Learning to Hear God's Voice

Well, I feel like my message has already been given. And it's kind of like a message dramatized by actually acting out, because I'm going to speak on God speaking to us. And that's what's been occurring up here during this whole meeting.

God speaking to these men and them sharing it with you. So the title of my message today reflects arguably the most powerful two-word phrase in scripture. God said.

God said. Everything in existence, everything you see, everything you hear, everything you experience in this world came about because God said. Elohim wayomer.

God said. God willed. God determined.

God decreed. And it was so. Such a thing.

And when God speaks, it's right for us to sit up and take notice in great anticipation and humility, because it is quite a thing for the creator of the universe to wish to speak to us. And I'm afraid we really take it for granted. It's kind of shameful, actually, how much we take it for granted.

So I'm going to be sharing some things. I feel like the Lord gave me on this subject. But supporting that, I will be regaling you with tales from the anals of Pure Life Ministries history today.

Wow, how exciting. Some stories. You don't just have to listen to teachings.

My hope is that if you belong to God, that you will walk away from the service today with a conviction that you need faith to believe God for the supernatural in your life. And you need faith to believe God to speak to you. So let me make one thing abundantly clear, I hope, at the beginning of this message, is that God spoke to men during biblical times, that name.

He spoke to Abram. God spoke with Moses as a man speaks to his friend. God spoke to Samuel as a young boy.

God spoke to Job from the whirlwind. God spoke to all the prophets. God spoke to Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration.

God spoke to Saul the Pharisee on the road to Damascus. So we understand that, that God spoke to people during those times, but does He still speak to us today? That seems to be a source of contention in the church. And I want to just say that the reason this topic is so important is because our relationship with God means everything.

It means everything. I know there are many people who are satisfied to have a religious experience ongoing, which just means kind of go to church and kind of keep the rules sort of thing. But I'm here to tell you that it's relationship with God.

He is a person. He's not just some vague teaching thing out there that we kind of follow and obey. He is a person.

And as a person, He communicates with us. That's why He created mankind the way He created us. We're not apes.

We're not dogs. We have the capacity to actually communicate with Him and to receive His communication in our hearts. But it requires faith.

You have to be walking in faith, which means that God is a reality to you in your daily life. He's not just some set of rules out there so I can hopefully make it to heaven one day. That's not faith, and it's certainly not saving faith.

He's a person, and He communicates. And it's so important for us to understand how He communicates to us. But if God isn't real to you, His voice will be indiscernible to you.

You have to have a spiritual connection, heart to heart, soul to soul, spirit to spirit with God. Now, there's a big difference between faith and presumption. And I hate to say it, but there are circles within the charismatic movement where there's a lot of presumption.

There are people in the charismatic movement that basically, if you listen to them, they're going to tell you that God is constantly speaking to them, constantly. And any time they want Him to speak to them, all they got to do is go up and just start, get themselves in the mindset or something, and then the words are just flowing from heaven. It's stuff like that why people on the conservative side have become so skeptical any time they hear someone say that they hear from God.

This is why they're so skeptical about that. But just like there are charismatics, and please understand when I'm talking about charismatics and Pentecostals, I'm talking about a group within there. The godliest people I've ever known were Pentecostals.

I've known some very dear souls in the conservative side and the Pentecostal side, both. Good, godly people. But there are people within those realms that I'm not so convinced they're all that connected to the Lord.

And so just like there are some charismatics who are kind of out on the fringes in some of the stuff they talk about and teach and so on, so there are people on the conservative side that, from my perspective, are out on the fringes on their side. And what I'm talking about are people who believe that God no longer speaks, God no longer does miracles, He no longer does anything, basically. A.W. Tozer shared this a little bit.

I'm going to read this to you regarding the living word of God. He said this, concerning God speaking to men, there's an erroneous view that God spoke the Holy Scriptures into being and then lapsed into silence, and that the Bible is a deposit of embalmed truth, which scribe and theologian must decipher as best they can. This view is injurious because it contains two false notions, one that God is no longer speaking, and the other that we are shut up to our intellects for the understanding and apprehension of truth.

