St. Paul's United Methodist Church

“How to Recognize God's Voice”

Rev. Richard W. Gray

May 29, 2005

John 10:1-5

    How do we know the voice of God? How do we know when God is speaking to us? That is the question that I said last week we would answer this week.

    We read in John 10 that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the pre-eminent shepherd. We saw how the shepherd takes care of his sheep and even is willing to die for his sheep.

    Sheep were often kept in a sheep pen at night in Jesus' day. Shepherds would put their flocks in a sheep pen with other flocks for safety. One of the shepherds or a hired hand would sleep across the entrance during the night to protect the sheep.

   In the morning, the shepherds would come to the pen and call their sheep by name and they would come out and follow their shepherd. They would follow the right shepherd because they would know his voice.

    How can we know the voice of God? We must be a member of the shepherd's flock. To be a member of Jesus' flock one must have accepted Jesus as his or her Savior. One cannot be a member of the flock if one will not accept the shepherd. Verse 3 says the shepherd calls “his own sheep by name.” They must belong to the shepherd. People who do not belong to Christ will not be able to follow His voice.

    People cannot know the will of God if they do not know God, or if they doubt God exists, or claim God does not exist.

     When people do not have God, they go to astrologers, crystal gazers, psychics, and a host of other people and things to discover God's will

will for their lives because they do not know God.

    One has to be a member of the shepherd's flock and know the shepherd in order to recognize the shepherd's voice.

    In order to know the shepherd's voice one must spend time with the shepherd. Have you ever answered the phone and you knew right away who was on the other end of the line? How did you know? You recognized the person's voice. You had spent enough time with the other person to know his or her voice.

    The more time we spend with God in prayer, in reading the Bible, and in worship, the better we will be able to distinguish His voice when He speaks to us.

    How did God speak to people in the past? Looking at the Bible days, there were several ways in which God spoke.

    God spoke directly to people. He spoke to Abraham and told him to leave the land in which he was living and go to another land that God would show him.

    On the road to Damascus to persecute Christians, Saul heard Jesus speak to him, and he was converted. We know him today as the Apostle Paul.

    God spoke to the people through the prophets. He directly gave them a message to deliver.

    God spoke through the written word. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. He gave the people the written Law to follow. He has given the Bible, God's word written down.

    God spoke through dreams or visions. He spoke to Joseph through an angel in a dream that Mary was carrying a baby who was the Messiah. In another dream Joseph was told by an angel to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape the killing of the babies by Herod's men.

We will come back to visions and dreams.

    God spoke through the Holy Spirit. In Acts 16 we read that Paul was going to go to Asia to preach, but the Holy Spirit told him to go elsewhere.

    God spoke through circumstances. God opened a door for Joseph when he was sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph discovered God's will for his life when he wound up in Egypt as the one God would use to store enough food for a famine for the Egyptians and for the Hebrews to eat. God sometimes speaks His will for us by where He places us and in what circumstances.

    God spoke His will to the Egyptians through the plagues He sent upon them when they refused to let the Israelites leave the country to freedom.

    God spoke through other people. The father-in-law of Moses saw how Moses was wearing himself out trying to be the judge of so many disputes among the people of the nation (Exodus 18). It was too much for him to handle alone. His father-in-law raised this issue with Moses and advised him to select other capable men that Moses would train to be judges. The people would be divided into groups, with a judge over each group. Moses would only arbitrate over the very difficult cases.

    How does God speak today? There are four primary ways. He speaks to us through His word, the Bible. The Bible is God's instruction book for us.

    When we face a difficult circumstance and need to know God's mind on the matter, we are to go to the Scriptures. If we know the Scriptures, a particular verse will come to our mind that will relate to what bothers us. As we read the Bible, it is amazing how God will lead us to a verse or verses that will be helpful.

    God still speaks to His people and leads His people by way of the Holy Spirit. He will direct us

us. He will bring to mind something in the Bible to help us. He will direct someone to us with an answer. Sometimes, the answer just suddenly comes to us. That is the work of the Holy Spirit.

