The Fullness of You Hearing God

Isaiah 28:23 NIV

Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.

Why Don’t You Hear From God?

Perhaps you have had an experience like me.  I was in Russia and had gone into a

department store.  I was just exploring because I wasn’t sure what they had and I was always on the hunt for inexpensive souvenirs to bring home.  Causally I went down one aisle after another mindlessly glancing about.  I noticed there were about six store employees and I was only one of two customers in the store.  Suddenly it dawned on me that every single employee was watching what I was doing.  They were not just watching me, they were staring at me and some were following me as I left one aisle and went to another.  I began to smile inside myself.  Did they really think I was going to shoplift?  I said something to one of the clerks. joking about my intentions, but she only stared at me like I was an American spy trying to infiltrate their secret weapon system.  I did not understand Russian and the clerks did not know any English.  A great barrier stood between us of culture and language.  How could I get through to them that I was not going to take any of their toys or kitchen supplies…that I would pay for what I wanted?  I was baffled.

What if we have a similar relationship with God?  What if there are many times through the day when God is talking to us but we either aren’t paying attention or unable to grasp what He has said?  Would our lives improve if we did hear from God; did comprehend what He was communicating to us?  Is there a possibility that there is a vast number of ways God is trying to get through to us but we are missing it?  Some of us have had the experience of trying to understand what someone speaking another language was saying and being flummoxed in our efforts.  Hand signals and motioning just hasn’t worked.  Could that be happening between us and God?

I had a recent experience that caught my attention.  I went to a local church facility that is known for opening its doors for people to pray during the day and evening Tuesday-Friday.  Most of the time in the sanctuary they have live streaming worship from a sister congregation in Kansas City that has prayer and worship taking place 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Other times they have someone in their own sanctuary playing the keyboards and singing.  Every once in a while a person from their congregation reads Scripture out loud for a full hour.  What the Bible passages will be aren’t posted in advance and it varies from reader to reader what will be read without a particular order it seems.  I never know what will be happening when I arrive because I don’t know the schedule.  I came a little early before the building was opened and read my regularly scheduled Bible reading for the day.  I was in the Proverbs and read chapters 19-20 before entering the sanctuary.  When I got in I saw that someone was reading the Bible and I soon realized he was reading from Proverbs.  Not only that, he was in Proverbs 21, the very next chapter after what I had just finished reading in the car.  How could that be?  How could such a coincidence have occurred?  As I sat and listened and prayed, I wondered if God was trying to communicate with me, and if so, what was He saying.

In Isaiah 28, God makes it clear that He intends for us to hear what He has to say.  Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. (NIV)  Through the prophet Isaiah, God makes this promise to us, The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. (Isaiah 58:11 NIV)  Perhaps the boldest statement in Scripture of our Lord’s determination to speak to us and show us the way as we go about our business is also found in the book of Isaiah.  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21 NIV)  But how is this possible?  What is the way God does this?  The Holy Spirit, who our Lord puts in us, somehow gets through to us, if we are available to Him, what He wants us to hear.  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  (John 16:13 NIV)  If we want to hear God speak to us, He will through the Holy Spirit.

There is evidence in God’s word that we can shut down communication between ourselves and God.  King Saul is a classic example of this.  After Saul on two occasions openly disobeyed God, the Lord stopped communicating with him.  Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. (1 Samuel 16:14 NIV)  For a time this did not bother Saul as he found ways of coping without God guiding him but when a monstrous Philistine army came to attack him and his army, the craving for God to lead him reached a crescendo.  When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart.  He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. (1 Samuel 28:5-6 NIV)  Although he himself had forced all witches and mediums to go into hiding because of his pogrom against them, Saul in his desperation, tried to find a witch to raise the prophet Samuel from the dead hoping that God might speak through Samuel.  Saul then said to his attendants, "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her." (1 Samuel 28:7 NIV)  Saul is not alone in his desperation to hear what God might say to him.  But sadly, there can be reasons for why we miss out on God speaking to us.

