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A while ago Julian and Sarah Highsted were travelling to Oamaru. At Palmerston, Sarah (who wasn’t driving) was drifting off to sleep when suddenly she thought, “Ahh, I’ve left the iron on!” They rang someone who was able to get into the house and turn it off and all was well.
You’ve possibly had experiences like that. Was that God?
Generally, people would say, “No, that was her subconscious working. Our brains are amazing.” Our brains are amazing, but how do you know that wasn’t the voice of God? That sounds like God, to me.
I suspect God speaks to us often. We tend to think it is our subconscious thoughts or intuition. But what if it was God? People say, “God doesn’t speak to me”. I think He does, and the secret for us is to be listening and to recognise the voice of God as the voice of God; not intuition, not conscience – God.
In the Bible, we regularly read of God talking to people. It sounds too simple. We don’t experience that. For Samuel in the temple, the voice presumably appeared so audible Samuel thought Eli was calling him.
If someone else had been in the room with Samuel, do you think he or she would have heard the voice? Or just Samuel? Was it external and anyone could have heard it, or was it internal but so clear that it sounded like an audible voice?
Cartoons picture a big booming voice coming out of the sky, but how often does that happen? Well occasionally. At Jesus’ baptism a voice came from heaven saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”
At the Transfiguration a voice came from the cloud saying, “This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well please. Listen to him!”
When Paul met Jesus on the Damascus road, the others with him heard a sound (Acts 9:7) but only Paul heard what Jesus said (Acts 22:9).
But what about all the other hundreds and hundreds of examples of God talking to people? I suspect it was no different for them than it is for us. God speaks the same now as He did then. Are we listening?
Maybe cartoons have taught us that God always spoke to men of old with the big booming voice from the sky and we feel resentful that he doesn’t speak to us like that. But what if the cartoon image isn’t right? Our reading from 1 Kings said that “the word of the Lord came to [Elijah]: “What are you doing here, Elijah.” Was that a booming voice from the sky or more like Sarah’s experience – a clear voice in the mind? I don’t know, but I do know that when God invited him out of the cave to see God pass by, there was a mighty wind that tore the mountains apart, and an earthquake, and a fire, but God wasn’t in any of those. Then there was a gentle whisper. I think God often speaks with a gentle whisper.
I don’t consider that I am very good at hearing God speaking. I can think of only 3 instances in my life when God spoke in a way that was profoundly clear and unmistakable. I don’t have time to tell them in detail now and I’ve probably told you about them all before anyway. One was when God called me to be a pastor. One was when I didn’t pick up a hitchhiker and God told me to go back and pick him up, and the results of that were amazing. One was when I drove in here at the end of one day and God told me to go and visit a particular man. I went. I talked to him about his salvation. He indicated a desire to be reconciled to God. We prayed. I left. Ten minutes later he died.
I could tell you of lots of other occasions when it hasn’t been quite on that level but a thought has unexpectedly entered my mind and I have been very grateful because, I believe, God spoke. Two or three times in recent months, when I have been engrossed in one thing and have forgotten an appointment, suddenly and just in time, I have remembered. I remembered? Or God spoke to me? Well, I’ll tell you what I reckon. Those thoughts have come so much out of the blue – so disconnected with what I was thinking at the time – that I don’t believe I remembered. God reminded me. Those thoughts have been sudden, clear thoughts like Sarah remembering that she had left the iron on.
Just last Monday, I was walking down from East Peak and thinking about a decision I had to make. I thought I knew what I was going to do but I prayed, “Lord, it would be nice to have one more person say something that confirms the right direction.” Immediately, the thought in my mind was, “You have already had that confirmation. Chris has told you what she thinks. Listen to her.” That could have just been my mind, but it sounded like God.
Again, I don’t claim to be good at hearing God’s voice, but there have been thousands of other times when it has just felt right. That sounds pretty subjective but God does speak to us sometimes by just making us uncomfortable about something that is wrong or at peace. It is not a voice from the sky. It is a gentle whisper. In fact, I think God is probably speaking to me far more than I realise. Some of them I hear. Others I don’t. I think God is probably speaking to all of us, very frequently, but the question is: how good are we at hearing the voice of God?
Can I make four suggestions for hearing God’s voice?
Do you expect God to talk to you or do you think, “God doesn’t talk to me”. I suspect one difference between the people of the Bible and us is that they believed that God talks and they expected to hear Him. Do you expect to hear God talk? Do you think that might happen once in a lifetime or once a year or many times a day?
There is ample evidence in the Bible that God does speak – and that He expects us to listen. Maybe Satan wants you to believe that God won’t speak to you so that then you feel distant from God and unloved by God. Well, why don’t you show Satan that you are not going to believe his lies and you are going to believe that God will speak to you? You are going to have a relationship with God where you talk to each other and you know He loves you because every day He tells you things.
the spiritual place of forgiveness. Remember, God usually speaks in a gentle whisper. If we are estranged from Him we won’t hear that whisper. We need to be close to God.
The quiet. God speaks in a gentle whisper. If our days our filled with noise and music and activity and busyness we will not hear that whisper. We need to “be still and know that He is God.”
