And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen;...For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Isaiah 21:9/Revelation 18:5
"Flash forward from those 1st century apostolic epistles, that time when “the household of God was being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the cornerstone,” (Ephesians 2:19-20; The true church, btw, is still being built on this basis.) to the 21st 
It is here, in the midst of an “it’s all about you,” seeker-sensitive stage, where Rick Warren stands, delivering “another” faith under the guise of “the faith.” Warren, who is known for his discern-less, ecumenical alliances, his complacency with regards to orthodoxy, and his embrace of all things mystical, contemplative, and “spiritual,” has, ...Warren, in his post, Four Ways God Speaks To You, has minimized what the apostle maximized, and elevated what the apostle didn’t even mention. He has made Scripture equal to experience, precisely the formula of so many other false teachers in the modern church. The four-pronged answer from “Pastor Rick” is in response to an ill-framed, rhetorical question. “How do I tune in so that I can hear God’s voice?”
According to Warren, God speaks to you in four ways:
“1. God speaks to us through the Bible.” If you are actually doing what Christ said would define His disciples, abiding in His word (John 8:31), you’ll recognize that this method of divine speech is THE method of divine speech. God chose to reveal Himself in the Word, the Word that became flesh and the Word that would, by sovereign providence, become Holy Scripture, fully realized, finally closed, and ultimately eternal. (Psalm 119:89) If Rick would’ve stopped at point one, and pointed his devotees to Scripture, it would’ve been right in line with the apostle’s exhortation to Timothy.
But for Warren – as with so many other slick-tongued, ear-scratching charlatans that plague the modern church – Scripture ain’t enough. Evidently, God can’t say everything He needs to say – and hasn’t said everything He intended to say – in His Word.
“2. God speaks to us through teachers.” No doubt Warren needs to include this point to perpetuate his own position but the Bible-imbibing believer will understand that God uses teachers who “preach the Word.” (2 Timothy 4:2) To the extent that a teacher or preacher infuses his lessons and sermons with Scripture, Christ will speak through that Scripture to feed His sheep.
This is why expository preaching is so critical. Feel good stories and morally-inclined sermons, sans Scripture, have zero nutritional value for the flock, but such calorie-void fast food, if accompanied by whiz-bang Hollywood-like staged theatrics and music, can create repetitive seatings of goats in the pews who cannot, of course, be fed actual sheep food. (Survey, perhaps, any of the 25,000 or more at Saddleback for more information.)
As to Warren himself, this article from Tim Challies summarizes with a notable point about the Saddleback pastor. “One need only read Warren’s books or listen to a few of his messages to realize how often he explains and applies passages incorrectly. I assume this is because he has not taken the time to first humble himself before the Scripture and determine what the passages really mean. So do not be confused and presume that Warren is an expository preacher.”
“3. God speaks to us through impressions.” Impressions? The God of the universe wants to speak to me, something that obviously has to be critical – this is GOD, after all – and He has to resort to
This is utterly unbiblical, but this mystical nonsense sells to those who’ll quickly abandon the Word in their hands for the almost-always carnal, “still small voice” in their heads.
But for Warren, so long as you don’t go to the extreme of thinking “every impression is from God” or to the extreme that “no impression is from God,” you’ll be in the middle … right where God can speak. This is epic false teaching consistent with a “wide path” theology.
“4. God speaks to us through our circumstances.” Though God is entirely sovereign and though there is no single event in the universe that occurs that is not in accord either with His explicit or His permissive will, the only way in which we can identify “God speech” through providentially coordinated circumstance is by being saturated in the Word. It is this that allows one with even a superficial reading of Romans 1, for example, to identify God’s current judgment of sin in the world.
To the extent that we understand His written Word, we are capable of seeing the sovereign hand of God at work in circumstances, for there are none in which He is inactive. But the preeminence of the Word is paramount. Apart from the Truth that He has given us in Holy Scripture, we remain – at best – limited to noble conjecture and uncertain speculation about interpreting the events around us.
But according to Warren, “If we’re going to live a life of significance, God’s got to make constant course corrections, and one of the things he uses to do that is the circumstances that come into our lives.”
....where, exactly, does Scripture tell us we are to live “lives of significance?” We are regularly exhorted to live “lives of obedience,” but “lives of significance” seems glaringly absent from the pages of our Holy Writ.
It may not be enough for Rick Warren or for those seeking spiritual “experiences,” but Scripture was more than enough for the apostles. It is certainly enough for us." Pen&Pulpit
