Hearing the Voice of God

Jean Cheng Gorman

Ministry Associate

Covenant Grove Church

(Audio clip from Prince of Egypt) That was the voice of God…at least, that’s what it sounds like in a Disney movie. Is that what you imagine when you think about the voice of God? A serious authoritative voice? Maybe a little deeper, more James Earl Jones-ish or a maybe a little gruff, more Clint Eastwood-ish? Have you ever thought about what the voice of God sounds like?
For the past 3 months, Scott has preached on The Story of God, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. And today we are going to talk about hearing the Voice of God in the Story of God.
We are going to look at the prophet Samuel, who lived in the 11th century BC, a man who literally heard God’s voice. As a toddler, Samuel was given to the temple to be a Nazarite, a lifetime servant in the temple, under the High Priest Eli and his sons. Eli’s sons were not godly, they were wicked—they stole from the sacrifices people brought and slept with women who served at the tabernacle. Eli the High Priest condoned their sin and didn’t stop them. So God replaces Eli with Samuel, and God uses Samuel to a speak prophetically to Israel and to lead them victory over the Philistines and Samuel anoints Israel’s first kings, Saul and David.
That’s the big picture of Samuel’s life, but we are going to start at the beginning, when Samuel first hears God’s voice. Let’s turn to 1 Samuel 3. If you need a Bible, please raise your hand so our ushers can give you one. This is a great translation, so if you don’t have a Bible that you can easily understand, please put your name in it and keep it. If you are using one of ours, turn to page 213, 1 Samuel 3, and let’s read about Samuel hearing the voice of God.
1 Samuel 3

1 Meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the Lord by assisting Eli. Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.

2 One night Eli, who was almost blind by now, had gone to bed. 3 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in the Tabernacle near the Ark of God. 4 Suddenly the Lord called out, “Samuel!”

“Yes?” Samuel replied. “What is it?” 5 He got up and ran to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you,” Eli replied. “Go back to bed.” So he did.

6 Then the Lord called out again, “Samuel!”

Again Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

“I didn’t call you, my son,” Eli said. “Go back to bed.”

7 Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from the Lord before. 8 So the Lord called a third time, and once more Samuel got up and went to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?”

Then Eli realized it was the Lord who was calling the boy. 9 So he said to Samuel, “Go and lie down again, and if someone calls again, say, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went back to bed.

At this point in the story Samuel is probably about 12 years old. He begins serving in the Tabernacle, assisting Eli, the High Priest, in small duties like opening the doors and lighting the lamp, and basically he does what he is supposed to do. He has grown up in the Tabernacle, hung out with Tabernacle people and done Tabernacle-ish things, but when God speaks to him, he doesn’t recognize God’s voice. He mistakes it for Eli’s voice. Samuel did not recognize God's voice because he didn't yet know Him in this very personal way.

Some of you have grown up in the church, hung out with church people and done church-ish things, and yet, it is hard to recognize God’s voice when He calls you. It is possible to come to church and to read the Bible but not personally know the Lord. There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God, between hearing about God and hearing God.

Let’s continue in verse 9.

9 … So Samuel went back to bed. 10 And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!”

And Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.”

11 Then the Lord said to Samuel, “I am about to do a shocking thing in Israel. 12 I am going to carry out all my threats against Eli and his family, from beginning to end. 13 I have warned him that judgment is coming upon his family forever, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them. 14 So I have vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifices or offerings.”

15 Samuel stayed in bed until morning, then got up and opened the doors of the Tabernacle as usual. He was afraid to tell Eli what the Lord had said to him. 16 But Eli called out to him, “Samuel, my son.”

“Here I am,” Samuel replied.

17 “What did the Lord say to you? Tell me everything. And may God strike you and even kill you if you hide anything from me!” 18 So Samuel told Eli everything; he didn’t hold anything back. “It is the Lord’s will,” Eli replied. “Let him do what he thinks best.”

19 As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him, and everything Samuel said proved to be reliable. 20 And all Israel, from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord. 21 The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh and gave messages to Samuel there at the Tabernacle.

In this passage, God speaks to Samuel. God’s voice must have sounded pretty normal, not otherworldly, because Samuel thought it was just Eli calling him. It may have been an audible voice but Eli didn’t hear it. So God spoke to Samuel and Samuel heard him, but God’s voice wasn’t heard by just anyone.

Well of course God would talk to Samuel, because Samuel is this super important amazing prophet, right? God doesn’t actually speak to regular people like He spoke to Samuel, does He? And that was the Old Testament, when God spoke like that. In this day and age, is it actually possible to hear the voice of God?

In my 20+ years of being a Christian, I have definitely heard God’s voice. One of the clearest times I heard His voice was when I was feeling called to change careers and go into ministry. I was watching some city workers prune a tree in my front yard that was infested with mistletoe. They cut out the branches infested with mistletoe, but then they started cutting down healthy branches. And since I was feeling like the same process was happening in my own life—God was pruning away different things in my life—my heart cried out, “What a shame—there was nothing wrong with those branches!” And very clearly I heard the Lord say, “No, there was nothing wrong with those branches. But the tree has to grow in a different direction.” Those exact words, so clear that it could have been audible, but it wasn’t. A whisper so powerful that I fell to my knees, and I knew God was responding to my prayer for confirmation that I should shift careers and go into ministry.