According to this view, God is far away and wholly non-communicative, and we are forced into a kind of evangelical rationalism since, according to this notion, the human mind becomes the final arbiter of truth. Now, the blessed fact is that God is not silent and has never been silent, and I say amen to that. God speaks, and I hope that by the time you guys hear this, hear some of my tales coming up, that you will believe me on that.

Either that, or you'll walk away being very critical of Pastor Steve, which probably wouldn't be a good thing. So what I want to try to bring you is a perspective that's more in middle ground, OK? Not on either extreme, but somewhere in the middle there, as best as I can. But this controversy is largely semantical.

Let me just mention that right now. A lot of it's just semantics. So if I say that I occasionally hear from the Lord, maybe people on the conservative side wouldn't feel comfortable with that, but they would be OK with if I said, well, the Holy Spirit influences us, or he impresses us with certain things.

They'd be OK with that. But to say, God, that you actually hear the Lord, that gets them nervous. And like I say, it's largely semantical, because God does impress things on our soul and in our hearts.

That is part of his communication with us. But I can tell you, and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to share you a few little stories with you, where I heard God speak to me, not through my ears, but in my heart, loud and clear, loud and clear, just as if you were speaking to me, but not through my ears. So we'll see if I'm crazy or what.

I'll let you guys decide. Let's take a look here at what Jesus told his disciples here in John 16. He shared these things because he's going to the cross.

And this is his last time with his disciples. He knows he's leaving them. He's trying to prepare them for life without his physical presence.

And so he wants to understand that the Holy Spirit is going to be there for them. And he's going to be speaking to them. And they are going to need to hear what he has to say.

Everything hinges on it, really, because Christianity is being birthed through these 11 men. And they've got to be able to hear the Lord. So in verse 8, he said that the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

And then skipping down to verse 13, he takes it even further. I'm reading this out of the Good News Bible just because it kind of gives a fuller version. When, however, the Spirit comes who reveals the truth about God, he will lead you into all the truth.

He will not speak on his own authority, but he will speak of what he hears and will tell you of things to come. He will give me glory because he will take what I say and tell it to you. All that my Father has is mine.

That is why I said that the Spirit will take what I give him and tell it to you. The idea of communication is just all over the place in this little passage here. In fact, there's 10 different words, which I was stressing through there, where he is describing God communicating to people.

So let's take a look at this. Three aspects of it I'll pull out of this. Number one is the voice of God convicts.

The voice of God convicts. We saw that in verse 8. The Holy Spirit will convict the world, et cetera. Conviction is a form of God's communication to people.

So if you've truly been born again, you know what it's like to experience repentance. And you know what it's like to experience conviction because it's not possible to come to the Lord without repentance. And it's not possible to repent without conviction.

You know, you can't just drum it up on your own. You can't just, okay, I think I'll just be a Christian. It doesn't work that way.

It requires a revelation from heaven, which will come down and convict you that you are in need of a new life. And you know, those of you who have grown up in Christian homes, God bless you, you're really blessed. I didn't.

You were really blessed to have grown up in a Christian home. There's many advantages, but that doesn't make you a believer. It just means you grew up in a Christian home.

That's all it means. And you are responsible to search out and to look to find God for yourself. And he will come to you and you have to respond to him.

This word convict here in verse eight is a lyncho. And one Bible dictionary says it means to show people their sin and summon them to repentance. I really like what Watchman Nee wrote.

He said, we can never know either the hatefulness of sin or the treachery of our own self nature until there is that flash of God upon us. I speak not of a sensation, but of an inward revelation of the Lord himself through his word. Such a breaking in of divine light does for us what doctrine alone can never do.

In other words, head knowledge, just learning all this kind of stuff, you know, about the doctrines of God and the biblical concepts and history and all of that. It's all good. It doesn't hurt to have all that, but you need a divine revelation as to your sinful condition.

