Hearing the Voice of God

I think the first thing I want to emphasize—well, I’ll come at it by asking a question. There are many different valid answers to this question. I’m not saying one answer is right and others are not. But if I were to ask you viewing God’s people all through the record of scripture, from the days before the flood, period of the patriarchs, the period of the law, the period of the church, viewing it in totality, what is the basic requirement of God in every such age to be the people of God? What is the thing that God asks for? Hearing God’s voice. I personally believe that runs through every period of God’s dealings with man. I believe it is the key to success and in fact, I believe success is impossible in a spiritual sense without it. And I think amongst us there has been a certain tendency to emphasize aspects of hearing but not focus on hearing as a whole. People said to me when I have spoken on this theme: How do you recognize God’s voice? And I would answer something like this: If the phone rings and I pick it up and it’s my wife on the other end, I don’t usually have to ask her who it is. I recognize her voice. Why? Because I know her so well. So how do you recognize God’s voice? By getting to know God. That’s why it’s such a crucial test.

I heard about a bank system, probably there’s somebody here that knows much better about this than I do—the main safe in the bank is electronically operated and responds only to the voice of a given person. So without that person’s voice you can’t open the safe. And nobody can imitate or actually copy somebody else’s voice. That’s another amazing thing. Every voice is individual. I think that somewhere deep inside every one of us there should be a safe that only opens to one voice. And there is no other voice that can copy the Lord’s voice.

I want to take some scriptures about this. It’s really an impressive list. I could double the list if I wanted to easily, but I want you to just follow with me a whole series of scriptures of which this is the emphasis. Starting at Exodus 15:26. I’m not going into the context at length, this is at the waters of Marah when the waters had been healed and God used that crisis and situation to give a revelation of himself to his people. And it always impresses me that it was God’s initiative to reveal himself to his people as their doctor. It wasn’t something that Israel asked for, it was something that God determined. And if Almighty God is willing to be our personal physician I think we should give the offer serious consideration. Verse 26, he said:

“If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians . . .”

How many of you have ever been in Egypt? I spent two years in Egypt in World War II. There are very few diseases which aren’t represented in Egypt. It would be hard to find any.

“. . . for I am the Lord who heals you.”

So there’s the revelation. I am the Lord who heals you. In modern Hebrew, I am the Lord your doctor. Exactly the same word is used in modern Hebrew. But God says if you want me as your doctor, I’ll be it on condition if—if—and there are four conditions. Number one, you diligently heed the voice of the Lord. Two, you do that which is right in his sight. Three, you give ear to his commandments. And four, keep all his
statutes.

One brother said what God asks for is obedience. And I said I want to go further back. You understand what I meant? Because you can’t obey God if you can’t hear his voice. You can hear his voice and not obey him but the problem with most Christians is not that they don’t obey but they don’t hear.

I don’t know how your translations go. I know the New International Version uses obey right at the beginning. What does it say for the first if? If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord. Okay, that’s good. The Hebrew is a repetition of the word hear which is a common Hebrew idiom for being emphatic. It says if hearing you will hear the voice of the Lord. All the emphasis is on that word hear. When I was sick in hospital and in need of healing and I came to this passage and I wanted the Lord to be my doctor, I said what does it mean when you say if hearing you will hear? I felt the Lord answered me, you have two ears, a right ear and a left. To hear hearing is to hear God with both ears. Many people listen to God with one ear and another source for the other. And the result is confusion.

Why don’t we look at those conditions just for a moment. I think it’s so important. I would point out to you that almost every passage of the Bible which states the conditions for being healed begin with what you hear. That is the key to healing. If you listen listening to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his sight. You must be determined that you will do what is right when you discover what is right. That’s number two. Number three, give ear to his commandments. Notice we go back again to the ears. Give ear to his commandments. And four, keep all his statutes. Very kind of generally, I believe statutes are the way God has appointed his people to live. They’re not exactly legal enactment. I think there are ways that God has appointed for us to live. I think being healthy is very closely tied to living the way God appointed us to live. So if you want God as your doctor, there’s the conditions. To listen listening, you’ve got to do what is
right in his eyes, you’ve got to give ear to all his commandments. Sometimes we’re very selective. We listen to the ones that suit us and ignore the ones that don’t. And finally, we’ve got to live according to his statutes. That governs our conduct in the body of Christ, living according to his statutes.

There’s one very significant example of the importance of listening to God’s voice. That really, having God as our doctor is conditional about that. I’m not setting aside human doctors. I appreciate them, go to them whenever I feel it’s right. But I do want to have the Lord as my doctor.