    God still speaks to us through other people. The Bible says we should seek out the wise counsel of others. It may be a spouse, a friend, a pastor, a teacher, an author of a book, or a co-worker. God can use anyone.

    God still speaks to us through circumstances. Sometimes God uses circumstances to get our attention. Sometimes He uses circumstances to directly lead us. It was some forty-two years ago that I sent an application to a college I wanted to attend. It was my first choice. Another college accepted me but gave me a deadline to tell them if I would be attending.

    Due to a paperwork mix-up, the college of my choice had not yet given me an acceptance answer by the other college's deadline. I decided to say yes to the one I knew had accepted me. Because I went to that college, I became a Christian, entered the pastoral ministry, and even found my wife. God has spoken through the circumstances of my life.

    God sometimes speaks to us through circumstances, including tragedies.

    What kind of listeners are we? The story is told about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He became tired of smiling the presidential smile and saying the usual things at White House receptions. One evening he decided to see if anyone really was listening to what he was saying. As each person came up to him to shake his hand, he smiled and said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.” People would automatically respond with, “Keep up the good work,” and “How lovely.”

    Nobody listened to what he was saying, except for one foreign diplomat. When the president said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning

morning,” the diplomat responded quietly, “I'm sure she had it coming.”

    There are two types of people, those who listen and those who do not. There are some people who are not really listening for the voice of God. God is speaking constantly, but they are not really paying attention. God is speaking through people, through circumstances, through His Holy Spirit, and through the Bible, but they are not hearing because they are not paying attention. They are not listening. They are not tuned in. Their radio is not tuned to the right station. They are not picking up God's message.

    These are the very same people who claim to have been Christians for many years, yet they cannot teach a Bible class because they do not know the Bible. They cannot answer questions because they have not heard the answers. Their faith wavers, and they follow voices other than God's voice.

    Then there are people who are aggressive listeners. They read their Bibles. They ask questions, “How does this passage apply to my life?” They ask in the midst of circumstances, “What is God trying to tell me?” They ask questions. They read. They study. They make notes. They come on Sunday morning to worship and to learn what God has to say.

    Let us go back to the subject of dreams and visions before we close. Does God speak today through dreams and visions? I believe not. He does not have to. We have the written word, the Bible, through which God has revealed what we need to know.

    Dreams can be very misleading. They can be absolutely wrong. If God is speaking through dreams and visions today, we must treat them with the same weight as the Bible, and add them to the Bible. But the Bible is a finished book. There are no new revelations from God today. The New Testament book of Jude tells us that the

the faith has been once for all delivered, chapter 1, verse 3. We have everything we need to know about the Christian faith. There is nothing to be added. This is where the cults come in. They have added what is not true.

    I said last week I would tell you who the other sheep are. Jesus mentions He has other sheep in John 10. The Mormons claim this refers to the Native Americans, formerly known as North American Indians. They claim Jesus came to North America to minister to the Native Americans. They use the verse in John 10 to prove their claim. That is not true.

    In the mind of the Jewish people in Jesus' day, there were two types of people. The Jews and the non-Jews. The Jews saw themselves as an elite people, favored alone by God. When Jesus said He has other sheep, He was referring to non-Jews, known as Gentiles. He was referring to us, non-Jews who follow Him.

    We will close with this. I used to teach until recently that God speaks to us through our thoughts and feelings, by impressing something on our minds or by giving us a strong feeling about something. I do not teach this anymore. I can still learn and grow even at my age.

    Mental impressions and feelings are very subjective, and can be wrong. Nowhere does the Bible teach us to listen for inner promptings or feelings. They are too subjective and may be influenced by our moods, health, medication, and so on. The Bible is our guide. It will either tell us exactly what we need to know, or it will give us principles to follow in any situation.

    If we are Christians, and desiring to be led by the Holy Spirit, and live godly lives, God will speak to us and lead us. He will especially do this by giving us the right desires. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” He will place the right desires in our hearts and we will make the right choices based upon the right desires.