The most obvious is disobedience.  If you don’t do what the Lord tells you to do, God may wait for you to change your mind.  There cannot be two masters in one life.  Either the Lord is or we are.  If we are, then God will give us room to find out what that is like.  In Saul’s case, the Lord let Satan attack him so that he could feel just how weak and defenseless he was without God.  A warning from God’s word must be taken seriously.  "But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.” (Psalm 81:11-12 NIV)  If we want to take control of our lives, then God will let us but He will back away and and give us the opportunity to see what it is like living without Him.  We may not even know God has done this for a while because it can be comfortable without having the Lord directing us.  But then a crisis hits and like Saul we look for God to guide us.  It is then that His silence can be terrible.

Another hindrance to hearing from God is having a cluttered mind.  If we are thinking about everything but God, how can we be ready when He enters our thoughts?  We can’t because we are distracted.  Like the virgins who did not bring oil to the wedding feast and were kicked out of the building, we must not be lackadaisical about the opportunity to hear from God.  Paul talks about the cluttered mind in his letter to the Corinthians.  Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly — mere infants in Christ.  I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.  You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4 NIV) God’s Spirit speaks to us so quietly that only those whose minds are on God can hear.  Any bit of sinful thinking, any sort of greed or hatred or lust or doubt can quench His voice in us.  Paul the Apostle says that if we want to know God’s will for us, we must not ever conform to the ways of the world; whether it is in regard to entertainment, habitual behaviors, use of our money or how we react to the people God brings us.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.  (Romans 12:2 NIV)

There is one more hindrance to hearing God speak and that is the age old problem of a lack of faith.  In Hebrews we discover, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  God will speak to us in the Bible in general ways if we do not have much faith in Him and the truth is that even this form of communication will sound like gibberish to those without faith in Christ.  But, if we want to understand what God is saying to us as we drive, when at work as we are with our children or while shopping, we must have faith He will guide us and direct us.  There is no work around when it comes to faith.  Either we believe God is talking to us in a still whisper or we don’t and if we don’t think we can hear from Him, we won’t hear from Him.

So how can we begin to hear from God as we go through our days?  We must practice gratitude.  Do not let a moment pass when you are not thankful for what you have and how God is working in your life.  Do whatever God tells you to do.  Act in faith.  Believe it was the Lord who directed you and trust Him to correct you if you were wrong.  Scripture is your protection.  God will never oppose the Bible with what He tells you.  Keep your mind on God at all times.  Make Ephesians 6: 18 the standard of how you live each day.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.  (Ephesians 6:18 NIV)  God will not bother talking with you if you are distracted.  If you are thinking about God and you are on the edge of your seat anticipating His guidance, you will find our Lord will reward your faith by leading you through whatever difficulty, perplexing situation or relationship issue you face.  Keep your mind on God and He will come near to you with His strength, peace and guidance.

The Fullness of You

Judges 20:27 NIV

And the Israelites inquired of the Lord.

Do You Hear From God?

We all communicate or try to communicate when we have relationships.  We use a wide range of methods; some are effective and others aren’t so successful.  We use touch to communicate our love or our anger, perfumes and colognes to attract attention so that we are noticed.  Clothing communicates as does the way we look at someone with our eyes.  We smile, frown, fold our arms, tap our fingers and grimace to get a point across.  Our expressions say something.  Sometimes we don’t even realize what our faces are saying to others.  A compliment, word of encouragement and criticism all are parts of communication.  Sometimes we communicate a point by being late or early, by pausing before answering or by blurting out a reply.  We are constantly communicating, sometimes even by keeping our door closed or staying in the car.  Communication is a universal part of our lives.

We are not all masters at communication; sometimes we misread the message being given us and other times we don’t realize that we are saying something unintended.  There is in the Christian community and even outside of it a level of frustration when it comes to communicating with God.  Many would like to communicate with Him but it doesn’t seem possible.  Perhaps you have been disappointed with how communication has gone for you in your relationship with God.  You have tried but either you don’t feel like God gets through to you or you don’t get through to God.  Today, we are going to look at that vital part of life, communicating with God.