And it's that revelation from heaven that shows you that you're a sinner in need of salvation is how you come into the kingdom of God. The first time I ever experienced conviction, I was 16 and I was just, you know, wild and out of control out in California. That's where I grew up and on drugs, shooting drugs, committing crime regularly.

And out of the clear blue, all of a sudden I started feeling like it was wrong for me to take the Lord's name in vain. I mean, just whatever, you know? I mean, I was like, who's thinking about God? I'm not thinking about God, but I use his name in vain regularly. And all of a sudden I started feeling guilty about it.

So I quit doing it. And two weeks later, I, well, it's a long story I won't go into, but I had a dramatic encounter with the Lord and turned my life around. There, at least for a while, something happened for me, but it all started with conviction that I knew that I was a sinner.

And I knew by the way that I was speaking, you know, and the things I was saying. So conviction is one form of God's communication to us. The second that I'll bring up is revelation.

The voice of God reveals, reveals. Verse 13, when however the spirit comes who reveals the truth about God. Now that's supplied in the Good News Bible.

You won't see it in your ESV or whatever. Most of the translations, but it's the reality anyway. God gives his people revelations.

And he also inspires his people and he anoints his people. Those are all different aspects of how God communicates with his people. Revelation occurs when the Holy Spirit will take some kind of truth and impresses it into your heart.

You know, like you could be reading a verse that you've read 50 times before. It didn't really mean anything. It was just more knowledge built up in your mind.

But all of a sudden you sit down one morning, you read it and it just is just jumping off the page at you and you just see it for what it really means, the depths of it, and it goes into your heart. That's a revelation. That's a revelation.

And it's a tremendous thing when it happens. Back in the day when I used to fast a lot, that would happen a lot. I would get revelations from the Lord.

It was really such a blessing. And in fact, I'll tell you a story about one such thing. It's one example I could give of this.

And it was kind of the beginning of At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry. What happened was in 1986, Kathy and I, I was finishing up Bible school in this mega church out in Sacramento, and the Lord put it in my heart to begin a ministry to help men who were addicted to sexual sin. And it was a concept completely unheard of in those days.

No one knew about this, which is why I ended up on a lot of radio and television back in those early days, because I was a novelty to the church. But anyway, so I wanted to start a support group in this church for men in sexual sin, and I wrote up a little pamphlet that I could give to the staff. There was a staff of 17 pastors at that church.

And so I wrote up this little pamphlet to give to them as part of the presentation, hoping they'd sign off on me starting this group. And they did. And I went on the radio locally there, and it just blew everyone's mind.

How many people needed this? It was amazing, you know, because no one even knew such a thing was going on, especially in the church. But anyway, so I wrote up that little pamphlet, and then the next year, the following year, 1987, I really felt like I needed a fresh touch from the Lord. So I went on a five-day fast in a cabin up on the coast, northern California coastline, and I was up there by myself in this cabin, and just praying and seeking the Lord in the word.

Didn't have any food with me, so didn't have to worry about being tempted. But anyway, for five days, it was like that. I just, actually, to be honest with you, I was sick because just stomach acid from not eating, I guess.

So I was just basically sick the whole time, laying around, miserable. And so I drove back home at the end of that, and I felt like the Lord was telling me to expand that little pamphlet into a book. So I decided, okay, I'm gonna sit down, and I'm gonna start trying to write this up and make it into something a little more legitimate.

And during those days that followed was an amazing thing. I started typing, and it was as if my fingers were literally being controlled by someone else. I know, that's scary, isn't it? But the things that I was writing, most of it, I didn't even know at that point.

I was new to the Lord. I'd only been out of sin for a couple of years, and I'm writing things that there is no way I had the spiritual wherewithal or maturity to understand those concepts, but I'm writing them out, and it was the Lord. He just came on me for a number of days, and I wrote that original version at the altar of sexual idolatry.

And later, I came to see those truths and understand them for myself, but I didn't know it at the time, and it was really quite a thing to experience. Another revelation I can share with you happened with the mercy studies. How many of you have a struggle reading the mercy studies? Mm-hmm, yeah, me too.

