Hearing from the Lord

I'd like to begin today by reading from Matthew 4, verse 1 and following. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry.

And the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And it is true that we live by those words that come from God's mouth, living words. We live by hearing God speak. We are raised from the dead and kept alive by hearing the voice of our shepherd.

But what about those times when we can't seem to get a word from God's mouth? When it seems as if we've lost touch completely with the shepherd? We open our Bibles and we read, and it seems as if we're only reading words. The dead letter. What happened to the living Spirit that once made those words alive to us? We come to fellowship.

We hear brothers and sisters speaking with great joy about Jesus. But those words, as we hear them, don't seem to convey any life to us at all. Other people are blessed, they seem to be hearing God, but all we hear are dead words.

Words, words. Where's that word from God's mouth? We go into our room, and we shut the door, and we pray. But it seems as if we're only talking to the wall.

Nothing comes back. We feel as if we're the little lost sheep that's out there looking for the shepherd. And we walk on and on and on, and nothing but dry places.

Reading Psalm 28, verse 1. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock. Be not silent to me, lest thou be silent to me. I become like them that go down into the pit.

If I don't hear from God, I die. If somehow the shepherd doesn't cause me to hear his voice, I'm lost. Now, we're all aware of the fact that, for many of us, this search is not that intense.

That we go on and on and on, for a long time. We're not even aware that it's been days, maybe months, perhaps even years, since we heard one living word from God's mouth. And we come wandering on, going through the motions.

Then one day, we wake up to the consciousness that earth bread is not enough, and that earth security is just another form of death. I have to hear from God. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock.

Be not silent to me, lest thou be silent to me. I become like them that go down into the pit. So how do we find our way back from that desert, that dry place, where we seem to go on and on and on for days, months, sometimes years, without one living word, and get to the place where once again we hear the voice of the shepherd? Or in some cases, perhaps, where for the first time in our lives, we hear the voice of the shepherd.

If it's true that we live only by hearing a living word from God's mouth, what do we have to do to get that living word? Not the dead letter of the law, but a word that's absolutely alive and that quickens us. There are three steps. And the first is we'll have to acknowledge that I'm in a desert.

First step is we have to admit to ourselves that for all our knowledge of things religious and all our familiarity with the doctrines, at the moment we're dead, when this is the case. Lord, I just can't hear you. Inside, I'm like a hollow drum.

That's the first step, that there's nothing in us that can bring us to life or hold us alive We have to get something from Him. See, as long as we keep walking on, pretending that everything's alright, to ourselves and to the other saints and to the Lord, we are inwardly like a shell. The light in us is darkness.

We're dead. The minute that we admit that we're empty and confess this emptiness to God, we're already on our way out of the desert. Unto thee will I cry, O Lord, my rock.

Be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. God, help us to lay aside our masks again and get down there and admit where we're really, where we're really going, what's really going on. And if we're empty, to admit that.

Lord, if I don't hear from you, if you don't speak to me some real living word, I'm done. Which leads us to the second step. The second step is to start to ask.

And ask and ask. Now we go to the Father's door and we knock. Reading from Luke, chapter 11, verse 5 and following.

And he said to them, which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within, do not bother me. The door is now shut.

My children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his infertunity, because he's a pest, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

And I tell you, ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be open.

What father among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish, will for a fish give him a serpent or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So what is this bread the man is begging for and pounding on that door for? It is a living word from God's mouth. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Who is this Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is God speaking, Jesus speaking.

The Holy Spirit is the one who brings the living word from the mouth and heart of the Father and the Son, brings it down and puts it right into our heart. It is the Spirit that gives life, Jesus says. The flesh is of no avail.

The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. And to get that living word, those words which are spirit and life, we have to get ourselves together enough to go to the door and knock. Go into our room, ask and ask.

I'm going to take no rest nor give you any rest, Father, until you establish Jerusalem and make her a praise in the earth. Until you visit Zion with your spirit, until you speak to me a living word. Ask.

You have not because you asked not, because you clicked too soon. Keep asking. And the third step, I know there are people who are offended by these one, two, three things, so call it five, six and seven.

But it's helpful and certainly this is true. The third and final step out of the wilderness is to expect and listen for the voice of God speaking to us from the most unlikely place. When we ask God for a living word, we get a living word.

Every time. Every time. You don't ask your father for bread and get a stone.

You don't ask your father for a fish and get a serpent. You don't ask your heavenly father for a living bread, for a word from him and get nothing. You get a word.

But, that word comes on his terms, not yours and mine. I'm going to read from John chapter four starting at verse five. The woman at the well.

Now think of the woman, this passage opens up when we begin to think of the woman at the well as a person who's not only thirsty for water but really thirsty for a living word from God. Picking it up at verse five. So Jesus came to a city of Samaria called Sychar near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Jacob's well was full and the well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour, high noon.

There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself and his sons and his cattle? Jesus said to her, this water will thirst again.

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.

We don't know much about this woman but from the passage as it continues in John 4, we learn two specific things. Secondly, this woman has been doing a lot of thinking about God. You know, how do you worship God? Where do you worship God? So the woman comes to the well for water but there is in this woman's heart something, a much deeper thirst.