When we read the second and third chapters of the book of Genesis, we get a clear picture of the psychology of sin with regard to the relationship between God and His people.  Before Adam rebelled against God, communication between them was comfortable and relaxed.  God met with Adam, gave him the responsibility of naming all the livestock, beasts of the field and birds and waited to hear what names he gave them as the Lord herded the creatures past them.  He made Eve and together they all lived as friends.  When Adam rejected God’s command to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, communication between them was shattered.  Adam and Eve hid from God and even though they heard the Lord moving about in the Garden of Eden, they tried to keep from being seen.  It was God who broke the silence between them.  He called out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”

Sin clearly wrecked the lives of Adam and Eve.  Death became their end rather than life.  It also demolished the desire of the two to meet with God and hear from Him.  We cannot overstate this.  Sin shot clear through the desire of people to be in communication with God, warped their view of God and put them at odds with Him.  God came to Adam and Eve with the very same level of affection and love but Adam and Eve due to the damage to their personalities were not able to accept it.  Adam’s reaction to God tells us all we need to know about what Sin did to him.  “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  (Genesis 3: 10 NIV) 

God stayed the same.  He continued to be available to Adam and Eve.  It was Adam and Eve who closed the door on God.  Bombard every human with ten thousand times ten thousand the amount of sin Adam and Eve had within them while they were still in the Garden and you can easily see how huge our problem is when it comes to communicating with God.  Our door is shut pretty tight.  We almost never make our minds available to God and it takes a miracle for us to hear from Him.  The problem is not with God.  It is with us.

There are only a few people in the Old Testament who seem to be really determined to hear from God.  One would be David in his early years.  The expression, “hunger is the best sauce” seems to apply to our discussion.  When David was desperate he immediately turned to God for guidance.  The Lord gave the people of Israel the Ephod to help them hear from Him.  It was the High Priest’s responsibility to use it on behalf of the people.  In the Ephod were the Urim and Thummim which were used to answer “yes-no” questions.  They looked like dice and were tossed to get answers from God.  In 1 Samuel 23: 9, David called the priest to him and asked to use the Ephod to find out if the people of the town where he and his men were camping would protect him if King Saul and his army came to get him.  He wanted God to speak to him about the danger he faced.  When the Lord through the Ephod told David that the people of Keilah would not protect him, David fled.

This happened again and again with David.  He faced a crisis and got the priest to use the Ephod to discover what God said he should do.  He asked God whether he should pursue an army of Amalekites who had taken his wives and the wives and children of the soldiers of his little brigade captive while they were away.  (1 Samuel 30: 7)  When he wanted to know if the people of Judah would embrace him as their new king after Saul died, he consulted God with the Ephod.  (2 Samuel 2: 1)  Facing a vast army of Philistines and being greatly outnumbered, David wanted to know from God if he should attack the invading army and so he had the Ephod brought to him to see what God said.  David believed God would tell him what to do if he asked.  When there were life and death sorts of decisions to make, David took time to find out what God said he ought to do.  It is fascinating that as David solidified his hold on the country as king and foreign powers stopped being a threat to him, we no longer see David seeking out the Lord for guidance.  He certainly didn’t look to God for direction when he thought about sleeping with the married Bathsheba and later when in his pride, he considered numbering all the fighting men of Israel, David did not consult with God then either.  Both times, the consequence of not letting God direct his path was deadly and impacted the nation for generations to come.

Although we see several times, kings of Judah wanting God to speak to them, they nearly always went through prophets rather than meeting individually with the Lord themselves.  Moses of course talked with God all the time but he is the exception rather than the rule before Christ came and completely changed our relationship with God.  There is in the New Testament a titanic shift in how God makes Himself available to us.  Before Christ went to the Cross to die for our sins, the Lord promised that all who put their faith in Him for their salvation would have the Holy Spirit as a part of them.  God would live in us and become part of who we are.  The Bible makes an assumption that we must either accept as true or reject outright.  It is that the Holy Spirit is a part of every believer not just as some external force but as God joined to the personality and thus available at all times to guide, empower and help.  The Apostle Paul states, “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14 NIV)  Sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.  That is the assumption Paul makes.  If you are born again, the Holy Spirit leads you.  His “voice” is a natural part of your life.

