Hearing God’s Voice

Hearing God's Voice

Let's turn in our Bibles this morning to Hebrews chapter 3, please. Hebrews chapter 3. And I'd like to begin the reading in verse number 1 this morning. Hebrews 3, 1 says, Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as Moses, or also Moses, was faithful in all his house. For this man, that is Jesus Christ, was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of the things which were to be spoken after. But Christ, as a son over his own house, whose house are we? If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me. And saw my works forty years.

I want to stop the reading there, conclude with verse number nine for the sake of this message this morning. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless to our hearts the truth that we believe that you'd have us to see in this passage this morning. We pray that we would apply it in our lives and that we would draw close to Jesus, Christ in our lives. If there's any here that does not know Jesus Christ, that we pray today would be the day of salvation. And for those who do know you, Father, we pray that we would be drawn closer to your son today. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.

The writer of Hebrews is quoting from Psalm 30, Psalm 95, actually here in this passage. And he's referring back to the time when Moses is led. He led the people out of Egypt, house of bondage. They wandered in the wilderness. But ultimately the purpose for them going out of Egypt was so that they might go into the land of Canaan. In fact, the Lord specifically said that he brought them out so that he might bring them into a land of promise, right? We call it the promised land because that was literally promised to them. It's the land of Canaan, the land of promise, the promised land we refer to it. Sometimes as, but they had no, not only did they not know how to get there in their own way, but they didn't have the strength to go in and conquer the land that had been promised to them.

Just because the land was there, it was not yet. There were many, there were many enemies in the land that the Lord promised to give them. And it was kind of an overwhelming thought. How are we going to go in and actually possess this land? Well, in one word, we might say faith. Faith was how they were going to do it. They had to walk by faith. In fact, the Lord through Moses rebuked them saying that the word was not mixed with faith when they heard it. Like they didn't have the faith to go up and conquer the land and take the land that had already been promised to them. It's kind of like saying, well, there's money. I put money in your bank account, but you might laugh at me and say, you didn't put any money in my bank account. Well, yeah, I did. I put a million dollars in there. Well, you've actually got to go draw it out or you've got to go use it. It's not doing any good just sitting there.

And faith is kind of like the illustration here of actually going and taking what is yours. Taking hold of what has been provided, promised. And that's what Israel is. Israel is set up as a negative example for us this morning in that they did not believe to go into the land. It was not until Joshua's day that they would actually go and conquer the land that had been promised to them. But we read in verse 7, Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. As in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness. What this is telling us today is that we need to hear God's voice and believe what he tells us. If we do not hear God's voice and believe what he's telling us, what's going to happen? The scripture is saying you will harden your hearts. You will harden your hearts.

So hearing God's voice. I don't know if y'all have noticed or not, but there's a lot of voices. This world, aren't there? There are a lot of voices saying a lot of things. And I would use the word either chaos or confusion to describe the environment in which we are living. There are a lot of contradictory, contradicting voices that are saying a lot of things. And I think the internet has certainly amplified that, hasn't it? I mean, you can get access to all kinds of voices out there saying all kinds of things. But the most important thing. You know, even more important than listening to me or anybody else is that we hear God's voice, right? Is that we hear what God is saying. Thank God that some people are faithfully saying and telling us and reminding us of what God said. But don't take my word for it. Hear what God is saying.

You know, the people of Israel, when they were wandering in the wilderness, they said some things that were not pleasing to God. In fact, in Exodus. In Exodus 14, I'll just mention this passage. You can turn there if you want. But they said to Moses, they said, Has Thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Have You brought us out of Egypt so we could die out here in this wilderness? In fact, in Numbers 20, verse 4, it's recorded, they said, Why have You brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness? That we and our cattle should die there? Man, imagine if you were Moses. That's kind of hard to keep it. It must have been a challenge for him to hold it together with all of these negative, bitter, harsh things that were being said toward him.

In fact, in Numbers 21, verse 5, Wherefore, they said, have you, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water. Well, those are pretty hard things to hear. Those are pretty harsh things to say. But they were feeling that way because they were looking at their surroundings and not walking by faith in what God had already told them to do, right? I wish God would just sort of come in and pick us up and just go and put us over there in the land of promise, right? You know, get us out of this mess here. Why did we even come out here to start with? Well, you remember the principle given to us in Romans 10, perhaps? Faith cometh by what? Hearing. Hearing by the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, but hearing what? I might say I have faith in myself. I have faith in positive thinking. I can have faith in a lot of things. I can have faith in politicians. I can have faith in money. I can have faith in my guns. I can have faith. I can have faith in a lot of things. But faith comes by hearing the Word of God. This is a faith in God and what He has promised, right?

