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HEARING GOD’S VOICE SERIES
CONDITIONS TO HEARING THE
VOICE OF GOD
In this message, we want to talk about
some conditions that are necessary to hear the voice of God. Lets
look at I Kg.17: 6. The background of this story was God sent Elijah to the
brook when there was a famine that took place as he prophesied. And while he
was there, being fed by the ravens and drinking off the brook, it dried up. We
did not know for how long it lasted but it dried up. So, the time came for God
to change His method of provision for Elijah. Remember God is never limited to
a method. Sometimes He provides you by the ravens and by the brook. But then
when it ends that means He is going to provide you by a new way. Praise God
that Elijah did not despair. He did not cry like some people do, "God why
did you fail me in this way?" God never fails. Principles
remains the same but His method changed. God has billions of ways to
supply our needs. But we need to be in the right place, in the right time doing
the right thing. If you are in the right place at the wrong time, doing the
right thing, you won’t get it. If you were in the wrong place doing the right
thing at the right time, you wouldn’t get it too. We need to get it right on
three areas. Elijah had just exhausted God’s supply in one avenue. Now God in
verse six is saying I want to change my means of working with you. In supplying
him at the brook, God took care of him only. But now
God wants to move along and change the whole direction.
Lets look at verse six. And the ravens
brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening;
and he drank from the brook. And after awhile, the brook dried up because there
was no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to him, “Arise go to Zarephath, which belongs to
I like what God says here in verse 8 and 9
God says, “I have commanded,” – in other words, “I have spoken to the woman. I
have commanded her to provide for you.” So there goes this man of God to this
woman.
Verse 10 So
he arose and went to Zarephath; and when he came to
the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks; and he called
to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.” And
as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of
bread in your hand.” And she said, “As the Lord God lives, I have nothing
baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a cruse; and now, I
am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and
my son, that we may eat it, and die.”
God sent Elijah to this woman. He traveled
all the way from the brook Cherith right to Zarephath. As he goes right to Zarephath
remember what God said, I have commanded. So, he comes all the way, only to
find that this woman was thinking it was her last day, and she was preparing
her last meal. She was preparing her funeral. Look at what the bible says. She
said, “We are going to eat and die.” How come this woman didn’t hear God? God
says I have commanded her. Most of the time, you would have expected that as he
came to the woman, the woman would say, “Are you the one whom God has commanded
me to provide food?” That would be the normal response. After all God said, “I
have commanded this woman.” But she did not have any word from God. I wonder
how many times God speaks to us and we do not hear. God says, “I have commanded
this woman,” but she didn’t hear that command from God.
There are some problems that this woman
was facing. We have done a teaching on how to hear the voice of God. We are
building on that ground. Now in I Kg. 17, we see the reason why this woman
couldn’t hear from God. She was looking at herself and her condition. She was
looking at her little bit of flour and a little bit of oil. Her eyes and her
soul were tied to this life. She was tied to the cares of this life. She was
tied to the things of this world. And as a result of that, she could not hear
God.
God had to send Elijah all the way to tell
this woman what to do. If this woman had heard from God, she would not have
needed the man of God to repeat the command. She should have been ready. There
was another woman if you remember in Elisha’s time. Elisha used to pass by that
town. Every time Elisha passes by, Elisha seems to meet this woman. This woman
told her husband that there is this man of God who passes by. Let us prepare a
room and let the man know that every time he passes by this is the place where
he can stay. They prepared a room for the prophet. Now that woman was hearing
from God. That woman discerned correctly. It did not say she heard a, “Thus
says the Lord.” It did not say that this woman saw a vision. But this woman was
sensitive to what God was telling her to do. Whereas this other woman, this
widow, was not paying any attention to what God was saying. The command had
gone out but she did not hear. The reason is she is tied down to the things of
this life. She was looking at herself, her situation, her son, her condition
and some thing was holding her back from hearing from God.
