24. May 09
1 Samuel 3:1-18
This is the second in a series of messages on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, as we lead up to Pentecost.
One of the essential things to understand about the work of the Holy Spirit is that it is He who connects us, through Jesus Christ, with our Heavenly Father.
God is in Heaven; Jesus sits at his right hand, so how can we communicate with Him? The answer is only with the help of the Holy Spirit – Roman’s 8: 26 “The Spirit helps us in our weakness when we don’t know what to pray for.”
Last week we looked at some examples of the way God guided ordinary people, through the Holy Spirit – from the Old Testament.
The same thing happened in the New Testament beginning with Jesus.
In Matthew 4:1 we read that, ‘the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil.’
Acts 1: 2 says that Jesus also gave ‘instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles that he had chosen’.
In Acts 8 He also spoke to Philip and led him to the Ethiopian official to whom he was able to witness and lead to the Lord.
In Acts 10, the Holy Spirit spoke to Peter at Cornelius’ house about, God’s love for the Gentiles.
In fact the Holy Spirit has continued in much the same way ever since; He did not develop laryngitis at the end of the first century. He still speaks to people today!
“Isn’t it strange that people everywhere pretty well accept the idea that it’s possible for us to speak to God but somehow the idea that God, who is all-knowing, all-powerful and present everywhere, may want to speak to us is sometimes hard for people to accept.
Why is it that when we talk to God it’s called, prayer but when God talks to us its called schizophrenia?”
So God does talk to people today and this is a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit that we are going to spend some time considering.
Now some people quite early in their Christian life seem to know and understand that God is talking to them.
This aspect of the Holy Spirit ministry seems to come very easily for them.
I need to say that I am not one of them – although there have been some significant exceptions in my life e.g. my sense of call.
But in most things to do with the Spirit’s leading my natural inclination is to be very cautious about the origin of my thoughts.
I have to fight to grow in this part of the Holy Spirit ministry, which is so important.
So how can we grow our listening skills?
First let’s look at some more examples beginning with the Lord’s call of Samuel; the story we read together;
I. How the Lord Called Samuel – 1 Samuel 3:1-10.
Verse 1 we read that, “In those days (the days of Samuel) the word of the Lord was rare, there were not many visions.” (vs.1)
The most likely reason for God’s silence was because of Eli’s family, God’s priestly family was out of control.
Yet in spite of this God reached out to Samuel, although at first he didn’t realise that it was God who was speaking to him.
“Samuel did not yet know the Lord.” vs. 7.
The point is that it’s possible for God to talk to someone and for that person not to realise that it was God talking to them.
We need to learn how to recognise God’s voice and Samuel needed Eli to help him.
Look at Eli’s advice.
(i) Samuel, you will have to be still, “go and lie down and listen.”
(ii) You’ll have to recognise and trust that when the voice comes to you again that the Lord wants to speak to you.
(iii) Respond and say, ‘Speak Lord for your servant is listening’.
II. God Speaks to Ordinary People
This is important to understand because, for many Christians it feels presumptuous to think that God should speak to them – we tend to believe that He only speaks to special people.
This is one of the misconceptions that we may have to get past if we are ever going have a meaningful, interactive relationship with God.
Another of my favourite stories, also from the OT, is the story of Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22).
This story certainly helps us get past the myth that God only speaks to special people.
Background: Balaam was a prophet of Israel and an enemy of Israel, the King of Moab, asked him to go with him and curse Israel – his own people.
And tragically Balaam was ultimately seduced by what they offered him.
“Balaam got up in the morning saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God was very angry when he went and the angel stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on the donkey…” vs. 21
When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord in the middle of the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into the field”.
As a result Balaam beats the donkey and the Lord opens her mouth so that she can speak, you can read their conversation in verses 21 –30,
“Why are you beating me… have I ever done this thing to you before?”
So Balaam’s donkey is not just talking she’s appealing to reason. And Balaam replies, no you have got a good point there.
“Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the lord with his sword drawn.” verse 31.