It was 1993. We had moved out here, and we actually were on this property. We had just gotten on this property about a year, I think, and Kathy and I had been to the faith homes, and they told us about this book, and you've gotta read this, and so I started making it a part of my morning time, and I would spend some time reading that book, and it was dry as dirt.

I didn't understand why is this guy write the way he's writing, and what's with all these capital letters and some weird stuff? It just didn't, I don't know, but anyway, I felt like these people have something in God that I don't have, and I am gonna stick with this. I was absolutely determined, so I did for several months, and this one particular morning, it just so happened that CBS had contacted us and wanted to do a story on the residential program here, so it was a show that Dan Rather hosted back then called 48 Hours, and they sent a film crew out. They were sending a film crew out, and the film crew was gonna get here at nine o'clock, so the staff was gonna meet at eight o'clock to pray together, and I was out on my prayer walk out on the ridge, and I'm just out there worshiping the Lord, not thinking really much of anything, just trying to get myself spiritually connected with the Lord, and I'm out there, and right out the end of the ridge there, there used to be a tree there where this happened at.

All of a sudden, I got a revelation from God about his mercy, and again, I don't know how to explain this. I'm just telling you this is what happened. All of a sudden, it was like lightning came across my heart, and the reality that the entire realm of God's kingdom operates on the principles of his mercy and his love, that his love permeates everything he does, and that his mercy is his way of meeting the needs of people, it just became so real to me, and it completely changed my life, changed the course of this ministry, and has changed many lives since then.

You need a revelation of that for yourself. Reading the book, okay, you'll learn some things, and hopefully the same thing will happen for you that happened for me, that it will become a revelation to you, not just more head knowledge, but it was a tremendous thing, and you know, revelations from God are an important part of the Christian life. You should be getting revelations from the Lord occasionally.

If you are connected with the Lord, you will, if you're hungry for that. John Trapp said, the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven come by revelation rather than by discourse of reason, and that is the truth. Paul said in Galatians 1, the gospel that was preached by me is not a man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

That's the gospel, and that's where it came from, through a revelation. In Ephesians 1, he prayed that the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Yes, and that's the greatest revelation you can have, is just simply of the Lord.

God will reveal truth to anyone who desires it. If you desire that kind of truth, just like Pastor Jordan was sharing about how he wants to impart that kind of truth into your innermost being, if you want that, if you are hungry for that, he will give it to you. If you don't care, then you're not gonna get anything, I can just tell you that.

It's different receiving a revelation than just studying this like it's an academic book, and you wanna learn a bunch of facts and figures and stuff like that. There's nothing wrong with that, I'm just telling you, though. Revelation knowledge is what will change your life.

As far as anointing is concerned, probably the best story I could give was when I was on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988. So their producer called me up, they found out about me and what I was doing out in Sacramento. So they called me up and she interviewed me and I shared with her my story, and she said, well, we'd like to have you on, but you're not gonna come on this show and preach Christianity.

And I said, well, all I have to share is what God has done in my life, so that's the only thing I have to share. And so anyway, she agreed to have me on, so I flew out there. And the night before, they flew me out the day before, and so it was pretty daunting, the idea of telling the whole world about my secret life.

You know, it was pretty intimidating. And so I was up all night, pretty upset. And the next morning, I went to, you know, they took us to the studio, and I had to wait in the green room while a couple other people were being interviewed on the show.

And then they called for me out of the green room, and I'm like, there's no words to explain what it's like to go in front of millions of people. And so I came out, and there's a big audience out there. And I walked on the stage, and I sat down, and I don't know what I did, but the crowd started laughing, so I must have made some kind of face.

But I can tell you this. I felt the Holy Spirit come on my body physically, very powerfully. It was incredible, you know? It was, I don't know how else to say it.

Again, you know, I'm giving you testimony. I'm not just teaching you things. I'm telling you things that have happened to me.

