How to DECODE God’s Voice: 5 Ways
Saturday, May 18th, 2024
Blog link: https://www.otakada.org/how-to-decode-gods-voice-5-ways/
Podcast link: Listen to the most recent episode of my podcast: How to Decide God’s Voice: 5 Ways God speaks to Us https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/otakada/episodes/How-to-Decide-Gods-Voice-5-Ways-God-speaks-to-Us-e2jq5fr
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Scriptures for Reading, Meditating, and Contemplating:
1 Samuel 3:1-19
The Message: How to DECODE God’s Voice: 5 Ways
How to decode God’s voice, various ways God speaks to us. Good morning friends, welcome to God’s Eagle Ministries. My name is Ambassador Monday Oreojo Ogbe and at God’s Eagle Ministries, we are seeding the nations with God’s word and God Himself is transforming lives through his timeless truth, one content at a time.
So the title today we’re bringing you this Saturday, the 18th of May 2024, is how to decode God’s voice and various ways God speaks to us. And before we go on, I would like us to pray. Heavenly Father, thank you again for the gift of access, for the privilege to call upon you anytime, any place, anywhere, on any issue. You’re available to respond to us. You’re eager to speak to us. Thank you Lord God Almighty for who you are. We exalt you. We give you all the praise and all the honor in Jesus name. Amen.
Holy Spirit, we ask that you breath life upon me and upon the content that i am putting out. We ask that you be amplified. Use my voice to speak to your people. As I speak once, cause them to hear a thousand times and more with the intent that you kickstart them to be all that you have called them to be and to do in this time and season, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
So Father, we ask that these words will ride upon the wings of the Spirit into the four winds of the earth to reach into the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, bone and marrow. In the name of Jesus that will bring about lasting transformation for your glory and our blessings. In Jesus name. Amen.
So friends, we’re looking at how to decode God’s voice. There are various ways God speaks to us. The text we’ll be looking at today is 1 Samuel chapter 3. But just on an introductory term, it is possible you’re already hearing God. The issue is either you’re not attentive or you don’t understand when he speaks or you’ve not been taught on how to be able to decode what he’s saying.
And so in this short exhortation, I would like us to look at the five ways God speaks to us. Five ways. And they are by audible voice, by revelation and revelations broken down into visions, trances and dreams. By inward witnessing, that is number three. Number four, by prophecies or word of knowledge. And number five, by the written word.
But there might be more of other ways because God can use anything to speak to us. You know, so He uses various ways and means to communicate to us. Like the backslidden prophet, Balaam, that he used the donkey to speak to him after warning him not to go to curse the children of Israel. He insisted on going and God told him to go ahead under a permissive will scenario. You can read that story in Number 22:21-39.
And on the way, his donkey began to speak to him when he began to flog the donkey. The donkey received the human voice and began to speak to him. And there was an angel that was right there in front of them with a sword ️ drawn to strike Balaam, the backslidden prophet.
And so we don’t want to put God in a box, but there are these five ways that God speaks most of the time. And so we want to look at them one after the other, so the five of them are by audible voice, by revelation, that’s number one, by revelation, which could be in visions, trances, dreams. Trances are like your eyes, you just go into a different realm. You’re sitting in one place and your find yourself in different realm completely and you just get interrupted and you begin to see, get submerged into another realm, begin to see things the way they are revealed. Number three, by inward witnessing, you understand that. And number four, by prophecies or word of knowledge. Number five, by written word. So let’s look at the audible voice. Now, before I go on, you understand that as you go through scripture, you see even in the garden of Eden, God coming down in the cool of the day and discussing with the humans, that is Adam and Eve, and taking a walking with them, spirit to spirit. And so we see that. We see how he came down to warn Cain, he should be careful because evil was planned against him and he must master it. So he doesn’t go ahead and kill his brother, he was warned ahead of time. And then when he carried out that the intent of his heart, driven by hatred, God came and discussed with him, “Where is your brother?” and cain responded, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” that is God talking to man and man talking back to God. That account is in Genesis 4.
And we go on and on where Enoch walk with God and was not for God took him. There was discussion going on back and forth. Enoch was going to the Lord back and forth.
Then we go down to Noah, the first flood that filled the earth. We see there that Noah got specific instruction and the design of the ark. And so there was an ongoing back-to-back communication with specifics on what needs to be done, the measurement, the dimensions, the heights, the width, and all of that, the number of animals that should go in and all of that.