Now imagine with me a possible sequel to this extraordinary event,
What if the donkey had become so puffed up with pride after his wonderful experience that he pranced back to the stable and said to the other animals,
“You ordinary beasts of burden had better respect me now, because I am your spiritual superior. I am the mouthpiece of the Lord.”
Clearly he would have made an ass of himself.
The point of the story is that to suggest that guidance from God is only available to a select group of people is deadly because the heart of Christianity is that you and I can have a personal relationship with our Creator, in this life and in the life to come.
Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make out home with them.” John 14:23.
But how can we have a personal relationship with anyone, in any meaningful sense, without their being at least a two-way communication?
In a marriage, if one person does all the talking and the other person doesn’t say anything, they never reveal their thoughts and never express their true feelings we call that person a non-communicative person – in a dysfunctional marriage.
Q. So is God non-communicative?
Q. Does this fit with what we know about the lengths to which God went to reach out to us through Christ?
In a book “Hearing God” the author Dallas Willard tells the following story,
“A little child’s mother died and he could not be adequately consoled and continued to be troubled especially at night. He would come into the room where his father was and ask to sleep with him.
He would never rest until he knew not only was he with his father but that his father’s face was turned towards him.
He would ask in the dark, “Father, is your face turned towards me now?” And only when he was assured of this was he at peace and able to sleep.
Then Dallas Willard concludes, “How lonely life is.”
We can get by in life with a God who does not speak i.e. a distant God; and many people do.
But this is certainly not the life that God wants for us.
There is all the difference in the world between believing that this is our Father’s world versus having confidence based on experience that the Father’s face, “whether in the darkness of the night or the brightness of the day, is turned towards us.”
God is not silent.
1. He speaks through His Creation, which the psalmist writes, “declares His glory of God”.
2. He speaks through His Word, which the Holy Spirit inspired in its writing and makes alive in our hearing.
3. He speaks through fellow believers who speak words encouragement into our lives.
He speaks through burning bushes and little boys, talking donkeys and with a still small voice.
God is not silent and He has not restricted His voice to only a privileged few.
Believing that God doesn’t speak to ordinary people like us, may well be the single most powerful weapon the evil one uses to keep us from a regular interactive, friendship and partnership with God.
God wants to communicate with us, which leads to the next question.
III. How to Recognise God’s Voice
How can I keep from confusing the leading of the Holy Spirit with my own thoughts, or something worse? The answer begins with a question.
Q. Ask yourself, how do we learn to recognise anyone’s voice?
The answer is through experience i.e. hearing someone’s voice again and again until it becomes familiar to us. Part of knowing a person is recognising their voice.
A voice has a certain tone, but that’s not all, we also learn to recognise a person’s voice from their content – what they say.
When we know someone really well, we know the kind of thing they would say in certain situations and Jesus followers came to recognise His voice in this way.
“When (the shepherd) has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:4 (Illustration from Africa).
Q. Now how do I recognise God’s voice when I don’t hear an audible sound?
Let me answer with another question; what takes place in communication?
“It is the process of guiding another person’s thoughts.”
In listening to me you are allowing me to have an impact on your thought life and hence to introduce new thoughts, which you may otherwise not have had.
However because I am finite I have to use physical ways to do that i.e. voice and gesture.
But because God is infinite He does not need to use finite means.
God can guide our thoughts in all manner of ways, especially if we invite Him to.
It is possible for us to have a thought, or a prompting that comes directly from the Holy Spirit who is with us all the time.
We may not always recognise that it comes from Him.
Luke tells a story of the two disciples on the Emmaus road after the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus meets up with them and we are told that they were ‘kept from recognising Him’. Luke 24
He was just another traveller who had joined them on their journey.
The situation is like our own on many occasions.
While Jesus was speaking to these very discouraged men, guiding their thoughts, they didn’t know it was him.
Then in versus 31 and 32, “Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other; (one of the great versus of scripture)
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us.”
It occurs to me that what Jesus was doing is what Luke talks about in Acts 1:2 – ‘he was teaching them how to recognise the Holy Spirit’s voice’.
“Didn’t our hearts burn within us?” i.e. there was an inner witness.
Jesus words always had an impact on his followers; every time he spoke; their hearts were filled with the same response – with love and faith.