Okay. Let’s look on in Exodus 19:5–6. If we look at verse 3, the Lord says to Moses:

“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel . . . [then we’ll miss out the next verse. Verse 5:] Now therefore if you will indeed obey by voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people. For all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Again, there’s a most tremendous offer from God but it’s conditional. If. And though the translation may vary, in Hebrew it’s precisely the same. If listening you will listen to my voice and keep my covenant. Again, we cannot keep the covenant if we do not hear the voice. And then God says you will be my people in the fullest sense. You will be my representatives. And I think the highest calling: you’ll be a kingdom of priests. I think those are the two highest ministries: king and priest. They’re offered to those who hear the voice of the Lord.

And then in Deuteronomy 28, first of all verses 1 and 2. Deuteronomy 28 is one of the longer chapters in the Bible. And it consists very simply of two kinds of things. Blessings and curses. And at the beginning of each section it tells you how you qualify for the blessings and how you qualify for the curses. It’s very simple. The blessings take much less space than the curses. Beginning at verse 1:

“It shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you on high above all nations of the earth. [It’s very similar to being kings and priests—in fact, it’s saying it another way.] And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”

Notice the condition is stated twice. And again in Hebrew it’s the same. If listening you will listen. I’ve always said that it’s so nice to be leading a life in which the blessings overtake you. It’s so much better than pursuing the blessings and seeing them always just a little way out of your reach. I don’t think it’s really the best way to focus on the blessings. I think it is to focus on hearing and obeying the voice of the Lord. Blessings God will take care of. You may be traveling at the maximum permitted speed but they will go faster and catch you up.

On the other hand, now verse 15:
“But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all this curses will come upon you and will overtake you.”

Curses also travel fast. And notice the basic principle is so simple. If you want the blessings listen carefully to the voice of the Lord. But, if you don’t, then the curses will come. So in a sense, that’s the watershed in a human life. Listening to the voice of the Lord or not listening.

Let’s go on to Psalm 95. I was reminded of this psalm as I was sitting here enjoying the worship. I don’t know how it is with you, but as a preacher, when people really begin to worship the Lord, I want to worship and I do, but my mind becomes so fertile that I have to kind of make room for what the Lord says to me. And I think this is very true in Psalm 95. We could read really, perhaps stage by stage the whole psalm.

“O come let us sing to the Lord; let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and let us should joyfully to him with psalms.”

So we begin with loud jubilant praise. Thanksgiving.

“For the Lord is the great God and the great king above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth, the heights of the hills are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.”

He is the creator of the universe. But from that jubilant vocal praise we move on to worship. And in the Bible, worship is primarily an attitude, not an utterance.

“O come let us worship, let us bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”

I really believe we don’t do enough kneeling. I’m not suggesting we do it now but I grew up in the Anglican church and there are a lot of things I can criticize but you never go through an Anglican church service without kneeling. And kneeling does something to you, bending your knees before God has got a definite effect on your attitude. So let us bow down, an attitude. Let us kneel, an attitude, before the Lord our Maker.

“. . . for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.”

Now when you come to that second phase, then you are ready to hear the voice of the Lord. It was a very beautiful illustration here this morning. First of all, there was loud jubilant praise, then there was a silence. Then the Lord spoke. That, I think, is a pattern that is normal in scripture.

“Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, and as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they proved me though they saw my works. For forty years I was grieved with that generation and said: This is a people who go astray in their hearts and they do not know my ways. So I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest.”

Why did they miss the rest of the Lord? Because they did not hear his voice. And they made God very, very angry and he said this people always goes astray in their hearts. In fact, he said in a sense, there’s nothing I can do for them. They didn’t hear his voice.

Now, in that context it’s interesting to look in Hebrews for a moment. In the third and fourth chapter of Hebrews, that psalm is quoted three times. It certainly brings the lesson right through into the New Covenant. We’ll just look at that. My particular version prints quotations from the Old Testament in a different type so they stand out. Hebrews 3:7. Notice for the writer of Hebrews the book of Psalms was what the Holy Spirit said.

“Therefore as the Holy Spirit says: Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts . . .”

So this is carried over and applied directly to believers in the New Covenant. Verse 15 of the same chapter.

“While it is said: Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts . . .”

And then chapter 4, verse 7:
“Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

God has certainly got something to say. I mean, that’s three times in two chapters. And the key theme of those two chapters is rest. The word rest occurs twelve times in those two chapters. What’s the way into rest? Hearing God’s voice. That’s why we have so many restless Christians. They don’t know how to hear God’s voice.