And that's what happened to me that morning. I went on that show, and all of a sudden, I was, you know, just up all night, upset, because I didn't know if I'd be able to share things right, say the right things, or whatever. And the Lord just came on me, and finally, you know, it's my time to be interviewed, and Oprah starts asking me questions, and it just started flowing out of me.

It was amazing. And then she, you know, because she's godless, pagan, and starts trying to argue with me, and it just gave me more opportunity to share more. And the last thing I said was, you know, after having told all my raunchy life, and how God had changed me, I said, and now I love my wife, and she's the only woman I want.

And the whole crowd was mostly women. Stood up, gave me a standing ovation, which was kind of neat, because it really put Oprah in her place, which I was happy to do. She was so prideful.

Man, she just reeks with self-importance. That's all I can tell you. And it was kind of intimidating, there in her bastion of power, you know? But God took me through it, and it was just like what Jesus said in Matthew 10.

He said, do not be anxious how you are to speak, or what you're to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. And that's exactly what happened. I didn't know five minutes before I went on what I was gonna say, but as soon as I got out there, the Lord just took over.

It was awesome. So the Lord inspires, He reveals, He anoints. I would like to think that my sermons are somewhat anointed, and the things I've written, articles, books, whatever, come from God's inspiration, from His revelation.

Yeah, I believe that's true. Anyway, the third thing I wanna mention is the voice of God leads, and you see it in verse 13. The Holy Spirit will lead you into all the truth.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you must know what it means to be led by Jesus Christ, right? Anyway, that's what Paul says in Romans 8. He says, for all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. And it didn't end in 100 AD, I'm afraid to tell you. He's still leading His people, and you've gotta know what it means to be led.

I like what this one guy said. He said, note that the Spirit leads. The text does not say, as many as are driven by the Spirit of God.

No, the devil is the driver. The Spirit leads the willing. Not drawn by rope, not hauled, but led.

Yea, more, gladly led. Yeah, that is the truth. He leads the willing.

If you are willing, He is going to lead you. It's His desire. And we see it in John 15.

Jesus said, when the good shepherd puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him. Why? Because they know His voice. But you have to know what it means to walk in faith.

You have to know what it means to feel that connection with God in your daily life. To know that He's there with you. That's what faith is.

Faith in a person, not in a religious system, as good as it may be. That's not faith. Faith is a connection.

It's relationship between you and the Almighty. Well, I could tell you many stories about God leading me. You guys like my stories? I mean, I can just teach if you'd rather.

You don't like my, you wanna hear stories, okay. This one, I gotta go back to Sacramento for this one. Actually, it began in Washington, the state of Washington, in 1988.

I was up there preaching at some churches and stuff, and I had this one day, didn't have anything going on, and I was upset because that megachurch that I was part of had a psychology department, and they were putting a lot of pressure on me because I'm becoming pretty well-known by now. I'm becoming like kind of a local media star there in Sacramento. And so they're getting concerned because I'm getting all this exposure and stuff, and I'm not in lockstep with their counseling department.

They're all into psychotherapy and wanting to sit someone down and find out what did your parents do wrong to mess you up so bad. That was their whole deal. And I'm like, I knew that that was not how God could change people's lives.

I knew that that wasn't right. That wasn't what happened in my life. I knew that it came about through repentance and through that relationship with God.

I understood that it's only God that can set us free. That psychotherapy doesn't have the power to set anyone free. All it does is make you more self-centered.

And so I couldn't come under that pressure and their teaching and all of that. And it put me in a kind of a difficult situation because I didn't want to be in rebellion to my pastor, who was a godly man of God. And I wasn't trying to be in rebellion to him, but yeah, it was just a tough situation.

And we had been contacted by a pastor from Cincinnati. His secretary had contacted us and I had talked to her a couple of times, months before or something. But anyway, I'm up there at the state park and I spent six hours seeking God about what am I going to do? Because the pressure was really growing.

And while I was there in that state park, one word came to me. Would you like to know what it is? Just wondering if you're still with me. Cincinnati, that's all it was said, Cincinnati.