See God is a spirit and when He speaks, we
need to be in the spirit. If God speaks in the spirit and we are in the flesh,
we cannot hear Him. We are talking about how to be led by the Spirit. That is
the condition that we have to place ourselves in to hear from God. It’s
interesting to know that all through the bible God has required people to come
out of their physical situation, out of their affairs of this life to a
solitary place before they could hear clearly from God. Some times, it looks as
if it was on purpose. The question is why should they
have to go all the way to the mountain before God speaks. Why couldn’t God
speak to them when they are in their house in their room? Couldn’t have God
spoken to them there? He could of course. God’s presence is everywhere. He can
speak anywhere anyplace any time. But it’s not God that is the problem. It’s
us. We need to hear from God. It is our condition and our being tied down to
the things of this life. And God has required that sometimes we come out of our
situation and place ourselves in the position to be led by the Spirit to hear
from Him. Now some of us desire to be led by the Spirit but we are not willing
to give the time to hear from God. We expect God to interrupt the affairs of
our lives and the activities of our lives. As we are busy in the affairs of
this life, we expect God to interrupt us and say, “Hi you over there.” God will
not do that.
He gives His inward witness to a certain extent but the strength by which we hear from God is based upon how established is our private hearing from God. If we could hear privately in a solitary place, it will strengthen our hearing in the affairs of life. But if all the time we are involved in buying and in selling, in the humdrum of the things of life you may never hear from God. We may live and die without hearing from God. We may live and die without so much as hearing the command that God is commanding. God wants us to make an effort to come out of the things of this life and enter into a solitary place. I don’t know where the solitary place for your life may be. God deals with each one differently. The geographical place may change but the principles are the same.
Lets examine very carefully here I Kg. 19: 8
after Elijah has eaten of angel’s food that was cooked for him. So he arose,
ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty
nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.
That’s a long, long journey. It says that he went in the strength of the
food as far as Horeb. Notice what Horeb is called, the
Let’s look at the life of Moses. We will
look at the incidents first and then we draw the principles. Exodus 3:1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his
father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock the west side of the
wilderness, and came to Horeb, the
What about our Lord Jesus Christ? Lets
look in the gospel of Mark 1:35 Now in the morning, having risen a long
while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there
He prayed. Notice the word solitary place. In the gospel of Matthew
chapter 14 after the feeding of the five thousands in verse 23 And after He had dismissed the crowds He went into
the hills by Himself to pray. Now the
God requires that we separate from the
activities of this life and have an act of separation from the things of this
life to go aside to hear Him. It is a different thing when you are fasting and
seeking to hear God and to be led by the Spirit while you are working and daily
active in the things of life. And when you are fasting and seeking God and you
are completely secluded from the things of this life and the affairs of this
life, there is a higher degree of concentration you could give yourself to hear
from God and God’s Spirit. In bible times, God required people to go to a
geographical place to hear Him. I don’t know why He does that. But He has
required it. He has required sometimes for people to make great expense and
great sacrifices to go out of their way and place themselves in a position to
hear God so that God could speak to them for what He wants them to do. We have
to watch this principle very carefully. That is the methods that we are
watching at. You got to isolate methods and principles. The principle behind it
is not that you can only hear God on a mountain. Thank God, it’s very hard to
look for a mountain. Imagine if you are a Singaporean looking for a mountain.
Then you have to go to
The principle behind it is as I have said
is this: God is a spirit. There are two spirits that are operational. One is
the spirit of the world and the other is the Spirit of God. When we talk about
the spirit of the world, we are not necessarily talking about something evil.
Remember all the inventions of men have to do with human soul and the human
intellect and indirectly they are the spirit of the world. You take any
magazine, do you know all these things are the product of the spirit of the
world. What is it saying, materialism, buy, covet, possess, fashion etc and
this is the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world tells us to be like
them. Get this, get that - it’s the spirit of the world. We are looking at the
principle now. We have looked at the method now is the principle. There is a
spirit of the world that prevents your spirit from ascending above it. There is
a spirit of the world that is a gravitation force that pulls you down. So that
when the spirit of the world pulls you down you cannot hear God. If you
surround yourselves with the spirit of covetousness, the spirit of materialism
and all you see is the physical things of life you can never hear God. God could be speaking but you can never hear
God.