When Jesus spoke to the crowds – people saw the folly of their sin as they recognised the truth;
We read words like, “He spoke with authority, not like the scribes.”
Jesus himself said, “My words are true … you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
He satisfied their deepest longings for everything good and made their hearts burn with recognition.
This is what Dallas Willard calls “Jesus heartburn”.
No one else’s words had such an effect on them and so they said to each other,
“We should have recognised his voice from the way it affected us. We should have known.”
This is the way of the burning heart because not only did it have this impact on people when Jesus was physically with them; he still has this impact on us through the Spirit of Jesus.
John Wesley wrote in his journal of a time when, “His heart was strangely warmed.”
Jesus said to his friends before returning to his Father, “I will be with you always to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20
“You may not see me, but I will be with you. And I will speak to you, through the Holy Spirit who is to come, and you will know me. Such is the impact my words have on the human heart.”
Now let’s look at some practical implications of this.
IV. What do we have to do?
First we have to say the words Eli taught Samuel to say, “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.” We have to learn to live with this attitude of mind.
But this is not as easy as it sounds because there are also other voices that crowd out the still small voice of God in our minds?
The voice of anxiety – I am so worried.
The voice of anger – “I don’t want to know”
The voice of discontent – “Money, money, money”
The voice of judgment – “Your such a failure!”
At a time when God needed to speak to His prophet Elijah, after he was badly beaten by Queen Jezebel leaving him very discouraged, He led Elijah to a mountainous place to encourage him by speaking to him.
The author of 1 King 19 records that first a great wind came and shattered the mountain and broke rocks.
After the wind, a violent earthquake and followed by raging fire. And each time we read the words,
“But the Lord was not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire.”
But when God finally did speak – He spoke in a gentle whisper (vs. 12).
The Holy Spirit rarely shouts to us.
If we don’t learn to be still all the voices that come at us from outside via the workplace, the media, peer pressure, and the voices from the inside – anxiety, discontentment, anger, judgement – will make it impossible to hear.
Q. So what can we do to make times of stillness?
1. Create space in our busy life for a quiet time at the start of the day.
Use your quiet time to ask God to identify any negative voices within you i.e. fear, anxiety, concern.
Think about what you need God’s help with and ask God to speak to you.
2. In addition, there will be certain times all through the day when the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us.
Most of the things we do don’t require a specific word from God they simply require good commonsense (sanctified).
3. Listen for the Spirit’s voice when other people speak to you. A lot of God’s wisdom comes from others e.g. the words of a friend.
It’s also true that we need to be listening to God when we speak to others.
A lot of our conversations may not be deep and meaningful but sometimes it becomes clear that the stakes are very high because the issues you are talking about are weighty matters – know that God is in it and He wants to speak through you in a potentially life changing way.
Q. Does this make us special or spiritual? Yes, about as spiritual as Balaam’s donkey.
There are times in my life when I’ve been deeply aware of such a moment. And sadly there are times when I haven’t responded to God’s promptings to help someone and I have made excuses e.g. too tired, too busy.
When we excuse our selves we run the risk of becoming a little more hard hearted towards God and it becomes a little harder for us to hear Him next time.
The opposite is also true; when we obey God our heart becomes a little softer.
“So as the Holy Spirit says; ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts (as the Hebrews did) during the time of testing in the desert.” Hebrews 3:8
As we consider the works of the Holy Spirit it is very important that we put into practise what we hear.
It’s okay to make mistakes, because mistakes are a part of learning.
But let’s agree to follow the way of the burning heart?
Q Speak Lord for your servants are listening?
Prayer
I want to invite you to be very still for a moment – don’t think about anything to do with what you are going to do next – just be very focused before God. Silence all the other voices. Begin to tune into the ears and eyes of your heart.
Maybe the Holy Spirit wants to whisper to you a word of encouragement or conviction – something to put right in your life. Maybe to call you to some ministry or service – silence
“Heavenly Father we thank-you that you want, not only to listen to us but also to speak to us. We are listening now, “Speak Lord for your servants are listening”
Amen