Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: So let me just begin with asking you a question.
Do you pray to God every day in a way that God, I want to hear you today.
Or maybe your prayers can be in a way that God. Today is Sunday. I want to hear you before I go to church.
Many of you might be praying, lord, just speak to me.
But when you just pray, you feel like the heaven is silent. There is no answer from God.
We just do our regular things in a way of praying, reading Bible, coming to church.
We still ask to ourselves, is God really speaking to me?
But sometimes I feel the truth is the problem is not that God is silent.
The problem is sometimes that we are not listening God.
Let me just illustrate you with a example.
Imagine your phone in a silent mode.
Someone is just calling you three, four times.
It's not like your phone is somewhere there and you are here.
You can't hear it. It's another thing.
But your phone is in your pocket, but still you can't hear it because it's in a silent mode.
Sure. And there is also another challenge which just goes today in the world.
It's not that we are not listening.
It's like there are many voices around us which not allows us to listen. What is God's voice and what is not God's voice?
There may be voices of our thoughts, our thoughts just goes accordingly to what we feel. This is right and we do it and we feel that this is what God is just telling.
Maybe our emotions, maybe people around us, we just listen to them and we just spoke accordingly, maybe our fear.
So the real question is, how do we recognize that this is God's voice or not?
And today, the way Luke started the meeting outside, that he just really gave like three minutes and just said, everyone just hear what God is telling.
And I was really impressed that people just brought something like they heard God and they just brought some words, some scriptures.
And that was really amazing.
So it doesn't means that the people who didn't brought anything, they don't hear God or the people who have brought words. It doesn't mean that they hear God very properly.
It's this thing sitting the, the preach what I'm preaching. It's for everyone who's just sitting it. Even it's for me also because I just came with this script. This, this title is Hearing God's Voice.
Like a year, a week before, I was just driving to just pick my wife and all of a sudden the thought came to myself that am I hearing good?
And that was a very strange thought to me.
It's just like I'm doing as I said before, that I'm praying, I'm reading Bible.
But still a thought came to me about am I yearning to God?
And that's where I just felt of preaching on this part. Hearing God voice.
So today we'll be just reading from First Samuel, chapter three.
So let me just give you a background of the scripture before we read.
So it talks about Samuel being in the. In God's temple and he was being serving under Eli the priest.
And at that time when Eli was the priest, Israel was not doing very good with spiritual things.
They were being corrupted in all the unwanted, all the sin activities.
They were going to war with Palestinians, but they all were losing there even a point game that they were really afraid of going to war with the Palestinians because they knew that they are losing.
And the condition was so bad that the word, the scripture just says that the word of God was very rare in those days.
So here we can just read from 1st Samuel, chapter 3, verse 1 to 10.
So you can just read in Chicheva,
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yehovah, this one Samuel.
Mao.
City somewhere. They are not going.
Yehovah.
In a cudi asana, Jehovah and I.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: So here we can just see one of the nights when Samuel was sleeping under the temple and he hears the voice Samuel.
And he runs to Ellie, the priest and Eli says that I didn't call you.
And at that moment Samuel didn't recognize the word of the the voice of the Lord.
But the interesting fact about this is God calling Samuel three times.
And it felt me so interesting, like we just remember the number three where Jesus resurrecting from the death.
But when I just read the scripture, it was just emphasizing me that okay, the number three has been just present. The importance of number three is before Jesus coming to the world.
Because the number three just feels me of being confirming something very important.
Come on.
And that's what God was confirming something with Samuel.
And after three times when Ellie recognized that this is something different when and that moment Ellie said to Samuel, when you hear the voice again, if we can just read in verse 10 it says that speak for your Lord is. Speak for your servant is listening.
And from that moment Lord starts speaking to Samuel.
And till today God is speaking to us.
But the question is, are we ready to listen him?
At that moment we can just read that Samuel, he heard the voice of the Lord but he was confused whether it was Lord or it was Ellie.
And today also many of us do the same. We just struggle to hear the the voice of the Lord.
So it is a question to be asked that how do we know it's God's voice?
So the interesting fact is Bible has all the answers to the question what we are just talking about.
We don't have to just find another book where to just find the answer. How do God speaks to me.
But the Bible clearly says In John chapter 10, verse 3, it just says that my sheep hear my voice and they follow me.
You can just read John chapter 10.
So I just want to read from 2 and 3 where it connects very properly.
You can just read it.
You can just see that God words aligns with his scriptures.
What it says in the scriptures, it's all all through. And he does accordingly.
God will never contradict his scriptures.
If you hear a voice that leads to sin or disobedient or compromising anything, It's clearly it's not from God.