See in the Tabernacle of Moses there are
these three departments. There is the Holy of holies, there is the
Eph.2: 2 In
which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of
disobedience. Notice that the power
of the air. He has not finished talking yet. Verse 3 among whom also we all
once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of
the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the
others. Verse 4, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great
love with which He loved us. The first three verses are important to
understand the blessing of verse 4. Paul was saying that it is the spirit of
the world, the prince of the power of the air that pulls people down and
influences people’s mind.
If you remember the book by Howard Pitman
“Demons: An Eye Witness Account”, he talked about the major types of demon
power. He speaks about the warring demons and they were dressed like Roman
soldiers. But then he says he saw another demon that is one of the big bosses
too. And that demon looks like an ordinary businessman. Dressed like a
businessman. That demon could have walked on the streets and we would have
thought that he was a prominent businessman. You wouldn’t recognize it because
part of the spirit of the world is materialism and being concerned about
material things. Remember Jesus said life consists more of clothes, of shelter,
and of food. Jesus was not concerned on this area. In fact, Howard Pitman himself
said before he met the Lord and had the encounter of demons he had lived the
average Christian life. He worked hard to earn a good salary. He worked hard to
gain large amount of finances. He thought that he was pleasing God. He said in
one moment in the presence of God he found all his life’s work burned up into
ashes. He wept and cried bitterly when he saw that all his works were
considered worthless before God, and he begged God for a second chance. God
gave him a second chance and told him to tell the world what he saw and
experienced.
All these things have to do with the
spirit of the world. Now this also can be taken to the extreme. I am not saying
therefore lets become hermits and completely abandon the world system. That
will be a wrong interpretation. There are a lot of the people in the bible who
lived in the world but not of the world. If you conclude therefore lets give up every thing, lets go, and live off the land
like a hippie, then what you are saying is that you are to live outside of the
world and be not of the world. I am not saying that. The word world or cosmos
in the Greek means a world system. Jesus is not asking you to come out of the
world system. But Jesus is saying that you are in the system but make sure you
are not of it. You are not influenced by it. You are not motivated by it. He
wants us to remain in the world system so that we could be witnesses. If you
come out of the world system, you might as well die and be with God in heaven.
There will be no witnesses.
So note what Ephesians two is trying to
tell us. Verse 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love
with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses. Now the word dead
in trespasses is connected to verse one. Because verse one says, we were
dead in trespasses and sins. And the meaning of being dead in trespasses is
also in verse two. The spirit of the world is influencing us, unknowingly,
ignorantly. The spirit of the world was influencing our decisions, our life and
our motivation. Do you know that a lot of Christians are motivated by the
spirit of the world? Why, because they live only for materialism, that is being
motivated by the spirit of the world. If for one moment the supply for their
need doesn’t seem to come, they will keep God out. They will not be able to be
like Job (bless his heart) he missed God in some ways but not in this area. For
some Christians, if their material things were all taken away they will curse
God and die. Job did not understand that God did not cause his problems. His
problem was he thought that God caused everything. But the good part about him
was that when everything was taken away, he says if he dies, he will die loving
God. He didn’t live for material things. He says, “I’ll still bless God. I love
God not because He feeds me. I love God because He is God.” But some Christians
if their supply does not come in they will give up their faith. They will give
up Christianity and they will give God up.
Not only that they will blame God and some of them may even curse God
and die. They will even say, “Why be a Christian if I
cannot have all these things?” Do you know what they are? They are Christians
but they are influenced and motivated by the spirit of the world. And it’s
those very Christians who find it very hard to hear God. They find that they
can’t hear God. Why, because as long as they are being influenced, motivated
and guided by the spirit of the world, they won’t be able to hear the Spirit of
God. Some Christians knowingly are aware that the spirit of the world is
motivating them but most of the time, Christians are ignorant unless it’s
pointed out to them.