The Bible. The Bible is God’s primary means of speaking. Anybody who wants to hear God will be hungry for the Bible.
Prayer. That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Prayer is half about talking to God and half about listening to God. I have been surprised how often, when I haven’t known what to preach on, it has come to me during the Tuesday morning prayer meeting. When we listen, God speaks.
Fellowship. Often, God will say something to me, through one of you. Or I hear another Christian speaking and something hits a nerve and I know it is God speaking, not just that person.
I think those are 5 key places for hearing God speak. There are numerous others though. God speaks through dreams. God speaks through books and tapes and videos. God speaks through His creation. I once went to a seminar led by Joyce Huggett who has written a book called, “Listening to God”. At one stage she encouraged us to walk around the lovely gardens and to listen for God to speak through nature. I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I wandered around, hugged a couple of trees and stroked the bark and looked at flowers and picked up stones but it didn’t seem that God was saying anything. Then I walked under a tree and a large drop of water fell and hit me on the top of the head. God spoke to me through that drop of water. I can’t even tell you what He said. It was like a message with no words – like the kind of message that passes between two people in love when their eyes meet. It was as if God played a wee joke on me and just winked and said, “See, I do love you and I will talk to you.”
But, if I hadn’t been encouraged to listen for the voice of God, I probably wouldn’t have heard it. That drop of water would have meant nothing if I hadn’t had an expectation of God speaking. I could watch a film and simply enjoy the film or I could watch the same film and hear God say something through it.
But all sorts of people claim to have heard God’s voice. Murderers sometimes claim that God told them to do it. Sometimes, what people say God has told them seems pretty dodgy to us.
Even Elijah had listened to voices that weren’t from God. He believed his life was in danger and he just wanted to die. He believed he was all alone – the only person who had remained faithful. Who was he listening to? God said to him, “No, there are 7,000 who have not bowed down to Baal.”
Because we are listening to a gentle whisper, what we have heard and what we haven’t can be a bit subjective. We can be unsure whether a thought we have had is simply a thought we have had or actually the voice of God or another voice – a demonic voice; a temptation. We need to expect God to speak and we need to put ourselves in those places where we can hear God speak, but there is another step.
When Little Red Riding Hood saw a wolf dress in a nightie – with those big eyes and big ears and big teeth and hairy face, and when she heard the wolf speak in wolf voice not a grandma voice, how come she thought it was her grandmother? Either she had an exceptionally ugly Grandma, or the naughty girl had never visited her Grandma before to know the difference. Did the wolf sound like Grandma?
Have we got to know God enough to recognise His voice? When God speaks, do we recognise the voice? Does it sound like God? Does it sound like the God of the Bible? Is it the sort of thing He would say? Of course, we can only know that if we have got to know God well enough that we recognise the sorts of things He says and the ways He says them.
Or we can check it out with other Christians: Does this sound like God?
In John 10 Jesus says, ‘I am the good shepherd.” In that passage He says His sheep do 4 things. 1) They listen to His voice. There is the expectation. They are listening. 2) They know Him and they know His voice. There’s the close relationship which means they know God well enough to recognise His voice. In fact, Jesus says His sheep will not listen to thieves and robbers and will not follow a stranger, because they know that is not the voice of the shepherd. 3) They follow Him. Once they have heard the voice, Jesus’ sheep obey. That is the ultimate step: obeying what God says.
At the moment, we are asking every member of this church to pray and listen to the voice of God regarding their giving to the building project and to the ongoing life of the church. I know that some people will not expect God to speak. Some of us have not practiced the skill of hearing God’s voice. We doubt that God will speak to us.
However, I want to challenge those people to move into a new experience. God does speak when we listen. Take the risk. Pray, “Lord, please speak to me,” and listen. Study some of the Biblical material on giving. God speaks through the Bible. Maybe you haven’t yet looked at the study material from the last couple of weeks. This week’s has material about giving as well. Work through the issues, talk to other people and hear God speaking to you.
Pray and take time to listen. You might be surprised that you do actually hear God. This is where there is so much opportunity for growth in our faith. Giving is the catalyst but growing is the desire.
It does take time. It does require quietness. If you haven’t started yet and you’re leaving it until the last couple of days, that is not putting yourself in the best place to hear God’s voice. Take some time every day and study and pray. God will speak.
When we have a thought, how will we know if it is God or not? Does it sound like God? What sorts of things does God say about our possessions? Things like:
Matt 6:21 Where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also
Mark 8:36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?
Matt 6:33 If you make my Kingdom and my righteousness your top priority, I will provide everything you need.
It doesn’t sound like God to say, “Take the easy road. Be careful. Make sure you keep enough material things to feel secure.” That gentle whisper hasn’t come from God. The God of the Bible doesn’t say, “Make sure you keep enough things to feel secure.” He’s not a great fan of things. The God of the Bible is much more likely to challenge us in order to stretch our faith in order to grow our faith. He will ask us to do something that our human nature reacts against, saying, “Trust me. Trust me to look after you.”
There’s no adventure quite like trusting God. The challenge of obeying God with your giving is an invitation to an adventure and an invitation to grow massively in our faith.