And he continued and continued. We go to Abraham where God called Abraham to leave his country. He spoke to him. It wasn’t a foreign thing. It wasn’t something that is rare for God not to speak to human. God spoke to one of the kings that wanted to take over Abraham’s wife and dealt with them in Egypt. That was Pharaoh. They were able to tell who spoke to them. In Egypt, that happened. And then in Philistines, the king of the Philistines, Abimelech, God also spoke to him in a dream. And there was an engagement going in the dream. Can you beat that? This is somebody who doesn’t have any relationship with God and God was speaking to him. So we go on and on and on and on.
We have scenarios where He spoke to Paul. Paul was on his way to arrest Christians, to imprison, to kill. He was a sinner, essentially with godly zeal. But God interrupted that trip and was able to stop him and make him blind. He heard everything. The people who were there did not hear anything.
So it’s not foreign. And in our day and age, God is still speaking. And so I want to look at the audible voice.
1) AUDIBLE VOICE
So before I go on to giving us that explanation, I would like to read 1 Samuel chapter 3. In 1 Samuel chapter 3, we have this account. Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. The word of the Lord was rare and precious in those days.
There was no frequent or widely spread vision. At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had dimmed so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
Samuel was lying down. When the Lord called Samuel and he answered, Here I am, he ran to Eli and said, Here I am. For you called me.
Eli said, I did not call you. Lie down again. So he went and lay down.
And the Lord called again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here am I. You did call me. Eli answered, I did not call my son.
Lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. And the word of the Lord was not yet revealed to him.
And the Lord called Samuel the third time. And he went to Eli and said, Here I am. For you did call me.
Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Eli, mark the word, Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. The boy did not perceive.
Samuel did not perceive. Eli perceived. So Eli said to Samuel, Go lie down.
And if he calls you, you shall say, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood and called us at other times.
Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Can you beat that? God expected the child to respond before he begins to speak.
Because God doesn’t see our age. He sees us as spirit. Spirit to spirit.
Spirit is ageless. You don’t have a nine-month-old spirit. You don’t have a five-year-old spirit.
Spirit is spirit. Spirit is eternal. That’s why people don’t just disappear when they die, their core, the real them – the spirit lives on.
That’s why there’s hell. And that’s why there’s heaven. So when we die, the spirit lives on.
Okay. So eleven. The Lord told Samuel, Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of all who hear it shall tingle.
On that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I now announce to him that I will judge and punish his house forever for the iniquity of which he knew. For his sons were bringing a curse upon themselves, blaspheming God.
And he did not restrain them. Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for or purged with sacrifice or offering forever. Samuel lay until morning.
Then he opened the doors of the Lord’s house and he was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel, said Samuel, my son, and he answered, Here I am. Verse seventeen
Eli said, What is it? He told you, pray, do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more so if you hide anything from me of all that he said to you. And Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing.
And Eli said, It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. And verse nineteen, we hear that Samuel grew.
The Lord was with him and he let none of his words fall to the ground. Verse nineteen. We just read first Samuel chapter three, verse one to nineteen.
So we see here a dialogue going on between God and Samuel using audible voice. So he was speaking. Samuel did not hear what Saul was hearing.
So Samuel was hearing. Okay. So we see that account going on just like this Saul’s case.
That’s Paul. He was hearing what was going on between him and Jesus but nobody in his company saw him on his way to Damascus. Now, the audible voice.
And this is the clearest by rarest way God speaks to us. You know, God speaks to us through the audible voice when he speaks directly to and we hear him clearly with the ears. Okay.
And the the feeling is like when a big man speak to a servant in a very loud voice. It is much more than that though. It is something like a roaring sound.
It sounds clear and rather frightening. Leaves no room for doubt. Often when it happens, one keeps looking around minutes later as if looking for the person that had just spoken.
God’s audible voice comes with a bang and it comes immediate impact on the ear. Be a believer or not, it is this audible voice that many believers actually have in mind when they talk of hearing from God. Yet not even a sizable number of believers will ever experience it.
The reason is that God prefers using other methods to speak to us on daily basis as we shall see later. Who can receive? God’s audible voice can be received by anyone at any time at God’s discretion without any hindrance. Irrespective of the person’s spiritual standing, God uses it in very rare occasion to arrest the attention of the hearer on the spot like Saul heading off to um on a wrong mission to arrest Christians.
And Jesus encountered him there and spoke to him, you know, and to cause him to obey without any delay or doubt. Believers and non-believers alike can hear God’s audible voice when directed at them without any impediment whatsoever. God’s audible voice can also be received even when we are not at rest.