Now understanding that being dead in
trespasses is being motivated and being moved by the spirit of the world, lets look at verse 5. It says, Even when we were dead in
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly place in
Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
Notice that Paul contrasted being raised
up in heavenly places against being dead in trespasses. In other words, he is
saying that our spirit must ascend out of the grips of the spirit of the world.
The spirit of the world is concerned with food, clothing and shelter. You say
but surely, God cares, yes, but remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6.
My desire in God as I have always prayed is, “Lord I want to have the same mind
that Jesus had when He was on this earth. I want to understand the processes of
His thought when He walked on this earth the kind of thoughts that occurs to
Him. The kind of motivation that He was moved in, I want to move into that kind
of spirit.” And in Matthew chapter 6, He is pointing again the spirit of the
world against the spirit of God. In verse 25 “Therefore, when you see a therefore
the previous lines are important. Verse 24 says there are 2 masters. See there
are two spirits. Either the Holy Spirit is proclaiming Jesus as Lord or the
prince of the power of the air is causing you to be dragged down by the spirit
of the world. There are two masters and you cannot serve both. You either serve
one or the other. God won’t do it but supposing that for a moment all your
food, your clothing, your shelter, your prestige, your status and everything
you owned were taken away from you, could you still say, “I love Jesus.” You
don’t need that to happen to examine yourself. You can imagine it. And if you
imagine it and say, “I cannot really say I love Jesus,” the spirit of the world
is dragging you down. That is why you cannot hear from God. That
I why you find it hard to be led by the Spirit. Because being led by the
Spirit you have to be free from that spirit of the world first.
We all know verse 33 seek ye first the
Matthew 6: 27 Jesus is speaking against
worrying again. Then in verse 28, He considers the lilies of the field. They
just grow they neither toil nor spin. Then in verse 31 therefore do not worry
take no thought what we shall drink or what we shall wear. Now verse 32 He says
this is what the world does. He says for all these things the Gentiles seek.
Jesus summarizes the spirit of the world. Everything you see in the world, you
could see in the papers, you could see in the magazines. You know what the
world seeks after, materialism. You mix with the people of the world you see their
motives. Some people become philanthropists but they are still materialistic
and that is just a small side thing for them. Some time back I saw a small
little article about an interview of all the top multimillionaires and
billionaires of the world. It was a small little write up about each one of
them. You know what each one of them wanted? More money.
See the world system grips them. Anyone of you who have been exposed to this
system of this world especially those of you way out there earning your living
you must be aware of the spirit that is there. When you start off you say a
hundred thousand dollars is enough. When you hit that goal, it’s not enough.
You see it’s the spirit of grabbing. It’s the spirit of wanting more and more.
You are never satisfied. We are not saying it’s wrong to possess, to be
blessed, or to be rich. A lot of people in the bible are rich; Abraham, Joseph,
Daniel but they remain spiritual people.
What we are saying here is that there are
two spirits we need to be aware of. There is the spirit of the world. You don’t
need to have a lot of money to be caught by the spirit of the world. You could
be the poorest church mouse and you are caught with the spirit of the world.
You know the spirit of the world is, food, clothing
and shelter. O what shall I do? From the moment, you are born into this earth
and the average person who grows up in life that’s the first goal that they
want. They want to earn a decent living. See it’s caught up already in the
spirit of the world. It takes Smith Wigglesworth to say that making a living is
one of the lowest ambitions someone can have. It is the ambition of living a
life for God that all of us should have.
Now lets contrast
a little bit and have a glimpse of heaven. We are born into this earth and the
world system runs contrary to God’s ways, so we cannot see the picture God
sees. Thank God, in heaven food, clothing and shelter are automatically yours.