Well, Hebrews 1. Let's turn back over to Hebrews 1 there. In verse 1 it says, God, who at sundry times, various different times, and in divers manners, in a diversity of different ways, He spake in time past unto the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. He spake unto them by the prophets, all these fathers that have gone before us. But hath in these last days, that's where we're living, folks, in the last days. And the last days began when Jesus came to the earth. That began in that time. And we're living 2,000 years along in the last days. So in these last days, He's spoken unto us by… By His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds. Who, Jesus Christ the Son, being the brightness of His glory, and the express or exact image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, Jesus Christ did this. He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty, on high.

You know, God used a lot of different ways to speak in times past. He would speak in a yes-no sort of way. Yes or no. Yes or no. Through those stones called the… precious stones called the Urim and the Thummim, they were housed or they were kept in the backside, the little pouch, on the backside of the breastplate of the high priest. And there's something about the way the light would shine, it seems to me, it seems through those stones that there would be an indication of what God wanted at a particular time. God could speak through a donkey. God spoke through many different ways, visions, dreams, direct and audible voices, but it says in these last days He's spoken to us by His Son. He's spoken to us by His Son.

In fact, let's look over in John chapter 1. John chapter 1, verse number 18. In John 1, verse 18, we read, No man hath seen God at any time. Well, He's the invisible God, at least to our sight. We can't see Him. With our eyes, we cannot see God. In fact, whenever God's glory was even partly revealed in history, the brightness was so bright that people had to shield their eyes. Well, no man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. There's another, what this word means literally to declare, is He explained Him. He made it known. And Jesus, when He came to this earth, declared who the Father was. He told everyone who the Father was. In fact, He told Philip, one of His disciples, in the presence, in the presence of the other disciples, He said, If you've seen Me, you know the rest of that phrase, you've seen the Father, right? If you've seen Me, you have seen the Father.

That might make us scratch our heads. What does He mean by that? Well, I am the exact, we use the term, you know, we're talking about a biological son of ours, or daughter, we might say, that boy is a spirit, and the father, the father, the son of the father. The father, right? You see him, you see his dad, and right there, you look at him, you see his father. Well, Jesus was saying, even beyond talking about physical features, because the invisible God, nobody's seen him, right? What's He talking about here? Who I am. I'm the same in nature as my Father. I am holy just as He is holy. I am holy just as He is holy. I am holy just as He is holy. I am holy just as He is holy. I am holy just as He is holy. love just as He is love. I'm full of mercy just as He is full of mercy. Everything that can be said about my Father can be said about me. And I have come to declare Him. I have come to declare the Father.

Well, Jesus said in John 14 verse 9, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. He said in John 14 verse 24 that the word which ye hear is not mine but the Father's which sent me. In other words, the words I am telling you, I'm telling you what the Father wants you to know. I am telling you His word. He was made flesh. He dwelt among us John said. And we beheld His glory. We beheld His glory.

Now then we come to everybody knows about the apostles, right? When we look, when we turn to the New Testament, we have two of the gospel writers are apostles. Then we have the apostle Paul, Peter. We have John. We have these men that wrote the majority of the New Testament were the apostles. The apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were ones that walked with Him. Of course, Paul we know was born out of due time. Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, right? But they heard Jesus' teachings. They walked with Him. They saw Him. They heard what He said. And John will say in 1 John, we've been going through 1 John, memorizing verses. We're starting in chapter 5 this morning. But 1 John chapter 1, the apostle John, he was the youngest of the apostles. And if you've ever seen the, what is the painting of the Last Supper, he's the one that's closest to the Lord sitting near to Him. Although they weren't sitting upright at a table like that. They were reclined more so. But that's a interpretation of what it would have looked like. We see in 1 John 1 verse 3, John says, that which we, talking about the apostles, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.