And I knew because we had already been booking up a nine month tour of the country that was going to begin in January of 89. And so I knew that that tour was coming up and in the midst of that tour, there were two weeks I couldn't book for anything. So I knew that tour was coming up and so, okay, God, what does this mean? Are we going out there or what? So we bought this beat up old motor home.

I mean, this thing was such a piece of junk. It's all we could afford. The shower didn't work or the hot water heater didn't work.

So you took cold showers dead of winter and the heater didn't work and just all kinds of stuff. And we would park in Kmart parking lots. There was no such thing as Walmart in those days.

So Kmart parking lots used gas station bathrooms. My wife and I, if you want to know why she gets so much honor around here, it's because I put her through. But anyway, so we're on this tour and like a month later, so this must have been February and we went down south to LA and then we're coming across the southern part of the country and I'm in Texas and I'm bringing this up because I remember what happened.

We were at this, well, I don't remember where we were. It was in Dallas and I was having my morning prayer time in a park, just like a city park. And I'm just walking around like I do and man, I felt this powerful passion come over me.

Faith, faith. I knew that God was going to give us a facility. I didn't know what it meant or anything.

I thought we're gonna end up in Cincinnati. That would just be kind of a landing place and I would be preaching and doing radio and TV shows. I didn't know what it meant, but I just knew.

I knew and I was walking in circles like, I must've looked like a madman out there, but just believing God, I know you're gonna do this, Lord. So anyway, we finished up, we're speaking there in Texas and I had that two weeks off. I couldn't book that for anything and then I understood this is what it is.

So made a beeline up here to Cincinnati, looked around for some property around up in Ohio and couldn't find anything. I just felt like the Lord is not in this. And so, okay, well, let's just go down into Kentucky.

Started looking around, found a double-wide mobile home on five acres and I talked to the owner and we worked out a deal verbally and then two days later, he called me up and backed out of it and it was just crushing. We're running out of time. We've gotta be in Atlanta for my next service and I was just like, man.

I was practically ready to give up and Kathy said, we are not giving up. God's got some property for us and we need to go find it. Okay, so that's what you have a good wife for.

So we went to a real estate office up there in Florence and when they realized that we didn't have a job, we didn't have any money, it's like, okay, these people are losers, a waste of time and they shuffled us off to a part-time agent and she was happy to have anyone to talk to. So she gets out the multiple listing book and she's going through place by place because she's gotta find someone who will sell us the property and take back the paper on their own. And so she starts going through the multiple listing book and I'm telling you, page after page, no, no, no, no.

Every single one, they want a new loan, they want to be cashed out, whatever. Literally, and I'm not exaggerating, literally the last page of the book, I don't know if it was the last listing on that page, but it was the last page, I remember that. There was this one little farmhouse in Crittenden and I'm like, where's Crittenden, what is Crittenden? And so, I didn't even, I thought it was Crittenden is how I pronounced it, no, it's Crittenden.

Anyway, so she calls the broker up and she says, would you be willing to carry paper on that? Yeah, I'll consider it. And so we drove down here to Crittenden and we looked at the house. As soon as we drove up to that house, I knew that was it.

That's what God had for us. It's just a beat up, broken down old farmhouse on 12 acres. It's still out there on Crittenden and Mount Zion Road and I knew that was it.

So, we went over to the real estate broker's place, wrote up the contract, he agreed to take back the paper and I needed to come up with $10,000 within 60 days to close it. And I'm like, we're making like $300 a week out preaching in these churches. And so, I signed it in faith, believing God's gonna do it, I know he's going to because I know he told me down in Texas.

And so, we went out, continued our trip, our tour on the Eastern Seaboard, ended up in Massachusetts and stuff and extra money's coming in. And by the time 60 days finished, our tour was done, we made it back there to here, to Kentucky and had just enough money to be able to buy the thing, that property. We didn't have any furniture.

We had bought two wicker chairs that I stuck in the back of the van and that was our furniture. Our first night, we slept on the living room floor and that began, yeah, us being here. So, that was in, must have closed in May.