It would, it would, God's voice wouldn't just go against the law. What he had just said in the Bible.
If it is something, then it's not, it's not God. It is something you are listening to something wrong voice.
God's voice is something that brings you peace, not confusion.
God just may be correcting you.
He brings more clarity when he speaks rather than more of confusion.
Where we can just know about the enemy. Where the enemy just brings more fear and confusion.
Where God's voice is just there to just bring give us peace and give us direction to where he wants to take us.
So God's voice may challenge you for a moment, but it will never let you to be confused.
So God's voice always leads you to leads closer to him. He always wants a relationship between his people and his children and him.
So when you hear God's voice, it always draws you more into his presence.
It always leads to more of the obedience.
It always just wants to bring closer to him.
So when you hear, when you know that this is God's voice, you always run to draw closer to him.
So there are three things in this scripture. What we read from 1st Samuel chapter 3.
So we can just read that Samuel was just under the ark of God.
When he which just says that Samuel was with God at that moment.
And that means that it was very easy for him to just hear God.
And what can we take from that? The first thing this morning it is just like how are our friend circle or how are we, what kind of people we are gathering to?
Are we having a gathering with people who doesn't hear God or are they non believers.
Or are we spending time with the people who just hear God's voice?
So that's a clear question to answer your ask yourself that with what kind of people are we spending time together?
The second thing is when he heard the voice he was able to go to his elder, the priest.
He was not ever shy that okay, can I just ask him or is he calling? He was not lazy even though it was a night time.
The same thing is with us today like when we hear something but when we want a confirmation we just try to hold it on to ourselves. We don't bring it to our elders, we don't bring it to our elders. Jonah and Luke we just think that okay, what we are word is right and we just go accordingly and something just goes off the road.
We are very easy to just tell that I heard God, I heard God's voice and still this didn't work but the thing is you were not submittable to what you heard.
And that was the second thing we can just hear learn from this thing about hearing God's voice and the third thing is God called him by his name, by Samuel's name and he knew and today also he's just calling us by our names so at that moment God used a young boy who was being able to hear God and he just anointed two amazing kings in the in his time when he was prophesying for Israel.
And today he's just willing to use us but the thing is are we want to give our lives or are we willing to listen in?
So today we shouldn't just ask is God speaking to us?
The question should be am I turning my ears to God.
So we can just see that Samuel was able to hear God's voice but through Jesus we can hear God properly what he wants to tell.
So Jesus is speaking to us directly because he is the word of God and I was very impressed with people just bringing some scriptures this morning where there were different scriptures where there were different one word thing what they were feeling this morning.
But the question is what will you do if God is speaking?
Maybe God speaks through Many a times it happens that God is speaking to sermons because from last past two weeks the way God is speaking through GCC blind tire with the sermons.
Like the way when Pat so preach about listening to God.
And then last week how Jonah preached about aligning ourselves to God.
And that really helped me to just align myself in a way that am I really do it prioritizing my things for his kingdom.
Prioritizing can be in a way of are we listening to God's voice?
And a funny thing, it can be a funny way where people can just.
It might be a funny thing for you, but I just felt yesterday while I was having my time, I and my wife usually pray every night before we sleep.
So after the prayer I just hear God telling me that I should just uninstall Facebook.
And I know that most of my time has been consuming and just watching the reels and videos.
Yeah, I don't have Tick Tock account, So it was just a, a small thing.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: But it's nothing on YouTube.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: But it helped me to just overthink that should I do it or should I again listen to God?
But it just took me a minute or more to just think that should I just press uninstall button, uninstall it or not.
But I just wanted to be obedient to God. Then I just uninstall it.
And then my wife is telling me that what about Instagram? Because you spent.
And then I said I'll just pray to God and just see if he saves me. I'll just do it.
But I just want to tell you that how obedient can you be in small things?
When God speaks to you, he speaks first with small things.
And God just wants to test your heart in that small things. Are you obedient or not?
If you are not obedient to him in small things, God won't be using for big things because anyhow you are failing that test of being obedient in small things.
So maybe many a times God had been speaking to you with small things in your life, in your day to day activities.
And many a times you might have disowned God in not listening to him.
But today is the day where God is just calling you again.
So what is your response should be for when response to God?
It can be a simple way. When Samuel just say Lord, your servant is listening.
And when you hear a voice in your heart, just remember things.
When you remember a voice, you have to just know that is the voice aligning to God's scripture or not.
Because.
Because God won't be speaking anything against the Bible or outside of the Bible.
And when you hear a voice, you have to just see that is that voice bringing you peace?
Is that voice bringing you near to him?
If you feel so, yes.
And that's the voice you are hearing from God.