In other words, we don’t need to be still before we can hear this one. God’s audible voice drowns any other sound in and around us when it occurs, therefore it cannot be hindered by anything. A good Bible example of hearing God’s audible voice is that of Paul which I mentioned earlier which occurred on his way to Damascus when the voice spoke through the huge light that had appeared to him in Acts chapter 26 verse 14.
Only God’s audible voice could have arrested him on the spot and caused him to obey every instruction that he was given and he had to follow it. Any other form of speaking would have allowed him room for doubt since he had already made up his mind to go for the persecution at Damascus. I believe Abraham and his and the believers of the Old Testament including the prophets heard God’s audible voice as opposed to the more gentle ways he now speaks to those of us in the New Testament since the Holy Spirit began to dwell in man.
So we go on there and why God does not use audible voice often? God uses audible voice in extremely important situations where there mustn’t be any delay or hindrance. That was the case with Paul. God also uses this method when addressing unbelievers since they don’t have the Holy Ghost and so cannot hear nor understand him if he uses the other ways.
This method, audible voice, though the most effective of all, is the least used perhaps because of the fact that it makes people behave like robots. They obey without wasting time. It paralyzes man’s will and resistance and turns him into an obedient robot.
But we know that by his nature God does not want people to come to him or to obey him by violation of their will. He rather wants us to come to him willingly and so God prefers speaking to us by other ways which allow us to exercise our wills freely to obey or not to obey him. How to receive? Unlike other ways that follow, in audible voice nothing lies in our hands in order to receive.
That is, we don’t have to make any efforts or observe any rules for it to come. Only God decides when to use audible voice and whenever he does we must hear despite ourselves. I doubt if we can even receive it by asking.
If you want to hear God once and obey him instantly, therefore keep obeying him. If you want to hear God once and begin to fear him all your life, if you want his voice to jolt you into action such that you will never look back again, then just hope. Or do you ask? Or do you ask to hear his thundering audible voice? It is one experience every person on earth, irrespective of their faith, should have.
When it goes thundering voice to silence are many often irrelevant arguments. Maybe one will come your way before we finish this series.
Now we talked about audible voice, now by revelation.
2) REVELATION (VISIONS, TRANCE, DREAMS
And in 2 Corinthians 12: 11 says, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. Another way God speaks to us is by revelations and visions. That’s number two of five.
Unlike audible voice, revelation is indeed one of the commonly used. It simply means hearing God with the eye, the inner eye. It’s like the audio visual technique used in passing on information where we both hear and see at the same time.
Revelation is received when we are at rest and the consciousness subdued such as when we are asleep. It will come in the form of dreams, visions, trances. I don’t mean the trances done by psychics through evil powers.
I mean short seizure of consciousness which appears as a very brief sleep within which period a vision is passed on to us by God. It can happen while we are active. The activity is resumed as soon as a brief vision is over.
The Bible is full of example of people who interacted with God on that basis. And one of those we looked at, it’s Peter, Joseph’s dreams as well, Jacob’s visions, Peter’s trances at Joppa, Paul’s many deep revelations, 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And ofcourse the revelation given to John in the book of Revelation on the Isle of Patmos which we find in the book of Revelation.
God has often led us through strange and deep visions too. It can be a wonderful experience to know that God is personally sending us secret information through heavenly audio visual method. How to receive revelation? This can be received by asking a gift.
Matthew chapter 7, verse 7 to 11. If we read that very quickly, Matthew chapter 7, verse 7 to 11. Let’s look at that.
Matthew chapter 7, verse 7 to 11. And it says, keep on asking and it will be given you. Keep on seeking, you’ll find. Keep on knocking reverently and the door will be opened unto you. That is unlike the audible voice. One can receive by laying on of hand by a minister of God. That is a gift of revelation can be impacted. In 1st Timothy chapter 4, verse 14, you get the account there. We have to be careful however about who lays hands on us. Obedience to one vision brings another in Acts 26, 19.
It may also come to us at even when we have not asked or made any effort to receive it. Interpretation is needed when we hear God through this way. Daniel and his Jewish brethren in Babylon had this gift. But Daniel was specifically said to have the gift of interpretation, understanding of visions. If you don’t understand your dream or vision, you may ask God to give you the wisdom for accurate interpretation. When we ask God for the gift of revelation, we should ask him for the gift of interpretation also.
Otherwise, we might see ourselves running to people each time we have a vision for them to give us the meaning. And this could lead us into error. Revelation removes doubts in that we see and hear. And seeing is believing. Seeing is our faith. For instance, seeing heaven in one minute vision is much more powerful than hearing about it a million times.