Going back to the Old Covenant, I want to look in Jeremiah 7 for a moment, verses 22–23. God is unfolding the way he dealt with Israel. And this is a very unexpected statement.

“For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.”

Now historically, that’s correct. Israel did not get out of Egypt by the sacrifices of the law. In fact, it was quite a substantial period later when God began to talk to them about those sacrifices.

“But this is what I commanded them saying: Obey my voice and I will be your God and you shall be my people.”

Again we go back to Exodus 19, if you will listen to my voice, keep my covenant, you will be my people. It’s important to see the relationship. God did speak to Israel about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but it wasn’t primary. What was primary was obeying his voice. And so, it doesn’t mean that it was wrong for them at a certain period to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices but what it means is merely offering burnt offerings and sacrifices without hearing his voice was of no avail. And what he was reproving them for in the period of Jeremiah was that they offered the burnt offerings and sacrifices but they didn’t hear his voice. And so whatever we do in the religious life, it is only acceptable if it springs from hearing God’s voice. I believe that’s just as true properly applied in the Christian life. Anything we can do can be good if it springs from hearing God’s voice. It’s fruitless if we do it without hearing God’s voice. I think that to me that is the shortest summation in scripture of what is required to be the people of God. Obey my voice and I will be your God. I think that runs all through the Bible. Obey my voice and I will be your God.

Now I just want to emphasize in moving on to the New Testament that the basic requirement doesn’t change. John 10:27. Jesus is speaking and he says:

“My sheep hear my voice: I know them, and they follow me.”

Again, I think that’s the simplest statement of what it is to be a Christian. To hear his voice and follow him. It’s not a matter of denomination, not primarily a matter of doctrine, it’s a matter of relationship that’s based on hearing the Lord’s voice and when you hear, follow it. But as you know with the customs of shepherds in those days, they couldn’t follow the shepherd unless they heard his voice. That was the way they related to the shepherd.

For me there is nothing more important in my Christian life and my relationship with God than hearing his voice. And one thing that that requires is sensitivity. It requires also having the right priority. We are a very earnest group of people. And earnest people have their own problems, one of which is being so earnest in doing the right thing that you don’t hear the Lord’s voice. Other groups have other problems. We can become, without intending it, very much involved in self effort. We have our list of duties, principles and we’re going to do it. We are going to do it. We are disciples. Well, that’s fine. But if you don’t hear the Lord’s voice it won’t work. I think all I can do really in speaking to help you is to point out to you this is a priority. Make room for it. I find the Lord speaks to me in the most unexpected times and places. When I’m on my knees and agonizing I frequently don’t hear from God. But when I’m looking in the mirror and shaving, God speaks to me. I think one of the keys is being relaxed. I was looking in the mirror and shaving in l966 and for some reason which I can never interpret, looking at myself in the mirror I said, "Of course, you’re not an evangelist." And instantly God said very quietly, "You can be if you want." So I thought to myself, "Okay." That’s all there was!

Now I certainly do not regard my primary ministry as that of an evangelist but since that time there have emerged in my ministry basically the things that characterize the ministry of Philip: casting out demons, healing the lame and getting people baptized.

Another remarkable example of hearing God’s voice in an unexpected moment: Years back, about l943, when I was a relatively new Christian, I was a soldier in the British Army. I was in the Sudan and I was traveling in a train in which certain compartments were reserved for the military. Traveling north from Khartoum and I got to a small, very, very crowded station. And if you have never traveled in the third world you won’t be able to picture this but the platform was totally covered with living creatures. Men, women, children, nursing infants, old men and then donkeys, camels, goats, chickens . . . Everybody was bustling, making a noise. And I looked out of the window in my splendid isolation and I said to myself, "I wonder what God thinks about all those people." I didn’t expect an answer. But I got an immediate answer, "Some weak, some foolish, some proud, some wicked and some exceeding precious." That, I felt, was God’s categorization of the human race. You can think it over. There’s four basic reasons why people don’t come to Christ. Some weak, some foolish, some proud, some wicked and some exceeding precious.

One of the things about what God says is it has a quality of permanence. You have many impressions which may be very important at the time but they don’t have that quality of permanence. But when God has written something on your heart, it’s there to stay. In that context let me offer you this thought in 2 Corinthians 3:2–3. Paul is writing to the people to whom he had been ministering.

“You are our epistle [or our letter] written in our hearts, known and read by all men. You are manifestly an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not by ink but by the Spirit of the Living God not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh [that is, of the heart].”

