How to Hear God’s Voice – Week 1, Day 3 – The Gospel Truth

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welcome to gospel truth celebrating the

good news of Jesus Christ the coming of

the savior of the world

Emmanuel God with us and now here’s

gospel truth Bible teacher Andrew

Wommack

welcome to our Wednesday’s broadcast of

the gospel truth this week I’ve been

teaching about how to hear God’s voice

and I tell you this is just absolutely

indispensable to living a victorious

Christian life what a blessing that

Almighty God speaks directly to us

personally to us that he’s not just a

you know a distant far-off god but he is

our personal Savior and he will speak to

you personally he will talk to you

everyday and I’ve already shared some

really really important things on my

program yesterday I was encouraging

people to pray with me because I was

using these verses in John chapter 10

where it says his sheep hear his voice

if you are truly born again if you are a

child of God then God speaks to you in a

specific way that he doesn’t speak to

people who don’t know the Lord so I

that’s the point I was making yesterday

and I prayed a prayer with people and

asked them to pray with me and I am I

believe that there was hundreds

thousands who knows hundreds of

thousands of people all over the world

that may have committed their life to

the Lord and I’ve got a book entitled

the new you / Holy Spirit that

specifically teaches what true salvation

is and what the baptism of the Holy

Spirit is and yesterday our phone lines

were closed because of the holidays but

today I want to tell you that if you

call if you prayed with me yesterday and

made that commitment to the Lord I would

like to give you this book on the new

you / Holy Spirit because it is

essential this is just foundational

stuff so we do have our phone lines open

today and you could call in and pray

with the person get assurance of your

salvation and you can get that book as

our gift to you if you are just now

committing your life to the Lord so

going back again to John chapter 10 and

let me just point out a couple of things

in verse three John chapter 10 verse 3

this is Jesus speaking and he says to

him the porter openeth

and the sheep hear his voice and he

calleth his own sheep by name and

leadeth them out and when he put forth

his own sheep he goeth before them and

the Sheep follow him for they know his

voice so one of the points that I’ve

been making is that God is constantly

speaking and that we as born-again

believers and again I stress if you have

never truly committed your life to the

Lord you aren’t going to hear the Lord

you don’t have access to the voice of

the Lord the same as a person who has

committed their life to the Lord now he

still speaks to people who aren’t born

again but it’s differently he basically

is pointing everybody to making this

decision it’s all about have you made

Jesus your personal Lord and if you have

not made that commitment he’s going to

speak to you about receiving your

salvation why would he speak to you

about all these other things you know

Jesus said this what good is it if a man

shall gain the whole world and lose his

own soul God is going to direct you

towards dealing with him and have you

made Jesus your personal Lord so that’s

the first step but once you do that then

God begins to speak to you and the

scripture here says that his sheep those

who have received this salvation and

made Jesus their Lord they hear his

voice and again I know that there’s a

lot of people I deal with primarily

Christians I’m a teacher to the body of

Christ and in our meetings I’m teaching

people who have already made a

commitment of their life to the Lord how

to grow and how to receive from the Lord

and the vast majority of people that I

minister to would sit here and say I

just have trouble here in the voice of

God but this says that you don’t that

God speaks to you so let me start making

some points here one of the reasons that

we struggle to hear the voice is because

the clutter and the clamor

the noise of this world drowns out the

voice of God over in first Kings chapter

19 you see where God spoke to Elijah but

he spoke in a still small voice

you know God is God and God can do

anything he wants to do and there are

examples in scripture where God spoke in

an audible voice there’s an example in

numbers where he spoke through a donkey

and opened up its mouth and a donkey

literally spoke to Balaam God can

Thunder God can do all of these

miraculous things in first Kings chapter

19 there was an earthquake there was a

wind and then there was a fire and these

were dramatic spectacular things but it

says God wasn’t in any of those and the

way that he finally spoke to Elijah was

just in a still small voice the primary

way that God speaks is not through the

spectacular not through an audible voice

not through an open vision he can do all

of those things he has done it I believe

he still does miraculous things like

that but the primary way that God speaks

to us today is just in this still small

voice and it can be drowned out by other

voices around us there are so many

scriptures I’ve mentioned some of these

earlier but in proverbs chapter 4 it

talks about attend unto my words and

that Hebrew word means to prick up the

ears like a mule or like a donkey a deer

