HEARING GOD IS FOR EVERYONE
INTRODUCTION
- Last week I talked about how relationship with God is the context for which we hear God.
- Today, I want to continue to lay a solid foundation for hearing the voice of God and how this is not some kind of fringe topic but rather it is a Biblical norm and meant to be normal Christianity.
TEXT MESSAGING ILLUSTRATION – I can remember when I first got a cell phone with the capability for text messaging. For whatever reason I made a decision not to use text messaging and there are close friends of mine that can remember the stance that I took. There was a way to turn off all incoming text messages to your phone. My phone had the capacity and ability to receive messages but I wasn’t receiving them because I turned it off.
- The fact is that God is communicating with all of us (sending messages) but that doesn’t mean we are listening or even discerning HOW or when He is speaking to us.
- What helps us to embrace the voice of God in our life is a solid belief that He does and will speak to us.
- When we believe that God will speak to us, we will EXPECT and PURSUE His voice in our life!
- There are many reasons why people don’t believe that God speaks today but there are TWO primary reasons which are ERRONEOUS THEOLOGY and BAD EXAMPLES.
- In the Bible God spoke to people and it doesn’t say that has changed, but bad examples have caused people to stay away from the issue of Hearing God and often develop a theology against it.
BAD EXAMPLES;
1. In 2011 the pastor of World Outreach Center in Florida said that “God spoke to me” about defacing Islam in desecrating its Qur’an and doing what he could to “wake up America.” As he burned Qurans.
2. In 1987, televangelist Oral Roberts said on nationwide television that if his supporters didn’t send in 8 million dollars that God would take him home – God told him to do this. He got 9 million.
3. End of the world predictions – “God told me the world was going to end” Y2K?
4. 2008 Election – I personally read 3 prophetic words about McCain/Palin winning. Uh – wrong!
- There are many bad examples, but those people are not Jesus and they are not our Bible.
- Now, clearly we should be prayerful and discerning about things - but God speaks to people.
- When People ask me “Why do you believe that God speaks to people still? – I tell them that God spoke to people in Bible days, in later history and speaks to many today – with great examples.
HEARING GOD’S VOICE THROUGH THE OLD TESTAMENT
- In Scripture, we see from the Old Testament that God began speaking to us from the very beginning;
Genesis 1:28 - “God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
- It is safe to assume that God spoke clearly and audibly to Adam and EVE.
- In fact, we see audible communication with several others as well (Cain, Abel, Noah and Abraham).
- However, in Genesis chap. 20 we begin seeing new forms of communication (dreams, visions, etc).
- God is clearly less personal with people in communication until Moses – special relationship/purpose!
Numbers 12:6-8 – “He said, “Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord.”
- With Moses, God brought the Law (Torah) – a clear communication from God written in stone.
- After Moses, God established 3 kinds of mediators – Prophet, Priest and King (judges as well).
- Mediators were positions of leadership and they were able to hear God for the people (exclusive).
HEARING GOD’S VOICE THROUGH THE LIFE OF JESUS
- There are two primary things that Jesus came to do. 1. Redeem us 2. Model life for us.
- Through Jesus we have been given a path and a pattern for relationship with our Heavenly Father.
- Now, Jesus is our only mediator, he is our Prophet, Priest, and King who has made is family.
Hebrews 1:1-3 – “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”
- 13 times the Bible mentions that Jesus went off by himself to pray, he modeled intimacy with Father.
- In John 5:19 Jesus said that he only did what he saw the Father doing.
- In John 8:28 Jesus said that He only said what the Father taught Him.
- Jesus invited people into a real life with Him and the father, where hearing Him should happen;
John 10:27 – “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”
- Jesus made possible again what we are all created for – relationship/communication.
HEARING GOD’S VOICE THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT
- Surely things couldn’t be better than daily life with the Son of God, but Jesus made a promise.
- In John 16:7 Jesus told his disciples that it was better that he go so the Holy Spirit could come.
John 16:12-15 - "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. "He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. "All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”
- Jesus said to his disciples that he wanted to say more, but they could not hear it, receive it.
- The Holy Spirit, who would live in them, would speak and guide them into truth.
- The voice of God in the life of the believer is the voice of the Holy Spirit, and the HS lives in us!
- Later, in Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, we see a major outpouring of the Holy Spirit with supernatural signs and wonders as many are filled with the Holy Spirit – Peter references the OT saying;
Acts 2:17-18 - “AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,' God says, 'THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT And they shall prophesy.”
- As the Holy Spirit is poured out, sons/daughters, young/old will prophesy – hear God and speak!
- They were excited because you no longer needed to be a Prophet, Priest or King – because of Jesus!
- Holy Spirit teaches us, convicts us, reminds us, illuminates the word – He speaks to us from within us!
ILLUSTRATION – The Holy Spirit is our guide, he helps us navigate life, knows where we are going.
- He has been speaking to and through people since the Bible days, and history bears this out.
- As you search Church history you find that many scholars who believe against what I am telling you have gone to great lengths to re-interpret and cover up considerable historical accounts of this
HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF HEARING GOD
1. St. Augustine – an early Christian theologian (3-400AD) - “According to his own account, he was sitting with a friend one day and heard an audible voice that sounded much like a child’s. The voice said to him repeatedly, “Take up and read.” When he heard the voice, he believed it to be a divine exhortation to open the Bible and read so he did. He read Romans he happened to turn to. It just so happened that Augustine turned to Romans 13:13 and as a result gave his life to Jesus Christ.
2. Me – I heard the voice of God when I came to Christ and I have continued to hear Him as I walk with Him through life.
CONCLUSION
- Why do I believe that God speaks today – He did in the Bible, He did in History, and does today.
- Jesus said “I have many more things to say to you” to those who did not have the Holy Spirit.
- For us, he would say – “I have many things to say to you, are you available?”
- Testimonies – Recall what God has done – He wants to move in your life!