Now we just read that Jesus declared the Father. Now the apostles are declaring what they saw and what they heard. In other words, we have heard Him. Jesus, personally. You know, that would be called an eyewitness, wouldn't it? We have seen Him. Well, that would be more so the eyewitness part, right? But we have personally heard and seen Him. We have touched Him. He said, we've handled Him. We have touched the living Christ. Jesus. We believe that this is the Messiah that was promised in the Old Testament to come. God with us. We believe we have seen Him. We've heard Him. In fact, these cowards that were scattered when Jesus was crucified on the cross, just like probably we would have been cowardly, after Pentecost, they were emboldened, and every one of them, except John, died for their faith. Of course, Judas, he was a traitor. They were willing to die for the message they preached. They had nothing to gain in this world. But they believed they had the truth that Jesus delivered them from God, the invisible God, the Father in Heaven. And now John is saying, that which we have seen and heard, declare we. We're declaring this unto you, right?

Jesus taught with authority. Not like the scribes. He not only said something and then said, don't do as I do, do as I say. No, He was the living example of what He said. He lived what He preached. What He spoke was not in contradiction to His behavior. To His living, right?

Well, Jesus said, if you want to know whether I'm truly come from God, read the Old Testament. He said, what did He say? He said, search the Scriptures for they testify of Me. These men who have written hundreds of years before, I showed up, and Jesus did fulfill. There's yet to be fulfilled prophecies, but many of the prophecies were fulfilled, in His first coming. Even right up to the details of His crucifixion. They were fulfilled. Now, Jesus is telling us here, and Paul is telling us here in this passage today, now that He's come, God has spoken to us through His Son. How do we know what the Son had to say? Well, the apostles heard Him, they saw Him, they touched Him, and now they declare unto us, what He had to say. Isn't that wonderful? That God has recorded and kept His Word for us, so we know what He has to say,

but we might say, well, it's just a book. Yeah, it's a book, but it's alive. It's powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. I know that personally. I hope you know that personally. That God speaks, kind of like He did, even though Jesus is not here with us, He being dead, buried, resurrected, and ascended, is yet speaking through His Word. He's still speaking to us.

In fact, because what He said was true, He doesn't need to change it. He doesn't need to come back and say, well, you know, I've got version 2.0 for you, I've got version 3.0, and this is ever-changing. No, He's already spoken, He's coming back. He says, be on the lookout for me. I am going to return. Just like I went up, I'm going to come back down. Watch and wait. I'm coming back.

While I'm away, even though Jesus is not here with us, He told His disciples, He said, when I go away, I'm going to send a comforter that will be with you, and He will teach you the things that I have told you. He'll bring them to your remembrance. He will show you the things that I have told you, and it would be said that after Jesus, in a number of cases, then they remembered what Jesus had said unto them. Then they remembered, when Jesus was with them, what He had told them. He, though He was not yet still with them, the Holy Spirit was bringing to their remembrance and illuminating their understanding to what Jesus had said. And that's why we have the New Testament. God has spoken through His Son.

You know, I have a little bit of an interest in aviation. I've never taken any lessons with aviation. But I've always been intrigued with planes, you know, military, commercial type aircrafts since I was small. And maybe some of you are familiar with the flight rules that they operate by. You know, you have IFR, which is instrument flight rules, and you have VFR, which is visual flight rules. And so on a day like today, they're probably operating by VFR, right? They can fly and they can see. I mean, there's some clouds up there, but they're operating by sight, right? They can see where they're going. They're approaching a runway. They don't have to wait until 80 feet above the runway before they break through the clouds or 100, 200 feet above the runway and they break through the clouds and see the runway. No, they can see it from thousands of feet away, you know? And they can come in like that.

But there are times where they cannot see. They cannot see. And what are they doing? They're listening and they're looking at the instruments. Even though they can't see where they're going, they're trusting the instruments and trusting the control tower to tell them where they need to go, right? And where they need to navigate. And they're taking by faith, we might say, that those instruments are correct. And that control tower person, whoever is talking to them from the control tower, is giving them correct and true information. And so they follow those instructions. They follow those instruments.

And as a Christian today, I view God's Word, and I must view God's Word as this, that it is like the instrument panel of an airplane. It is like the control tower where God is directing me even though I may not be able to see what's ahead. I can trust His voice. I can trust the directions that He gives me that they are true.