There is a thirst for God. A thirst for God which undoubtedly had been expressed by her many, many times in prayer unto thee, oh Lord, will I lift up my voice. Lord, I cry to you, my rock.

Be not silent to me lest if you be silent to me I become like those who go down into the pit. How many times she felt like she was the one going down into the pit. So she comes to the well for water but with the thirst for water the thirst for God.

Who knows how long that thirst for God had been bugging her, torturing her. On the edge of the well sits this Jew. Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

They don't even talk to Samaritans if they don't have to. And Jewish men surely don't talk to Samaritan women. Give me a drink.

She's stunned but she's also curious. How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria if you knew the gift of God. If you knew the gift of God.

What is the gift of God? The gift of God is a living word from Him. If you knew the gift of God and who it is who's asking you for a drink you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water. Now this woman begins to pick up the aroma of the Holy.

She senses that she is in the presence of God. All right. Let me have some of that water.

Give it to me. So Jesus says, all right. Go call your husband and come back.

I have no husband. True. You have no husband.

You've been married five times and the one you have now is not your husband. Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Where's the right place to worship God? Our fathers worshipped in this mountain and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place.

Woman, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will they worship the Father. You worship what you don't know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews.

But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers of God will worship Him in spirit and in truth. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Yes.

He'll show us all things. I can speak to you and He. So she leaves her water jar and goes back to the town and says, come see a man who told me all I ever did.

Is not this the Christ? So what's happening here is that this woman is hearing from God in the least likely place is coming from the mouth of a Jew and she never once had a good experience with a Jew and is coming from the mouth of a man and she never had many good experiences with men. But this woman is broken and humble and yearning and thirsty enough to open her heart. She listens and her life changes.

Elijah. Elijah. Remember the time he's running down into the wilderness of Sinai and he's absolutely famished for a word from God.

He's dried up. He's dead inside. Just a few days before he had brought down fire from heaven but now he's done.

Be not silent to me lest if you're silent to me I'm going to be like those who go down into the pit. He ends up at Mount Sinai stays in a cave and finally a word from God comes to him in a single sentence. What are you doing here? I've been jealous for the Lord God of hosts.

The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant thrown down your altars killed your prophets with a sword I'm the only one left and they're trying to kill me and you ask me what I'm doing here. Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord. God doesn't have to justify himself.

He doesn't have to give any reasons. So finally Elijah goes out and suddenly a wind comes up gets stronger and stronger and it's a roaring wind it's knocking the rocks apart and pulling the trees up and he can hear and now he gets his notebook out. No, here comes a prophecy.

He listens, nothing. The wind dies away he still hasn't heard from God. Now the ground under his feet starts to shake so much that his teeth are starting to fall out.

The rocks are rolling down and he hears all this noise. Again out comes the notebook he's going to hear, he's going to listen. Nothing.

Waits a little bit, smells smoke. Here comes fire. He sees the flames roaring up the side of Mount Sinai and he knows this is the time now God's going to speak to me.

Didn't he speak to Moses from a burning bush through a fire on this very mountain and now it's not just a burning bush he doesn't hear from God. The fire comes and it goes still nothing and he's really discouraged. He's at the bottom of the pit he thinks but now finally his spirit has become quiet and he hears God speaking to him in a way he had never heard God speak before he hears God speaking to him in the voice of a gentle stillness and he wraps his face in his mantle because he knows he's in the presence of God and the word he hears now brings him back to life.

Unto thee will I cry O Lord my rock be not silent to me lest if thou be silent to me I become like those that go down into the pit. When we pray that prayer and mean it to him we get an answer every time we get an answer but where and how and when God speaks is up to him. Many many many times the answer that God gives to us that living word will come from the other side of a door that we have shut against him or against other people.

For instance and this resentment has so eaten at my soul that I'm dry inside. So I cry to God for a living word. He hears my cry and so the living word comes to me through the very person I resent and if I'm going to hear from God I'm going to have to open my heart to that person.

Let's say I get along with everybody just about everybody in the world except Hungarians but I don't know why I just can't get along with these Hungarians. So now I cry out to God for a word, a living word and he hears my cry and wouldn't you know he speaks to me through a Hungarian and to add insult to injury he brings me together in the body and surrounds me with brothers and sisters and the ones he puts closest to me are all Hungarians. That's how he does it.

The least like hit place. And the tenter said if you are the son of God command these stones become bread. He answered it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

A word proceeding from God's mouth a word that's not dead not the letter of the law living, hot, burning, living word. Without that we're dead. And we can have it if we'll acknowledge when we're in the desert and if we'll get up and start knocking on that door and knocking and knocking and if we will open our hearts when God answers our cry and speaks to us through someone, some messenger who is an offense to our pride.

Unto thee will I cry O Lord my rock be not silent to me lest if thou be silent to me I become like them that go down into the pit. And the Lord answers I will answer you and I will speak to you. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit the living word to those who ask him.

A living continuous will come to us when we're desperate enough to ask and when we're humble enough to listen. And so taking our minds off each other and other people let's just wait on the Lord alone before God together but alone. And let's again hold a silence nothing for a while just silence while each of us deals before the Lord in prayer alright.