you know when they hear a sound their

ears prick up and they can turn those

ears and tune and focus on what they’re

hearing this is the word picture that we

need to tune our hearing towards God God

is speaking constantly but we have to

tune our hearing the sad fact is most of

us are tuned to the voice of this world

we spend more time listening to the

clamor the clutter the voice of the

devil that’s coming through all the

different avenues at us we spend more

time listening to that and we do God and

so the voice of God is drowned out

because of the volume of all of this

world you know I had an instance when

Jamie and I held a meeting in Richmond

Virginia and then afterwards we stayed

around and we went to the Capitol the

United States Capitol in Washington DC

and we were tour

and going around and it just so happened

that this is when Ronald Reagan died and

they had his body lying stating they had

a you know a procession of cars that

came by and we observed all of those

things so we were in Washington DC

during all of that and I remember

walking down the what they call the mall

there in Washington and if you’ve done

that there’s a lot of gravel walks and I

was walking on this gravel and I mean it

was a mile or a mile and a half from

like the Capitol building all the way

down to the Lincoln Memorial and all of

these different things and so I was

walking along there and looking at all

the sites and of course there was people

all around and I remember as I was

walking that I was walking on gravel and

I should have been able to hear my

footsteps but I couldn’t hear a single

footstep and I remember thinking about

that that this is strange I’m walking on

gravel I should be able to hear

everything every time I’m taking a step

but I couldn’t and I just I noted it I

didn’t think a lot about it but I did

note it and I thought this is strange

that I can’t hear me walking on this

gravel and then right after we got

through with that we went and spent a

couple of days in the Shenandoah

National Park that is not far from

Washington DC and I was walking on the

Appalachian Trail and there there was

nobody around it was out in the middle

of nowhere and every footstep that I

took was so loud it was like you could

nearly hear it echoing off of the hills

and things around I mean he was just

amazing the contrast that in Washington

DC I was walking on gravel and I

couldn’t hear a single thing then when I

walked on the Appalachian Trail which

was also gravel and sticks and dirt and

stuff like that I could hear every

single footstep and the Lord just spoke

to me and he says you know what your

footsteps when you were walking on that

gravel in Washington DC was just as loud

but the difference is there was so much

ambient noise out here there was people

talking there was other people walking

around there were planes flying overhead

there was traffic going by and there was

all of this other noise it just dry

two out these footsteps but I was making

noise when I walked on the lake gravel

the same as I was when on the

Appalachian Trail the difference was it

was just drowned out in Washington DC

but when I got out there by myself and

there was no other noises around I could

hear things that I couldn’t hear before

and I used that to illustrate that God

is speaking to every single person if

you are born again you are his sheep and

God is speaking to you and you do hear

his voice but it’s just drowned out by

so much stuff that goes on in our life

well that is a huge statement right

there and I don’t think that most people

are aware of this the lifestyle that we

live today is not conducive to hearing

the voice of God you know there was this

man named sadhu sundar Singh sadhu is

the name for a holy man in India so this

guy’s name was actually sundar Singh and

I read a book about him forty something

years ago and this man he lived back I

guess he was probably born in the 1800s

but he lived in the early 1900s and in

India he was just famous he saw multiple

people raised from the dead in one day

this guy saw tremendous things happen

and he was famous in India and so

because of that they set up meetings in

the United States and he had to take a

ship over this is before they flew and I

think it was in 1910 he came over by

ship to the United States took I don’t

know 20 or 30 days to make that trip

across and so because it was such a long

trip he had a year’s worth of speaking

engagements lined up in the United

States

he got off of the boat in New York City

walked around in New York City for about

30 minutes and he got back on the boat

and went back to India cancelled all of

his meetings and the reason was he says

these people their lifestyle they can’t

hear from God these people are too busy

and this was in 1910 think of what he

would have thought if he did this in

2016 2017 you know what our lifestyle

it’s just like I was talking about all

of this noise that surround us keeps us

from hearing our footstep all of the

stuff that’s coming at us it hinders us

hearing the voice of the Lord you know

the scripture says in Psalms 46:10 be

still and know that I am God and I

believe that you could actually say be

still and you will hear the voice of God

and this isn’t talking about just being

motionless but it’s talking about that

we need to quiet ourselves we need to

unplug you know I travel a lot I’m