John 10 presents a generally overlooked proposition.  It is so clear and decided that we must face squarely God’s statement.  Using the metaphor of sheep and their shepherd Jesus said, “The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.  The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:2-4 NIV)  Jesus later adds, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10:16 NIV)  He then declares, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27 NIV)

God states unequivocally that if you belong to God and are one of His, you will hear his voice because He will be speaking with you and you will know it is Him.  Why are so many Christians not experiencing this?  Why do they feel like they do not hear His voice?  We will take up that topic next week.  For now we must by faith accept this assertion by Jesus that we have God’s voice in our ear.  He speaks to us and we can and should recognize when it is Him speaking to us.  We have the most exciting and noble of all abilities; the capability of hearing God speak to us at any moment.  Those not born again are deaf to God.  They cannot understand Him speaking because it is just gibberish to them, like an American trying to make sense of Cantonese.  But the one who is one of God’s own, who is born-again is given the ability by God to hear Him speak and understand what He says.  

The Worthiness of Jesus Hearing

Malachi 3:16 NIV

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.

How Important Is Listening?

The other day I went to get my haircut and after getting me seated in my chair, the hairstylist took a look at what she had before her and told me I had great hair.  Now, I know that I am an old man with gray popping up everywhere and I have been shown how my hair is thinning in the back of my head but I must admit I kind of strutted a bit after I heard that comment.  I felt younger, handsomer and more impressive yet nothing about me had changed.  I was the exact same person I was before I got my haircut with the same list of accomplishments and failures, the same talents and abilities and the same looks but on this day I heard that I had a “great head of hair” and it made a difference.

What is it that you love hearing most?  Is it a compliment?  Would it be the sound of laughter or a baby cooing?  How high on your list would be jazz music or classical music or rock or rap?  Do you love the sound of wood crackling in a fireplace or popcorn popping just before it is ready or the gurgling sound of a mountain stream?  Maybe it’s the roar of the ocean, a good story or a podcast?  Perhaps it is the sound of birds singing or the Bible being read aloud.  Do you love the sound of your children’s voices, of your husband or wife on the phone?  Do you like to hear the sound of thunder or rain drops or the quiet stir of snow falling?  Do you recall hearing the sound of your baby’s heartbeat for the first time or the interviewer telling you that you got the job?  Do you have a favorite sound of all time?  How important is listening to you?

The Bible often speaks of God hearing.  The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer. (Psalm 6:9 NIV)  Again in the Psalms we see, In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.  From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. (Psalm 18:6 NIV)  And in Psalm 40: 1 is the declaration, I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. (NIV)  Because God is Spirit, it is perhaps a bit strange to think of God hearing as a person hears but we must remember that all the language of the Old Testament that gives God the same characteristics as humankind possess are prophetic of what is to come; that one day God would indeed have the very features of people because our Lord was to become flesh and dwell among us.  (Consider John 1: 14)

When our Lord did become flesh, His ability to hear was human in every way.  Just a few examples will illustrate what we mean here.  A Roman centurion approached Jesus begging him to heal his ailing servant.  Jesus offered to go with the centurion and heal the servant at the centurion’s home but the centurion responded to this offer in a stunning way.  The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed…When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” (Matthew 8:8.10 NIV)  Jesus, just like you or I heard the centurion’s reaction to Jesus’ offer and reacted to what He heard.  Another example and we will make our point regarding our Lord.  In John 9 is the interesting account of a man born blind who was healed by Jesus.  The religious leaders in Jerusalem were not happy with how the man who had been healed answered their questions regarding Jesus and the miracle and would not let the man have access to the synagogue.  Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" (John 9:35 NIV)

In both cases and in every example we can find of Jesus hearing something said, He heard just like we do.  There is no evidence, as far as we can find, that Jesus had any supernatural power to know in advance what was going to be told Him.  He reacted just like we do to news we hear.  It was in real time as it was happening.  Jesus was astonished, just like we would be at new news He received regarding the spoken faith of the centurion.  When the man He healed was thrown out of the synagogue and Jesus heard about it, our Lord went and found him.  Like us, Jesus heard for the first time a wide range of statements and ideas and accounts and when He heard them, He had to process like we do what He heard.  He did not have ten thousand years to think about what He already knew.  It was for Him as a man fresh every time, the words He heard.  God experienced what it is like for us to hear something, be shocked by it, excited by it, amused by it, saddened by it, appalled by it and then have to think through what He heard.  That is an amazing revelation of Scripture.  God had ears just like us, a mind just like us and He had to process what He heard just like we process it.  We know how hard it is to figure out what to do with what we hear when we hear it.  God also knows how hard it is because He has faced the struggle Himself to take what He has just heard and decide what to do with the new information He has gained.

