. I absolutely believe that Jesus won the victory for us, but then we also have to read the rest of the New Testament where Paul says to us repeated things like war a good warfare, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to pulling down a stronghold and fight the good fight of faith. I mean all the way through the rest of the New Testament we find the imagery of battle and we have seen repeatedly times when we enter into a time of spiritual warfare which probably would look something like engaging in praying in the spirit, in making decrees, in prophesying, in commanding spirits of Darkness to go, and then ushering in the glory of God over a meeting or over a territory and seeing the power of the enemy broken and the breakthrough of the Lord really begin to come and people get set free.

I always love to say I don’t believe in just talking about an open heaven without actually seeing tangible evidence on the earth. I believe that if we really have an open heaven which we open up through our obedience to the Lord, coming into agreement with what God has said and breaking every curse that the enemy is trying to put as a force of hindrance or opposition. I believe that as we do that an open heaven begins to happen where heaven and earth can connect, but a true open heaven will not just be spiritual breakthroughs that you can’t see but it’ll become evident in natural tangible ways that we begin to see the breakthrough manifested in the earth realm. Healings, miracles, revival, souls getting saved, finances being released, and oppression being broken off. That should be the end result of our spiritual warfare, to see the actual evidence or the spoils of war, the fruits of our victory.

SHAUN: One really practical feature that you have throughout the book is activations at the close of each chapter. I would love to have you talk a little bit about how as the author you’d like to see the readers put those to use because I feel like you have two types of readers out there. You’ve got the people who are always going to do the questions. They’re always going to do the activations at the end of every chapter. Then you have the people who skip over them or they might read through them, but they’re not going to do them. I’d love to hear from your perspective, why did you put those in there and why is it important the readers put those to use?

JANE: Way back when we first started pioneering the prophetic my father-in-law said, “You know I can teach you all day long about hearing the voice of God. I can teach you all day long about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but most preachers will just teach you to death and they don’t activate you to life.” So an activation is where we take what we’ve just learned and we put it into practice. I believe that this really is the heart of God, to not just be hearers but also doers of the things that were being taught. So I can’t stress enough how important it is to do the activations at the end of each chapter, because that’s where you’re going to experience the reality of what it is that I’m teaching you.

Experiencing the reality of hearing the voice of God for yourself and for the very first time will blow your mind and change your world. If you’ve never actually heard the voice of God, Jesus said in John chapter 10, “My sheep hear my voice.” If you’re a believer, every single one of us should be hearing the voice of God. So, first of all, activating the voice of God and then through that activation all the other things that we activate in become more evident and you can have a tangible personal experience without becoming spooky spiritual, weird, or flaky. I understand that some people will tend to gravitate towards things that are a little strange and I do understand that when you talk about demons, angels, and hearing God’s voice that there’s an opportunity for people to think that’s very strange. Some people will want to go that way, but that’s where I bring it back every single time with the wisdom, now what do you do with what you hear, what do you do with what you see, and teach them the wisdom protocols for how to properly respond when God speaks.

SHAUN: Well, I think it’s just like anything else that we encounter for the first time. As somebody who’s only about seven-eight years into my journey being part of the Spirit-empowered church, if I’d encountered your book seven-eight years ago, I would’ve been like, “Oh my gosh this is like way creepy and out of my comfort zone.” However, as you walk through more things, as you have more experiences and get activated in more of this Holy Spirit-empowered lifestyle, it becomes normal, it becomes kind of your day-to-day as you’re going throughout life. While it might be awkward at first, I think if you diligently take the time to work through the activations on the other side of it you’ll see where this can become more of a normal day-to-day experience for you.

JANE: Absolutely. I think you’ll see immediate fruit because one of the activations that I do is activating the presence of God. You might say, “Oh you can’t tell God what to do. You can’t activate him.” The fact of the matter is God is always speaking, God is always present. He’s omnipresent and that means he’s present with our listeners right now, right where they are, but sometimes we fail to recognize his presence because we don’t get still and we don’t invite the Lord to come and to manifest his presence.

I have done this activation with people all over the world and I can tell you that people who have maybe even said, “I’ve never felt the presence of God.” They begin to feel and sense the tangible presence, the tangible glory of God in that activation and let me just say when you encounter God that way, it’ll absolutely change your life to encounter the reality of a Living God in your personal life, so I do encourage people please take the time to do the activations because they’re invaluable to developing the gifts and the callings of God within your life.

SHAUN: Jane you cover a wide range of topics as it relates to discernment throughout the book, but when you think of a reader getting to that last page, closing that back flap of the book, what’s the core message you hope they’ve heard loud and clear? What’s the one thing you hope every reader has taken away from time with this material?

JANE: I believe that if people will hear the voice of God they can change their world and I believe that that is exactly what the end result of this is going to be. Whether you’re hearing the voice of God about demonic things, angelic things, the presence of God, the voice of God, the practical things of how do we move forward, how do we discern properly. If we hear God’s voice it will change your world and it’ll change your family, your business, your ministry. Anything that God’s asked you to do must start with hearing the voice of God, so I hope that the readers will grab ahold of that message and apply it to their own life.

SHAUN: Jane it’s almost time for us to wrap up, but would you mind taking a moment to pray for the listeners before we go?

JANE: Absolutely love to, thank you, Shaun.

Oh, Father, I thank you Lord that for this time that we are on the earth. Lord, I believe that you have brought believers to the church for such a time as this to become Kingdom influencers Lord throughout the spheres of culture that they operate in.

Father, I pray that you would open up our eyes, open up our ears, open up our hearts Father so that we can accurately discern the move of your Holy Spirit, accurately discern your voice, and accurately discern the things that are taking place around us Father. And Lord I believe that as you speak you’ve always got something for us to pray, something for us to say, something for us to do, and Lord I pray Father God for the listeners today Lord, that the spirit of wisdom and revelation would come upon them in this season of time Father where nations are hanging in the balance right now, Father where cities can go one way or another Father God into righteousness or greater darkness.

I pray Father that you would raise up great men and women of God who will have the word of the Lord in their heart Father God and the voice of God in their mouths Lord and that you will send them out into those places Father God with accurate discernment to be able to bring a change into cities and nations in this season of time and Father that the spirit of discernment would be activated Father so that we can build strong families affecting our schools, affecting our communities, and affecting the churches throughout the nations of the earth Father, so I bless each and every one and pray Father that they will hear the voice of God and they’ll change their world in Jesus name. Amen.

SHAUN: Thank you so much for that Jane. One of the most important questions we can ask at the end is, Jane where can the listeners go online to connect with you and find out more about you and your ministry?

JANE: You can go to either TomAndJaneHamon.com or ChristianInternational.com. Both of those places will have an ability to connect with me and purchase this book that I hope will be a great equipping tool for everyone.

SHAUN: Like we do with every episode, we’ll have detailed links in the show notes, places where you can connect with Jane and pick up your own copy of the book.

It’s time to bring this episode of the Shaun Tabatt Show to a close. Many thanks for being a part of my conversation with Jane Hamon. Once again our book today was Discernment: The Essential Guide to Hearing the voice of God. For more on Jane and the book, two good places to start are TomAndJaneHamon.com and ChristianInternational.com.

(Theme music)

And Jane I just want to say thanks so much for sharing with us today it’s been a great pleasure and an honor to have you on the show.

JANE: Thanks so much, Shaun.

(music end)

 

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