WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HEARD FROM GOD? – PART TWO
Welcome back, friends. Again, we want to address the issue of hearing the voice of God. And the question we asked last time is, When was the Last time You Heard From God?
Let us pray.
PRAYER
Father, we come to You now; and we ask that You would lead us as we look into Your Word today…in Jesus Name. Amen!
We are looking at, Why it is important to hear the voice of God. First of all, we said:
- Hearing the voice of God helps us avoid costly mistakes and frustrations, and guarantees us success.
- Number two, we said: hearing the voice of God imparts faith to our heart, to meet the challenges of life. Remember that Romans 10:17 says, that faith comes by hearing – that is hearing the voice of God: hearing the Word of God.
- Hearing the voice of God places necessary restraints on our conduct which saves us from destruction. No wonder Proverbs 29:18 says, where there is no revelation (where people do not hear the voice of God) the people cast of restraint. Nothing restrains them.
- Hearing the voice of God also makes us effective in ministering to people, especially those in need; and helps us also to withstand the persecution.
There is a prophecy regarding Jesus Christ, in Isaiah 50, from verse 4. There you see the secret of sustaining oneself under pressure, and then ministering to others effectively. That is the prophecy about Jesus Christ. It says in Isaiah 50:4,
4 The Lord God has given me
the tongue of the learned,
that I should know how to speak a word
in season to Him who is weary.
Okay now, how is it that he is given the tongue of a learned to be able to minister to those who are weary? If you read further, it says, he awakens me morning by morning; he awakens my ear to hear as the learned.
- Fifthly, hearing the voice of God gives us assurance in prayer. Jesus says in John 15:7,
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
Now, how do we hear the voice of God?
We hear the voice of God not audibly with our external ears. We hear the voice of God when we understand what God is trying to communicate to us. The bible is the primary source of hearing the voice of God. You have not heard from God until you understand what is being said.
A very good illustration – is experience of Paul of Tarsus, on his way to Damascus, when Jesus arrested him (was Saul of Tarsus, then later on Paul).
In Acts 9, Paul said, Acts 9:7
7 And the men who journeyed with me stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.
Later on in his life when he was defending himself in one of the occasions in Acts 22:9, repeating that experience of long ago he said, Acts 22:9
9 “And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.
You’d say, wow, that is contradiction – apparent contradiction. And the passage we just read now in Acts 22:9. What is Paul saying? He is saying that if you have not heard with understanding you have not heard. You see the construction in the Greek will not go into the details conveys that. They heard a voice, but they did not hear with understanding. And therefore later on when he retells the story he said they did not hear the voice of God. So when you do not hear with understanding, when you do not understand the Word of God, when you don’t understand the communication of God, no matter the source of the communication, whether dreams or visions or the Word itself, the bible, when the message is not conveyed, the meaning is not conveyed: you have not heard from God.
Peter saw a vision, in Acts 10. And in that vision, God corrected his prejudice. Remember the story: Peter, arise; kill and eat. Later on Peter said, when he went to the house of Cornelius, you know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company or to go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. So you see that it was not about animals, because Peter told the Lord I have never eaten anything unclean all of my life.
But the message, the meaning of that vision, is not about animals; it is about human beings. God was using that to communicate to him that you should not discriminate against people on the basis of race.
Giving you the meaning is the function of the Holy Spirit. And so when you ignore the Holy Spirit you cannot hear the voice of God. When you pick up your bible to read, the first thing you should do is to pray, that the Holy Spirit would speak to you. That’s why the Psalmist prayed, open thou my eyes O Lord that I may behold wondrous things out of Your Word.
So, the Holy Spirit is the One who conveys the meaning. And if you ignore Him you will not hear the voice of God.
Last time, we took our passage or text from 1 Samuel 3, the experience of the young boy in the temple. God called them. And each time God called him he ran to Eli. And Eli said, I did not call you. God did not speak to him until God made sure that he was listening to Him. And it was Eli who gave him that instruction: when next He calls you, say to Him, speak Lord, for your servant hears. And so the Lord gave him the message, which he gave to Eli. So the young Samuel was the most spiritual in that temple worship at that time. But he was not experienced in hearing the voice of God. It took old Eli (though backslidden) to teach him how to hear the voice of God.
Now let us conclude.
What does it take to hear the voice of God?
- To hear the voice of God promptly, precisely and persistently, you must cultivate the opposite of the habit that has prevented you from hearing His voice. And what are they? To hear the voice of God promptly, precisely and persistently, you must cultivate the habit of staying still in his presence. He says, when you stay still before me, you will know that I am God.
– Psalm 46:10: Be still and know that I am God.
Staying still in His presence – in other words spending time with God.
Last time, we observed that most of us or many of us spend a lot of time with people, either over the phone or face-to-face, but we spend very little time with God. And how can we hear His voice!
- Secondly, release to Him the time that people have taken and all other engagements – excessive engagements. Don’t be too busy for God.
- And then finally, whenever He speaks to you act upon it. Until you do the last thing He told you, don’t expect Him to speak to you again. Because He does not waste words.
I trust that the Lord will help you to start spending time in His Word the bible, learning to hear His voice.
Shall we pray.
PRAYER
Father, we want to thank You so much for this time we have spent in Your Word. It is important that we hear from You, and the blessings in hearing from You, I pray that those who have heard me today will never miss, as You make us obedient, as You help us and grant us grace to spend time in Your Word…in Jesus Name we pray. Amen!