There’s a deep principle there I believe. The only person who can write on the hearts of God’s people is the Holy Spirit. When he writes, it’s permanent. If we merely exhort people and preach at people and lecture people, apart from the Holy Spirit, it isn’t written on their hearts. But that which the Holy Spirit speaks and writes becomes permanent, becomes a part of us. That’s one of the things I felt would be important to share. Now these are kind of taken at random. There’s no special logical order except that I feel what I was saying about hearing God’s voice really is primary and it’s so neglected. Many, many times if I preach on hearing God’s voice, people who have been in churches for years will come up and say how do I hear God’s voice? My answer is usually, how did you get this far without hearing God’s voice? The answer is get to know God. When you know God you’ll know his voice.

And I would also agree when there are times when we are liable to be confused. There are times when we think we’ve heard God’s voice and it wasn’t God’s voice. But that’s a risk we have to take. If you want to go through the Christian life without taking any risks, you’ll never exercise any faith. There’s always a risk involved in exercising faith. So if you want to exercise faith and that’s the only way to please God, you have to be prepared to take risks. The most dangerous thing you can do in the Christian life is play it safe. Really. Because what you’re doing is eliminating faith. When you eliminate faith you eliminate life. The just shall live by faith. Don’t resent the challenges that God gives you to your faith. Because every time you respond positively you increase your measure of life. That’s the way God keeps us living and moving on. I think most of you would agree we tend to move on a certain spiritual plane and then God says you’ve been on that plane long enough. I want you to come up to a higher plane. But if you want to come up to the higher plane there’s only one way—faith. And God always has a specific step of faith to get us onto the higher plane. And if we don’t take the step we stay on the same plane.

I’ll give you a very simple example of that. In 1970 my first wife and I were living in a very nice house on a double lot in Fort Lauderdale, a far nicer house than we’ve ever lived in before. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, we put in central air conditioning. I mean, to us it was a palace. And then we began to feel that God wanted us to move. It was just that feeling of restlessness. Not that there was anything wrong with the house, the payments were minimal. If anything, it was too easy. That’s probably the problem. And so we started to contact real estate agents and inquire. Then I was away preaching somewhere, phoned Lydia. She said, “I think I’ve found the house that God wants us to have.” Well, being a husband you know exactly the first question I asked. “What’s the price?” When she answered I said, “That is out of the price. Impossible.” Well, when I got back she said at least let the real estate agents come. There were two ladies, rather sort of hard boiled, ladies in their 40s who probably had a home and children grown up or else they were divorced or something. It was a comical situation. There they were sitting on the sofa. And as you remember Lydia, she was very seldom conventional. That’s an understatement! They were sitting there really giving us the hard sell and it was all so business. She looked at them and said, “You know, I think your legs are unequal!” And they stopped in the middle, got embarrassed and said, “Oh, are they?” “Would you like my husband to pray for you?” Before she really knew what was happening I crawled over to her, held up her legs, they were quite distinctly unequal and her short leg grew out. I tell you, she was astonished! Then I went to the lady beside her on the sofa and did the same thing. Then I said to the second lady, “Would you like me to check your arm?” She said, “Oh, no, that’s quite enough!” They were scared. But what happened was the atmosphere changed totally and in five minutes they were telling us their deepest sorrows and problems. We had penetrated that hard businesswoman shell. God had moved.

Well, from then they took us to see the house and of course you know the end of the story. Not only did we buy the house but we bought a vacant lot next door because we thought we’d build another house for some of our family. We never did build the other house. And it was a fantastic step of faith by my standards at that time. Within a few months I observed my income had doubled without any clear practical explanation. I had taken the step. Well, in l978 or ‘79 I sold that house. Meanwhile I had added on to it. But just to give you an example of how practical God is as a businessman, when I sold the house, just because of the rise in the value of property, I sat down and calculated that I had lived there nine years free. Now that’s not a bad deal by any standards. But if I had turned that challenge down, who knows what I’d be living in today? I’m not living in it any longer, I don’t miss it for five minutes. But it was a stepping stone in my walk with God. And a good part of the money we got out of the house we put into the house we built in Jerusalem. And looking back and knowing Lydia’s heart about Jerusalem, I realize nothing would have pleased her better than to take that money and use it that way.

That’s an example because there was no urgent need. We were very satisfied where we were. But it was God’s time to move up. And you cannot move up without a step of faith. So when the next step of faith is set before you by God then don’t resent it because he’s enlarging your capacity. He’s lifting you to a higher plane. There is no way to progress in the Christian life but by faith. There is no other way it can be done.