around a lot of people in airports and

things like this and I mean literally I

have looked around and been able to see

50 or 60 people in an area and look in

every single person has their phone out

has their iPad out they’re doing

something did you know that they’re the

lifestyle that most people live today

they just are never unplugged I’ve

actually been on trips and people say

that you know we were overseas and they

got a call in the middle of the night

because people didn’t know that they

were overseas and that there was a time

difference and so they got woke up and

it disrupted their sleep and stuff and I

tell them I said you know my phone has

on and off switch and I turn the thing

off but there are some people that never

turn your phone off they are just slaves

to it I see people that will be eating

lunch or supper with somebody and they

get phone calls and they get text and

they’re just sitting there on the phone

there’s people sitting there eating and

both of them are on the phone and they

aren’t even talking to each other

they’re doing something else again I’m

not one of these that says that you know

we ought to throw our phones away man

it’s a convenience I use it to a degree

but you cannot become slaves to all of

the different things that are coming at

us today did you know previous

generations they didn’t have access to

the news the way that we do today we

hear if there’s a shooting if there

a bombing if there’s something that

happens on the opposite side of the

world we hear about it in real time live

pictures and we are just inundated with

information and it can harden your heart

towards God in mark chapter 4 it talks

about that the cares of this life the

deceitfulness of riches the lust of

other things enters in and it chokes the

word and today I believe that this

generation of Christians is more plugged

into the world than any group of

Christians that have ever lived and I

tell you this world is not reflecting

the godly values of God it’s it’s

speaking things that are contrary to God

there is hatred there’s bitterness they

focus on the negative there is depress

and depression and discouragement you

know I just had one of my students in

the Bible school come up to me yesterday

and she told me that she was fighting

depression and what’s wrong and I said

well you’re focused on something besides

what the Word of God says and I had a

class to teach and I didn’t really have

time to talk to her I just gave her that

little bit and I said something has

gained your attention and it’s taking

your attention off of the things of God

and your thinking about the things of

the world

so anyway during the next break she came

up and she had been thinking about what

I said and her husband had died so she

was a widow and she was going through a

store and she saw some albums music

albums and there was a song that her and

her husband used to sing a long time ago

and it reminded her of her husband so

she bought that album and for the last

week she had been listening to this

album that had one of her favorite songs

on there but overall you know most of it

was about these love songs and talking

about love being rejected and it was sad

and you know this person left me and all

this and she realized that through this

she had taken her attention off of the

Lord and she had got to thinking about

all of this junk and all of this you

know this country in western music

it’s all about you know leaving your

mate losing this falling off the

barstool your truck goes

way your dog bicha I mean it’s just all

this terrible sad stuff and she had been

focused on that stuff and it caused

depression and we are just inundated

there’s people that can’t when they’re

at home they always that leave the

television set on even if they aren’t

watching it they just can’t be still

they can’t be quiet the scripture

specifically says in Psalms 46:10 be

still and know that I am God if you

aren’t still and this isn’t talking

about just motionless but if you don’t

unplug if you don’t somehow or another

turn off things and give God an

opportunity to speak without all of the

volume of this world and all of these

other things coming at you

it’ll drowned out this still small voice

of God you know there was a time that I

woke up this has been a number of years

ago but in my sleep I just had this

banner come across that said Psalms

46:10 this huge banner and it just had

that scripture reference on it I’ve

quoted Psalms 46:10 hundreds thousands

of times but in my dream I just couldn’t

for the life of me remember what Psalms

46:10 said so when I got it up I mean I

went straight in I looked up some 46:10

which says be still and know that I am

God and I just felt like God was

speaking that to me specifically and

that was a day that I was going to be

able to be at home I had other things

planned that I was going to do but Jamie

she went into town she was doing

shopping and stuff I was home by myself

and I just decided that I was going to

make a deliberate attempt to be still

and again I don’t think that that’s just

talking about not moving but he’s

talking about stealing your heart not

being occupied with all of these other

things and I just I went out and sat on

our deck it was in the summer and I sat

in this chair and just to be sure I

wanted to be still physically I didn’t