January 1st, we started the residential program there. And in the meantime, Kathy's mom and dad came out here, bought a mobile home and set it up on the property. So, Kathy and I moved in with them and we opened up that house to a residential, as a residential program and six guys, or seven guys came in, the craziest seven men in the entire country.

One guy named Howard used to stand out on the back deck and scream at the top of his lungs, I hate you, Steve Gallagher. Wow, what a beginning. So, man, I don't know where I'm at on my notes.

I don't know what I'm even doing. What am I doing? So anyway, yeah, we bought the property and within a couple of years, we had 17 guys crammed into this little house. The living room was a bunk house.

We had a urinal in a closet. And I'm like, Lord, what are we gonna do? We're panicking. Like, I mean, more people wanna come into the program.

There's no way we can fit them. And we didn't know what we're gonna do. How are we gonna sell a house with a urinal in it? 17 men living in it.

So, it's just like, so another fast, we had to go on another, I think it was five-day fast that time and just praying, seeking God. And he worked out, I can't go and take the time to work it out, what the Lord did. But I can tell you this.

We bought this property. We sold that house back to the real estate broker. He sold us this property.

We basically traded in and our payment was $70 more a month and that was it. We didn't have to come up with a dime of our own. It was just miraculous.

So, we got this property. Since we got here, I wrote this down in a little thing we just did. We renovated the main house, built the student center, built the chapel, built the counseling building, and later added to it, built the two dorms and the two shop buildings.

We also provided staff housing by constructing four apartments and seven houses, as well as purchasing seven double-wide mobile homes. Every one of those projects required stepping out in faith, believing that we were being led by God and that he would provide us, and he did. And all these properties are owned outright.

We don't owe anything on anything. God has been providing and God has been leading ever since we started this thing. One story not mentioned in that, would you like one more story? Yes.

Okay. We're gonna run out of time. Is our administration building in Dry Ridge.

And it was 2003, wasn't that long after 9-11 and the economy had tanked. Money was hard to come by. We were barely making our bills every month.

I mean, there was no extra money, zero, you know, none. And this building was for sale for 325,000. And I can't remember how I found out about it, but Kathy and I drove over there to it, and I know God spoke to me and said, buy it.

I know he did. I can't remember, to be honest with you, I don't remember exactly what happened that time. But I just remember one story I forgot to tell you.

Can I go back to the other story? Is that all right? Okay, let me find my notes here. When we were getting ready to leave Sacramento, we gave everything away we owned and sold everything we had. So we had people coming, traipsing through our house and buying all our stuff.

And one night I came home and this one antique bed that we had, someone had bought it. So I'd gone into that room for something and the room was empty. And I just, I panicked inside, like, what have we done? You know, just sold and given away everything, practically.

And right then, I'm trying to find it here. Where is it? Where am I at? Right then, Jesus spoke to me. And it was as clear as someone, it's just, I'm telling you, it's the truth.

This is another one of those things. It was clear as someone actually speaking through my ear. He said, birds have nests and foxes have holes in the ground but the Son of Man hath nowhere to lay his head.

And I knew when I heard that, everything was gonna be okay. That the Lord was in control of everything. There was really quite a moment.

All right, so getting back up to this story. Oh man, I hope this isn't going on the internet. Where are we at? The Lord had told me to buy that building.

Okay, yeah. Money was really tight. We needed $60,000 in 60 days.

Is that what it was? No, $36,000 in 60 days. And to come up with that, meant that we needed $600 a day above operating expenses. Now, I'm telling you, we were just barely able to pay the bills.

But I knew God spoke. I knew He spoke. And so I did it.

I stepped out in faith, signed the papers and this was in 2003. So I don't know how He did it. I can't even remember how that money came in.

But money just started flowing in and by the end of that 60 days, we had that $36,000 to buy that building. And then all that extra money stopped right then, just as quickly as it had started. We had just enough to buy that building.

That's the way it's been for us all the way through. It's just been tremendous. I like what this man said about being led by the Lord.

