A Sensitive Ear to the Voice of God

Now, let me give you the first mark, I believe, of a godly person. The first and most important mark is a sensitive ear to the voice of God. A sensitive ear. The most important thing to a godly man or godly woman is to become sensitive to the voice of God. There's nothing more important to a godly person than to learn to have a sensitive ear to understand and know His voice. And to turn to no man, turn to no woman, turn to no other advice, but to walk certainly in the mind of God through the Word revealed. The scripture that Jesus said, My sheep know My voice, they hear when I call. Now, folks, this is the distinguishing mark of Samuel. Now, he is taken as a young man, remembered by his mother. He's a miracle child and given back to the services of the priesthood. And he's raised under Eli in this dark time. I like, when I study the Old Testament, I love to study these old books of the Old Testament, especially Samuel, 1st, 2nd Samuel, 1st, 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles. I lived in these books, I just love them. Because my grandfather taught me that, that the Old Testament produces character. And that you had to learn from these lessons and that they were given as examples for us. And I'm telling you now, if you have a heart like that, where you say, I'm not after anything in this world. There's no ambition in my life to be somebody. There's no ambition to be a success. I have no other desire in my life, but to know Him, to know His voice. And it was through hearing His voice that He got a revelation of who God was. God appeared to him the third time and stood by his bed, came and the Lord was teaching him to hear. He was learning to hear and know the voice of God. Folks, I'm going to tell you, God is always trying to speak to every generation. God is not in hiding. He is wanting to make His voice known. And He doesn't want His voice known just to a select few of men who are shut in with God and then come out like Samuel. Not in this day of revelation, not since the cross. The purpose of our Savior is that everyone who calls himself by His name, everyone who has yielded their hearts to Him, should go after this sensitivity to the voice of God, to set their heart and their mind, Lord, I want to know You. And you can't know Him just by preaching. You can't know Him just by reading Scripture. This can bring death to you if your heart is not in it. It'll just be words. It's empty words. There has to be a heart in you, a yearning to say, I want to know the voice of God. Folks, what happens when trouble comes? What happens when the economy fails? What happens when church doors aren't open? There's so much trouble in the streets, you can't get to a church. Telephones are shut down. What do you do when you don't know where to go and you don't know what to do? Who are you going to turn to then when there's no fellowship? You have got to know His voice. You've got to hear Him for yourself. This is the mark of a godly person. I want to know Him for myself. I want to know His voice. Lord, teach me. Give me a sensitive ear. And I tell you again, if He has your heart, all of it, He'll get you here. He'll train you. It's impossible to walk with God with all your heart and not finally be trained in hearing and knowing His voice. I tell you here now, that's the most important thing in my life. You can have all the money. You can have all the fame. You can have everything. But when I hear God speaking, I know He's spoken. It's life. I rejoice in it. I can look in the mirror and say, God, you spoke to my heart. I know what I heard. I know it's you. Here's a young man who is not mature in God. Here's a young man that's never been trained in theology. Here's a young man that just has given his life completely to the Lord and says, Lord, I have no other desire but to serve you. Now, somebody here tonight is going to hear this in the spirit. You're going to hear it in the inner man. And God's going to make this real to you. You're hearing the pastor say, you can know and hear the voice of God. And I'm telling you, that is the absolute truth of God. That's the truth of the word. You can know His voice. You can know it well. You can know it without any confusion. If you will simply set your heart and mind and say, God, I'm not going to hold anything back from you. I don't want anything in this world. Now, if you're here and you want to make money, you want to get rich, and you want to be famous, and you've got all of these desires. I've heard young people say, I want to be a millionaire so I can give a lot of money to God. Baloney. The whole story is you want to be rich. Because if you won't give Him now, you won't give Him then. If you won't give Him out of your dollar, you're not going to give Him out of your millions. You can know His voice. You say, you wait on Him. You give Him your heart. You hold nothing back. And when the Lord sees that you are holding nothing back, you have no ambition of your own. Your ambition, your desire, everything needs to be so wrapped up in the will of God. Say, Lord, I'll give you my life. If you want me to work at McDonald's the rest of my life and be a servant to you and just speak to people on the streets, I'll do it. You don't need some romantic call to China. Thank God for people who are going all over the world. But God's looking for faithfulness. And those who get to know His voice, they know where to go. And folks, if you do that, the time will come that He'll direct every step you take. He will direct you. You'll become sensitive to His voice and you will hear it. You'll hear His no's. You'll hear His yes's. You'll hear Him say, go this way, go that way. And that's exactly what happened to Samuel because his heart was surrendered. Now, God put this mess in my heart for a reason. There are some of you sitting here tonight and you have experienced great rejection either by your family, friend, husband, wife, children. There's been rejection. And I know, as sure as I know my name, God's speaking by His Spirit to somebody here tonight, a number of you. You've been carrying this rejection. If you have one ounce of that spirit of Saul, of revenge, of getting even. He tried to kill David. Folks, that is not the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord is that every time you're rejected, you have to turn that into an opportunity to show, to pass into the Lord Jesus Christ. Folks, I have not arrived to that holy yet, but I'm on my way. I told you a number of people, Lord, had me get on the telephone and call this past year, make a lot of things right that I didn't even know I had hurt, that they had felt rejected by me and how God had healed their spirit. And that's what God wants in this next year, that you set your heart and your mind. God, I want, you say, godly? That means I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't go to shows, I don't do this, I don't do that. You can have a whole list of do's and don'ts. You say, I'm pretty godly. But you can be absolutely bereft of any of these things. You can be so clear, nobody can put a finger at you. You don't watch pornography. You don't watch dirty television. You don't tell dirty jokes. You don't lie. You don't steal. You don't gamble. You don't drink. You don't smoke. You don't use drugs. You could go on and on like a Pharisee. All those things ought to be what a Christian does because he has the heart of God. But folks, if you don't have this forgiving spirit, you don't have the power of a godly life. If you can't show compassion to those who've rejected and hurt you, you are weak before the enemy. That is power. That is power. Power is that quiet, unassuming, forgiving, loving spirit. You can be spat upon and mocked and ridiculed like Jesus and turn to say, Lord, forgive me. They don't know what they're doing. Hallelujah.