move I just sat there and I think i sat

there for an hour and a half or two

hours and I didn’t even move all I did

was just breathe but I never moved I

just sat there and there

a lot of things that happen but you know

one of the things that happened was I

became aware of things that typically I

would miss when you’re busy and you’re

walking and you’re doing things and

you’ve got something to do

did you know I didn’t notice some of the

things I’ve noticed that there were

Chipmunks at our house I mean we must

had two or three dozen Chipmunks that

were just constantly going everywhere

I noticed Birds I heard Birds I could

hear the wind blowing in the tree that

you know I’m sure that it happens that

way all of the time but I just missed it

because I was busy and I didn’t focus on

those things I was so still that I had a

deer walk up not more than a foot or two

from me and I was downwind from this

deer so I guess it didn’t see me deer

have poor eyesight and this deer saw me

but I was so stationary it came up and I

mean it nearly put its nose to my nose

and because I was just so still and I

noticed the deer I noticed ants I

noticed all kinds of stuff and you know

all of that stuff was there constantly

but when I’m busy I just don’t notice it

in my point in giving that illustration

is to say that God is with us constantly

if you are his sheep you hear his voice

God is speaking constantly but we

drowned out the voice of God by being so

involved in everything else you know

today people love to talk about being

multitaskers if you ask the average

person how are you oh I’m busy and I

mean they just it seems like that that

is a badge of honor that man I can do

all of these things at the same time I’m

so busy I’m doing all of this I’m

working I’m taking my kids to all of

these practices we do this we go

constantly and we brag about it but did

you know it’s really hurtful to hearing

the voice of God if you are going to

truly hear the voice of God I’m just

getting started in this series but you

know already I’ve identified some

serious problems and one of them is that

we just are so busy that we don’t give

time to God to speak to us you know in

generations past they didn’t have to 300

television stations that they could

watch they would occupy their attention

they didn’t have phones that they carry

it in their pockets they couldn’t get

text they couldn’t be on it just looking

at YouTube and looking at the newest

thing going they didn’t have something

that occupied him there was times that

people would work hard they’d come home

and they’d eaten they had sit on the

porch and they just look out and they

would notice you know what was going on

around them they would get to thinking

about what’s my life all about they had

this time where they were still and they

heard the voice of God I’m telling you

our modern lifestyle this man sad to

sundar Singh that I was talking about if

he was to come to the United States

today I believe he had turn around and

go back again because you know what it’s

we’re just too busy you hear the voice

of God so I hadn’t actually got into

talking about the nuts and the bolts of

this yet but already I’ve uncovered a

major problem and I’m telling you as I’m

speaking to you I’m speaking to myself I

get too busy and I’m not busy with the

things of this world it’s not that I’m

plugged in to the internet and all these

kind of things and I spent I don’t spend

a lot of time on the internet and all

this I get reports and I get emails for

my assistant things like this but I

don’t spend any time on there compared

to most people I’ve heard that the

average person spends multiple hours a

day on their phone doing all of these

kind of things I don’t do that and yet

I’m still too busy and I’m doing so much

stuff that it’s not unusual like this

morning I got up at five o’clock I’ll be

going until five or six this I’ll work

12 or 15 hours today and then I’ll go

home and I’ll do certain things and I

mean it’s just I’m busy I’m too busy and

I’m praying and asking God to give me

wisdom how I could slow down how I could

spend more time every time I take time

and just you know spend the day fasting

and praying or unplug and I just focus

my attention on the Lord

I mean without exception God speaks

something to me

he gives me new direction he shows me

something that I need to fix that I need

to do and it makes me wonder why I don’t

do this more often

but the truth is that we just get busy

and we drowned out the voice of God with

all the other voices that are vying for

our attention competing for our

attention so as we talk about how to

hear God’s voice you need to recognize

if you are born again God is constantly

speaking it’s not God who’s not speaking

it’s us who haven’t attended to his

voice

we haven’t tuned our hearing to him and

it’s because we’re letting this world

drown out the voice of God so I’m going

to continue to teach on this tomorrow

and I encourage you to please get the

materials we have this series that I

taught 16 years ago but I’ve updated it

this is a brand new teaching on how to

hear God’s voice and I tell you this is

just foundational this is bottom line

you need to get this God has things to

say to you that you’re missing and I

believe that this would help you

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