Man is a traveler to the eternal world. Left to self-guidance, he possesses vast and uncontrollable powers of self-destruction. What is he without a guide in the wilderness, a pilot on the ocean? Some recognize no other spirit and are guided by no other spirit than the spirit of the world.

Beware of being guided by any other than the spirit of God. And that's one of the things you guys have to figure out while you're here is how to be led by the Lord. You know, people in self-will aren't really interested because they just wanna do a nice little religious thing, go to church, obey a few little outward rules and stuff.

Well, you can live your life that way and be a moral person, and you can live your life that way and be religious, but you cannot live that way and walk with God. It doesn't work like that. God isn't a religious system, he's a person.

And you have to know what it means to walk with him and to follow him. All right, so what's the point of this message? I wanna make you a bunch of unhinged charismatics hearing voices? Is that why I'm telling you all this? No, you were supposed to laugh then. I have a little thing there.

Great laughter breaks out right now. Guys, your Christian walk is all about relationship, and a real relationship is built on communication. I mean, who have you ever had a relationship with that you didn't communicate with, right? That's how you come to know a person.

It's how trust is established with the person. It's how affection grows with the person, is there has to be communication back and forth with that person. And the other thing is that a major aspect of obedience is learning the will of God and living in it.

The will of God is not some superficial teachings you adopt. It's not some vague pattern of life you just kind of are following. It's not a bunch of outward rules that you keep.

The will of God is distinct and specific for your life. God wants to be very involved in running your life. And I can tell you that if that scares you because you're afraid you may have to give something up, I promise you from much experience, anything you have to give up is gonna be amply repaid, unbelievably repaid.

You know, God speaks when he speaks. It's not that we tell him to speak. He speaks when he wants to.

He's God and we're man, right? But we have to make ourselves ready to hear from him. So let me just give you five things real quick. Five ways you can put yourself in a position to hear from God.

Number one, you must be living in submission to the Lord. You're only gonna hear the voice to the degree you're submitted to him. He's not gonna speak to a rebel.

If you're in rebellion to his authority, you're just not gonna hear from him. Second, you must limit the amount of time you subject yourself to the voice of the world. You know, the Holy Spirit doesn't come in shouting like the spirit of the world does through television, through the internet and that sort of stuff.

He doesn't come in shouting. He comes with a still small voice and you have to know what it means to be separated from the world at some level. Can't have it blaring in your home all the time and stuff like that.

Third, you must know how to quiet yourself, which means spending quality time with him every morning in the word and conversing with him, being intimate with him. Learn to listen to him. Number four, you have to have faith to believe that God actually wants to speak to you.

You mean everything to him. He wants to commune with you. He wants to be one with you.

He wants you to unite with him. And so you have to be, have the faith to believe that about him. And fifth, you must learn how to discern his voice.

You know, it's like Nate said earlier, sometimes you didn't know if it was the Lord speaking or was it just your own thinking until later. And then you realize, oh, that really was God speaking there. Many times I've had that experience.

That's what it means to hear from God. So I'm just gonna close in prayer and trust that the Lord has gotten something across to you that would be a help to you. Lord, I'm so grateful that you aren't some sterile, sterile, vague being out there in outer space somewhere or something that you're disinterested, don't really care, that you're not wanting to be a part of our lives.

You're not looking to be connected with us. I thank you that you're not like that, Lord, that you are a loving person, a good person, a person who cares deeply about people. And you want to walk with us and be a big part of our lives and to help us.

Thank you, Lord. I just acknowledge that. I love you for it.

I'm grateful, eternally grateful to you for all that you've done to lead us in this ministry, establishing this ministry, bringing quality people in here to help run it. Thank you, Lord, for all that you've done to create Pure Life Ministries and to help those in need here. All the way through all these 38 years, since those early days in Sacramento, you have been directing and leading and speaking, and you get all the glory and all the credit for all that's happened here.

In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You are dismissed, and you don't have to be quiet in here today.

Talk up a storm. Go right ahead.