*Listen to the Show notes and podcast transcript with this multi-language player. Summary: The Lord is speaking, are we listening? My sheep know My voice, and a stranger they will not follow. Show Notes: • God can and does speak through a host of various vessels • When someone is speaking and there is condemnation in it, that is not the word of the Lord • Jesus spoke what He heard the Father say, so should we. References: John 10:27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Matthew 13:16  But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; John 5:4, 5  When He hath put forth all His own, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him: for they know His voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. 1 John 4:1  Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You Must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 Corinthians 13:1  This will by my third visit to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” Romans 8:1  Therefore there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Revelation 12:10  And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. Luke 14:10  But when thou are bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. Hebrews 12:5, 6  and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My Son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” Isaiah 40:31  But they that wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings as eagles; The shall run, and not be weary; They shall walk, and not faint. Psalms 46:10  “ Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted over the earth.” Quotes: • It is crucial to have experiential knowledge with His word • It is obvious when one is speaking a word from the Lord • Your circumstances can talk to you, I know that voice... • There must be confirmation Take Away: Get someone to pray for you to have ears to hear, then listen. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you when reading the scriptures, listen to a five year old child and “perhaps the Lord would speak through that child to you”.  

Laurie:

There is this thing called head knowledge. Where you can have a head knowledge of the scriptures. And you can acknowledge in your mind and believe in your mind but have no experience with the word at all. And it’s crucial to have experiential knowledge with His word; because that’s what works in your heart and in your spirit. Otherwise, you know it is not real it is not alive. And so, you ask the question, how are we able to hear the voice of the Lord? The ear that hears is the ear of the servant. The love slave, the man who humbles himself before the Lord. Those are the folks that actually hear what God has to say.

Jesus said my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. A stranger they will not follow. It is that there is something innate when you open up your heart and accept the Lord.

Dale:

Yeah, that’s an important key to what you’re saying Laurie because hearing the voice of the Lord is based upon a relationship. And you were talking earlier about head knowledge, yeah, you can know the bible from one end to the other the whole bit but unless you have a relationship with the scriptures, it’s never going to mean anything to you. I think one of the things that kicks off a true relationship is salvation. Because He can yell at you all day long but when you turn around and say I open my heart to you Lord, that’s a beginning of a relationship. And I think that is where the voice of the Lord as we learn it over our growing in that it starts with you speaking back. Because He has been speaking for a long time, you just weren’t listening. When you answer, here I am Lord, what did Samuel say? What did Eli teach Samuel to do? Here am I. That to me is a place of beginning.

Laurie:

Here is a question, what are some safeguards? We are believing that like Jesus we actually must hear from God. There is a natural response of skepticism when someone says, God spoke to me. Beloved do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. That’s 1 John 4:1 and some of the safeguards here are humility, authority, submission, witness, conformation, and covering. Regardless of how much God reveals to you. Even if you could write a whole new bible, you still must submit it to those who are over you in the Lord. There has to be confirmation.

Deborah:

And we’re learning that we have confirmation with each other. That we can trust in each other if they're looking for it. Because some people don’t try and look for it. They just, I just want to hear the voice of the Lord.

Sandy:

And then they run with it.

Deborah:

They just go on from there and say that’s the voice of the Lord. Without confirmation, without anything. So, you’re right.

Dale:

There are a couple of other things about the voice of the Lord. There are a couple of keys in the scriptures that help us fine-tune our hearing God speak to us. Romans 8:1 “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” If you are listening to somebody speaking, there is something just not right and you feel condemnation that’s not from the Lord. The accuser of the brethren. Rat poison, ninety-nine, and forty-four hundred percent pure. There again you develop an ear for that. God’s not going to come and accuse you of anything. He is going come to you and say to you, come up higher. He’ll say, I’ve made a provision for you called grace. I am going to teach you. I chasten every son whom I receive. And that is hugely positive. If you hear a voice telling you that chastening is a bad thing. That’s not God. Chastening is a good thing because it is what God puts you through by His hand to make you a son. And God has been speaking to you since the dawn of your conception. All’s He wants to do is bring you into His family. And listen carefully to what that voice says and Ron and I were talking about this the other day. I flat out asked him, Ron, what voice is used when God speaks to you? He says my own. I laughed I said there is nothing wrong with that. God uses your voice to talk to you so you will listen and understand. That’s true. Many times, as we are on one on one with God, He is using your voice.

Laurie:

This is critical though what you are saying. This waiting on God and tying it into learning His voice. Before you will understand how to wait on Him, I really believe that God may first put you through some very deep affliction and difficult dealings that basically drives you into Him. Out of those deep dealings though you get this motivation to seek His face and to hear what He has to say. So, it is very critical, submitting His word to your relationship and having it confirmed, and that the only to have a hundred percent. You know you’re on the right track with the Lord and hearing this and walking with Him.

Dale:

One of the things that always struck me was it seemed like Christ spent a lot of time in prayer. There is a term that I have heard for a number of years now and that is the prayer of listening. I really think that Christ spent a lot of time doing that. His prayer was the prayer of listening. I think that is something that we develop in a relationship. We learn to be quiet, settle our minds, take control of our spirit and listen.

Deborah:

The Lord said, be still and know that I am God.