Now, in the same way that God inspired holy men to write these things down, the same Holy Spirit will illuminate. If I believe God's Word, He will illuminate my path. He will make that Word a light to my path, a lamp to my feet, so that I can know how I ought to go. Do you feel, do you sense the confusing and chaotic scene in which we are living in this world where there's so many voices speaking? How do you know? How do you know what's right? Even some voices maybe we used to listen to and now we know we can't trust them anymore. Those voices, those individuals have proven to be untrustworthy. I hope, I mean, maybe you haven't experienced it. I have. I've seen and heard individuals that I thought, you know, you can't trust anyone but God to give you the true directions in life.

Now, we need to hear what it says here today. It says, hear what what did it say in verse number in verse number 8 back in the text. We're to hear what what he says to us today, just as Moses. He spoke in Moses' day. We're to hear what he's saying today.

I would say in order to hear God, there's some very basic things we need to keep in mind. First of all, we need to humble ourselves. I'm talking to me today. I need to humble myself so I can hear what is God saying to me? What is it God is saying to me? I first of all have to acknowledge, God, your thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Your ways are higher than my ways. I would be a fool to not acknowledge that God is the one who created me. I'm not the product of random chance. I am a fearfully and wonderfully designed created being that God has made. Master designer has created me, and he created me with a purpose. How am I going to know what that purpose is? Unless I hear what he's saying to me, right? So I humble myself and say, Lord, I know your thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Your ways are higher than my ways. If there's any pride in my heart, Lord, I ask you to humble me so that I can hear what it is that you're saying to me.

Look in Psalm 138 verse 6. Psalm 138 verse number 6. It says there in verse number 6, it says something about the character of God. In verse 6, it says this. Though the Lord be high, and he is, yet hath he respect, he is respect unto the lowly. But the proud, he knoweth afar off. Is anybody in this room like a know-it-all? Do you really like being around know-it-alls that think they know everything? I doubt you do. I don't like them. I don't want to be the know-it-all. Well, this is that God draws nigh to the lowly, but the proud knows them afar off. He's not in close relationship to the proud. Doesn't mean that he doesn't love them, that he didn't die for them, but he said to the Pharisees, didn't he? He said those that are whole or healthy, they don't have any need of a position. How am I going to help somebody who doesn't see they even need help, right? Who won't humble themselves. The Pharisees were proud. We don't need any help. Okay, well, I won't give you any. That's as simple as it is, right? I mean, if you go to the doctor and say, Doctor, I don't need any help. Okay, have a nice day. You know, that's what the Lord is saying here. To the proud, I know them afar off, but to the lowly, to the lowly, I have respect. I draw near to the lowly. He resists the proud, but he gives grace, the scripture says, to the humble.

I'd also say that in order to hear God clearly and what he's saying to us, we need to confess any known sin in our lives. Well, first of all, if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior from sin, that's the starting place, right? Lord, what did the publicans say? God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I say he went down to his house justified, not like the Pharisee who puffed out his chest and said, I thank you that I'm better than other people are. No, God be merciful. To me, a sinner. Well, confess any known sin. The psalmist said, if I regard iniquity in my heart, if I harbor that iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, right? If the Lord doesn't hear me, why doesn't he hear me? Because I'm not praying in faith, I'm praying in pride. I'm praying with known sin in my life. Without faith, it's impossible to please God, and if I can't, if God is not hearing me, I'm certainly not hearing from him, right? I'm not hearing his voice.

So, confess any known sin in my life. Be still. Be still. We say, when are you going to have time for that? This is such a busy world, right? We're living in a busy, busy world. Well, maybe we don't have a long time, but we have to find time to get still with the Lord, and probably one of the best times is to get up early in the morning, right? Be still. Be quiet. Be quiet. You got this thing, ding, ding, ding. It's making, noises all the time, right? You can put it on silent. You know, I know it's kind of, this thing has sort of shaped a lot of our behaviors, hasn't it? It's molded how we think about life, you know, checking our phone. Have you ever had those phantom vibrations in your leg where you've had the phone in your pocket, and you think you have the phone vibrating in your pocket, and it's not even there? That tells you we've become conditioned, you know, the light, the bell, and the razor blades kind of thing, you know?

No, this is, there's, sometimes, you know, we just need a notepad. We need a notepad, we'll sit down in the morning, and we open God's Word, and say, Lord, speak to me, and we need, I'm preaching to me, okay? We need to write, if something comes into our mind, no, not if, when something comes into your mind, a thought comes through, oh, I need to do this today. Oh, you know, I wonder about that, and all these things start coming in, just write them down and make a list on a piece of paper and put it to the side, and it'll be right there when you finish having your time asking the Word to speak to you.