They are bought with the precious blood of Jesus. What do I do in heaven then?
Imagine on this earth you slog so hard for food, clothing and shelter but when
you go to heaven, you find that they are all free. Then you ask, “What do we do
in heaven?” There is a different motivation when you get to heaven: you are
there to discover all that God has placed in you. You find out that God has
placed in you as a service to other creatures. That’s the goal. It’s different.
If we have the heavenly vision that we are raised and seated with Christ, we
will lose sight of the goals that this world set, food, clothing and shelter.
There are a lot of honest sincere and hardworking human beings out there
working from morning till night and worrying about providing for their house
and forgetting that they have a God. And they work their fingers to the bone.
They spend all their time and their mental energy, their physical energy
working and slogging. Some of them work and slog for 50 years and their
happiness depend on circumstances. Joy comes from the Spirit. And the happiness
that they experience when they pay up for their house is short lived. They work
all their life on earth by the time, they have completed the payments for their
very own house, they are about to depart from this world. That’s all you have
to show after 50, 60, 70 years of this life. Perhaps some have two or three
homes. Perhaps some have a fat bank account. On earth, you end your life
slogging for food, clothing and shelter. When you get to heaven, you find that
you start your life in heaven with food, clothing and shelter already provided
for. Then you realize what should be your motivation here on earth. The
motivation should be the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Eph. 2:10 For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. That’s our
goal to be led by the Spirit, to discover our life’s goal, to discover the
purpose for our life. Along the way as you discover God’s life and God’s
purpose as you seek first the
Being led by the Spirit I Cor. 2: 12 Now we have
received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we
might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. We have not received the
spirit of the world that is concerned with the world system. We received the
Spirit of God. That is why Jesus has to pull out from the world system and go
to the mountain to pray from time to time. Jesus had to leave everything behind
and go to the mountain to pray. If you haven’t experienced that, it’s lovely.
Sometimes, I just love to go to a natural place and just get detached from
every thing. All you have are the trees and nature around you. And you feel
that you don’t have a care in the world. Now you are more concerned about God’s
will in your life. You find that your spirit soars into the heights of heaven
and you move into that realm. Not all of us are able to go that distance some
times. But there are times when God does tell you to separate yourself
geographically. But at other times in my personal life when I pray, it’s
strange but this is what I like. I don’t like distractions. When I pray I like
to go into a room or a place and I completely switch off all the lights. It is
dark so that I don’t even see the tables. I don’t want to see any thing that is
made by man. I only want to be conscious of what is going on in my spirit. We
are not talking about living in spiritual darkness. But I like the cutting off
of the things of this life. I like to just sit quietly if I can I try to go to
a place solitary. That is why you can keep the principle in many different
ways. It is not necessary to always run to the mountain. Even the mountains
today are quite nosy. You run up to Genting Highlands casino resort and you will find people there
gambling. See the spirit of the world is everywhere. I want to separate out of
the spirit of the world that is there in order to go into the heavenly and
experience the realm of God. That’s what it takes in order to hear God.
Notice the promise here in I Cor. 2 it says we have received the Spirit, which is from
God that we might know the things that has been freely given to us by God. That
means there are things that are freely given to you but you do not know them. The works that God has called you to. It says that we
might know the things that are freely given. They are already freely given
but we don’t know them yet. For eyes has not seen nor ear has heard the things
that God has in store for us.
If we were to quiet ourselves and pray, I
tell you God can even give you the world news. At one time while I was praying,
I was aware of what was going on in
What I am saying here is not some thing you could
just move in without an effort. You have to take an effort to move into the
realm of the spirit. Cut off the spirit of the world and move into the area of
the Spirit of God. Sometimes it takes going out to a geographical place. But if
you understand the principle involved, you could get the same principle working
with a different method. Just as God called Moses to the
mountain. Just as God called Elijah to the mountain.
Just as God’s Spirit called Jesus to the
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