In Genesis 2 and 3 we have the first descriptions of hearing occurring.  Some sort of hearing is discussed in Genesis 2.  The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:15-17 NIV)  It would seem that because everything in this passage is physical and not spiritual: Adam put into a physical garden and directed to do the physical work there of taking care of the garden and then given a command about the physical act of not eating fruit from a particular physical tree that the talking that takes place was also physical but we cannot say for certain.  It certainly seems like God was speaking to Adam in a normal physical way and Adam heard Him in a normal physical way.  Later in chapter 3 a physical being spoke to Eve, a serpent.  That physical creature asked Eve a critical question that Eve answered.  "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 NIV)  Eve knew what the serpent said and responded to what she heard.  "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)

This is precisely what God did say to Adam and so Adam had to have repeated this to Eve who heard it.  The conversation ends with the serpent insisting that God was wrong about them dying if they ate from the tree in the middle of the garden and that what they didn’t realize was that the fruit from the tree would make it so that like God they would know the difference between good and evil.  Eve of course did eat the forbidden fruit and so did Adam and immediately their eyes were opened but not as they hoped.  It was horrible for them.  Sin completely wrecked their personalities and they were ashamed of their nakedness. The way Adam and Eve processed information was ruined by the Sin they committed and no longer could they think how God built them to think.  They were broken people.  How they processed what they heard next is telling.  Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:8-9 NIV)

There is in this a fascinating admission in Scripture.  There was a time when God allowed Himself to be physically heard by people.  Adam and Eve heard God rustling about in the garden like all of us hear.  The way they processed this hearing is critical because it clearly was not in the same way as before they sinned.  The two hid from God; they now were afraid of Him.  Whereas before, the sound of God made them happy; after they sinned it paralyzed them with fear.  From this point forward, people began to no longer physically hear God.  After He sent them out of the garden, God would make Himself heard in a physical way only a few times.  The Bible says that God spoke to Moses face to face as one person speaks to another.  He spoke physically to Abraham before that and Jacob but almost never did He give people the opportunity to hear Him speak through the normal process of ears to brain.  Satan became completely cut off from man’s ears.  Never again in the Old Testament do we read of Satan speaking in a physical way to people; Satan could only talk directly to God  Demons spoke and speak but not Satan.

What were we to do though if God stopped speaking to us physically?  Something amazing happened when Jesus Christ came as a man and became a part of human society.  Satan was given his voice and allowed to speak physically with Christ but only with Christ and the Father spoke physically with Jesus too and let the Disciples hear Him speak.  A rip in the barrier between the physical and spiritual realms occurred with the coming of Jesus.  Both the horrific evil of Satan could be heard physically as well as the perfect love of God.  In this great moment in time, salvation came to us.  Jesus Christ put us back in touch with God by letting Satan do every possible terrible act in the physical realm to Him; let Him arrange His beating, scourging and crucifixion.  Upon His death, the power of Satan was broken in humanity and Sin could no longer keep us from God.  In that instant, when Satan tried to destroy Christ and every single link between God and His people, Christ rose victoriously.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ brought to all who put their faith in Him for salvation the magnificent new way for God to speak to us.  The Holy Spirit joins with us in conversations that are in a completely different manner than anyone has ever spoken with us in the past; in a supernatural way.  But like babies, we don’t realize when He is talking with us, understand what He is saying or try very hard to make sense of God’s way of getting through to us.   It is humiliating at times, frustrating often and sad to admit how little we recognize the Holy Spirit’s communication with us but it will not always be like this.  By reading the Bible we learn how God really speaks to us…how to tell the difference between our own thoughts and the Holy Spirit breaking through our thoughts to talk to us…Spirit to spirit…  Take a week to practice listening for the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  Every opportunity you get, invite God to guide you, show you what to do, how to respond to what you face.  The Holy Spirit will bring Scripture to mind, past experiences to mind and point out ways you can make the most out of the opportunities God gives you to be loving, generous and kind.