Do you desire to hear the voice of God? To hear God speak? I think we all do. But how do you actually hear the voice of God? I think a lot of us look at our circumstances and look for “a sign” as evidence of what God is trying to say to us. We get a flat tire, and we think, “Oh maybe God is trying to tell me I shouldn’t be going to that place.” Or we find a dollar unexpectedly and we think, “Oh maybe God is telling me to buy a lottery ticket.” Sometimes God does use circumstances in our lives to communicate with us, but I don’t think that is His primary way of talking to us.

What about hearing God’s voice in prayer? Prayer is just a conversation with God, right? God should talk back to you the same way you talk to Him, right? That’s what we see in this passage right? God calls Samuel, Samuel talks to God, God talks to Samuel. The problem with hearing God’s voice primarily in prayer is that we can hear a lot of voices in our heads and think they are God’s, but they are not. Some of the things we hear in our head that we think are God are really the voices of the authority figures we grew up with, particularly our fathers. If you had a father who was condemning, you might think that God is constantly criticizing you and barking out orders. Or if your father was very permissive, you might hear “God” telling you to do whatever makes you happy. Or if your father was silent, it might be hard to believe God actually wants to say something to you! So the voices we hear in our head may or may not be God. How do you know if what you are hearing is really God?

Take a look at verse 21.

The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh and gave messages to Samuel there at the Tabernacle.

That is the NLT, which is a wonderful readable translation, very accessible, but all the other major translations translate the original Hebrew as saying “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there He revealed himself to Samuel through the word of the Lord.” God is actually appearing at Shiloh, but He chooses to reveal Himself through His words. God reveals Himself to the amazing prophet Samuel through what He says, and God reveals Himself to us through what He says. The primary way God speaks to us, the best way to hear His voice, is through the Bible, through His Word.

From Day One of being a Christian, I always knew that I was supposed to be reading the Bible, but I thought that was only to learn about God and to learn about how we are supposed to live our lives. I didn’t realize until fairly recently that God actually speaks through His Word. But about 6 years ago, I was desperate to hear God speak. I had already had two beautiful children, and I became pregnant for the third time, and I miscarried. Miscarriage is a sterile medical term that doesn’t really capture what that process means. For me, that miscarriage meant that I had lost a child. And I grieving that loss, and prayed and prayed. God comforted me, assured me He was still in control and still good despite what had happened, and a short while later, I became pregnant again…only to miscarry again. And this time, as I grieved and poured my heart out to God in prayer, all I heard back was silence. Just silence.

A friend invited me to join her Bible study, Bible Study Fellowship, which is a really intense study where you study one book of the Bible over the course of a year, verse by verse—you answer homework questions, go to a discussion group, hear a lecture on those verses…it is an incredibly deep and powerful way to study the Bible. And over the next 6 months, in that intense time Bible study, God spoke to me through His Word and brought tremendous healing through His Word.

So how do you learn to hear the voice of God in the Story of God? Some practical steps:

1) This is absolutely critical. Belong to God. Although Samuel grew up in the Tabernacle, he didn’t truly hear God until he had opened himself up to a one-on-one relationship with God. That is a choice each us have to make. Until you have opened yourself up to a one-on-one relationship with God, it will be hard to hear His voice. If you haven’t taken that step, it is as simple as saying “Jesus, be my Lord and Savior. I belong to you.” In John 10:3-4 Jesus talks about the good shepherd, who “calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice.” If you belong to God, if you are a sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd, you will know His voice.

2) Stop. Stop rushing around like a chicken with your head cut off. Stop thinking of Bible reading as one more thing on your checklist. Stop multitasking all the time. Stop talking incessantly in prayer. Just stop. And quiet your soul. Be still. As I have sought to listen to God, I have realized that God does not yell over the noise of my life. There have been times when He got my attention pretty dramatically through circumstances, but hearing Him speak has always been in the quiet. The busier and noisier my life is, the more frazzled my brain is, the harder it is to hear God through His Word. So be still.

3) Read the Bible daily. The people whose voices you recognize instantly are people you spend a lot of time with, right? It’s hard to recognize someone’s voice when you only hear from them twice a year. It’s hard to recognize God’s voice if you don’t consistently listen to Him and read His Word. Every day.

4) Ask Him a question. It didn’t occur to me until fairly recently to ask God a question, a real question and believe that Him would answer. Not a “why me” kind of question, but a question like “God what do you think of this situation?” Or “Am I doing what you want me to do?” But don’t think you can ask God a question and walk away and God is going to run after you to tell you the answer. Samuel laid down and patiently waited for God to speak again. It’s not clear when God spoke, but we know Samuel was there all night. Samuel quietly waited and didn’t multitask while he was waiting. He wasn’t checking Facebook while he was waiting for God to speak! I would like to encourage you to set aside 30 minutes to pray, read His Word, listen for His voice. My own experience is that a lot can happen with God in a half hour. But in our daily life, what’s half an hour? A bad tv show… sometimes it can take a half hour to check out in Costco! A half an hour is nothing—but with God, a half hour can be incredible.

So Stop, Read the Bible daily, Ask Him a question, and

5) Listen for His answer in prayer and in His word. What you hear should match. I shared my story about hearing God’s voice as I watched the tree pruners—part of the reason why I knew it was God’s voice is because He had said the same thing to me in His Word the day before, when I read about Jeremiah’s encounter with the potter, where God said, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand.” God told me the same thing in both His Word and in prayer that He was going to begin to shape my life differently. God would not tell you one thing in prayer and something different in His Word. So if what you are hearing in prayer doesn’t agree with what’s in His word, it’s probably not God’s answer.