You know, David was talking to me earlier, and there was a lot of background noise. He said, I think I'll tell you a little later. It's kind of hard to focus right at that time, because there was singing going on and all this other stuff. That's fine, but you know, we're that way. I think some of you might have hearing assistance, you know, and it's hard to hear because of all the background noise. That's the same way it is spiritually speaking.

Get still and know that I am God. Cut out the background noise so you can have that dedicated time. Take time with the Lord. Pray. Ask the Lord to speak to you. Ask Him to speak to you specifically.

How does He speak to us? Oh, He speaks to us through His Word, but it's not just… You know, if you're a believer, you know what I'm talking about. When I say God speaks to me, God speaks to… If He speaks to you, you can be reading, or you can be in a conversation with someone, and there might be something they remind you that they speak of about God's Word, or it might be, I was reading in God's Word and then I had this conversation, and then I was walking along the way, and this thought just came into my mind of, you know how they compound medicine? You know, a compounding pharmacy, they put two different medicines together to make it more effective to perform a certain task, or we might do that with herbs, too, but when God's Word, we might know this truth, and we might know that truth, but then the Holy Spirit takes both of them and puts them together and says, Son, this is what you need right here. This is what you need today. Hear my voice. And it's just… This is unmistakable if I was sitting right in front of you and told you that.

Well, sometimes when God speaks to us about these things, we need to take the time and write it down so we don't forget. What was it the Lord was saying to me through His Word? What was He saying to me? And then, we need to meditate. We need to meditate. Don't harden your hearts. Hear what God's saying, and believe it. We saw in our text, believe! That's the problem with the children of Israel. They didn't believe. What did they believe instead? They believed men who came back from a tour of the land of Canaan and saw giants walking in the land. They saw these giants and said, we're just like grasshoppers in their sight. We're just nobodies. They'll destroy us. How are we going to ever conquer this land? Yeah, there's a lot of great things there, like milk and honey and grapes and all these wonderful fruits in the land, but we're not able to conquer this. We're not able to do this. And isn't it something how the people were more ready to hear the fearful report based on sight than they were the faithful report of God's Word and His promise?

You know, we can come up with any number of excuses for not serving the Lord, and not saying, Lord, what would you want me to do? Because there's many voices out there, right? Just like there were of these spies. Unbelieving. But we need to meditate on what God's Word says. When we read it, and we find what God is speaking to us about, then we need to do like the cow does, you know? Chew up the cud, right? They've got those multiple stomachs. They chew it up some more. They regurgitate, so they chew it up some more. We need to take the Word of God in our hearts and say, Lord, I want to be a part of this. I want to get all the nutrition. I want to get all the benefit out of what you're saying to me through your Word.

And you know, at different times, God may use the same portions of Scripture to say something different to us, and point us out different needs in our lives at that particular time. And when we put the two together by the help of the Holy Spirit, by the enabling of the Holy Spirit, and that's something how God can show us unmistakably what it is. We compare spiritual things with spiritual things. And say, yes, I believe it, Lord. I believe what you're telling me. I believe this is what you want me to do.

There's some things we already know, right? There's other things that God will show us. As we obey, He shows us more. As we obey what He's already told us, He reveals more understanding of what He wants for us. So let's not be unbelieving. Let's be trusting and obeying what His Word says. Let's not harden our hearts, but let's have tender hearts. Let's have humble hearts. Let's have confession of any sin. Let's have this prayer. Lord, show me Your way. Show me what it is that You want me to know, and help me to walk in it when You show me. And He'll bless us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for those gathered here today. Thank You that You do speak to us through Your Word. It's not that You're unable to speak through some unusual means, but it's just that You don't, especially in this day and time with the full revelation of Your Word, You don't need to. You've already given us Your Word. You're not going to change it, but Lord, there is a sense in which You individualize that Word. It's alive. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. You individualize it through the enabling of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help us to understand what it is that we need to do. But we've got to ask for wisdom, and You'll give it to us. You will not say no to us. You'll give us the wisdom that we need, but we've got to humble ourselves, confess sin, and ask, Lord, show me. Show me Your will. Show me Your way, and You'll do it. Bless now as we conclude this service with a final hymn, where we're looking forward to the time of fellowship, afterwards, celebrating Your faithfulness in Sister Donna's life. Bless us now as we sing this final hymn. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.