That was part of the reason why Paul was very powerful in his ministry. He learned a lot of unspeakable things through deep revelations and visions as we have already seen. We still need faith however to apply an act on revelation, especially some very difficult or deep ones.
Every vision must be confirmed by the word of God to avoid the error of counterfeit which familiar spirits from the devil are capable of giving. Why are many churches and other standing outlets full of visions and transgressions sent to them from different sources? Therefore, we need to cross-check what we have received with the settled word of God. You can receive now.
Paul prayed for his converts that they might receive this gift of revelation whereby they could begin to hear from God and so know him better. And Ephesians 1: 15 to 17 says, I also do not cease to pray for you that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. You may say this prayer by faith so as to receive.
You may also wish to say your own prayers. But the most important thing here is for you and I to have the faith that God will hear and grant us the request. So let us pray.
PRAYER to RECEIVE REVELATIONS from God
Dear Lord Jesus, please give me the spirit of revelation. You can repeat that after me. Dear Lord Jesus, please give me the spirit of revelation to enable me to begin to hear from you even through visions, even through visions and revelations. Also give me the wisdom to understand any revelations you will give me from today. Help me also to avoid all errors that the evil one may want to send to me. Thank you, my Lord, for I believe you have heard me. I look forward to receiving revelations from you from today. In Jesus name, amen. So that is a prayer that we can pray to begin to receive revelation.
This is an activation prayer.
3) INWARD WITNESSING
Then we go to number three, inward witnessing or inward voice. And God has used this quite a number of times in speaking to me.
In Romans chapter 8, 16, we read that the spirit itself bears witness with our spirit. We have now come to the real thing, inward witnessing. Because this is actually what is meant by hearing God.
In the real sense of it, anyone who says he hears from God but whose experience does not include inward witnessing still hasn’t got it. This is the most common way God speaks to us as individuals. And it implies receiving God’s voice through our own spirit.
I call it stepping down God’s high voltage voice to our own level so that it does not shock us. Just the same way high tension electric wires are stepped down before use in the homes. God’s audible voice is like the high tension wire.
However, when passed through our spirit instead of direct to our ears, it’s like stepping it down for our savor consumption. By these, God’s higher intelligence is passed through his Holy Spirit to our own spirit, which then brings the message down to our level of reasoning and understanding. For the Spirit of God bears witness with our own spirit, Romans 8, 16.
That is why this method is often mistaken for our own heart speaking to us. That is our own thoughts. I can assure you, many of you receive that because you’re not tuned in, or because you don’t know how to discode it or because there is too much going on in the tablet of your mind
You might say you don’t hear God’s voice. Sometimes you just know what to do. You don’t know where it came from and the action you took was the correct one because you have asked to be led by Him. It just comes. You just have a witness that this is the right way to go, and you have a peace about it. When you begin to take a step, the peace goes on.
But if you’ve heard from the wrong source and you take a step, you lose your peace. That’s how God, the peace of God, surpasses all understanding will guide your heart and your mind and subsequently, your steps.
So of all the ways that God speaks to us, this appears to be the most misunderstood by us. Quite often, when God speaks through inward witnessing, we tend to take it for our own thoughts. The voice of the enemy also comes to us in this similar manner, and that compounds the misunderstanding because it is projected on the table of our minds.
As a result of this confusion, some people have chosen to ignore whatever voice they hear from inside them, and have been expecting God’s voice to come distinctly from outside them through the ears. That’s not the best thing either, as God prefers speaking to us from within us, rather than abandon us, every voice that sounds from within us, for fear of making a mistake. What we should do is try to recognize God’s own voice. This is where discerning comes in.
It is where we need to be regular and deserve to be led by this way. But to discern God’s voice as distinguished from man’s and Satan’s, the Lord really speaks to us to be able to distinguish His voice. He says, thus referring to the voice of the enemy of the Lord, Jesus has said, all that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
And we should, however, recognize the beautiful voice of our Lord and Master, then follow or obey Him. And He wrote in John 10, 3-4, and the sheep hear His voice. He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.
Making it abundantly clear, He further said in John 10, 27, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. Do you recognize the voice of Jesus? If not, don’t let this chance slip by. How to discern God’s inward voice? How do we discern that? Since God’s voice can be misunderstood when it comes through our hearts, how can we confirm that the voice is actually His? Common sense and scientific techniques surely cannot help us to discern God’s still small voice inside us.
However, there is what we call the peace and the joy test, which I mentioned earlier. The Lord Jesus has said, My peace I give unto you. John 14, 27 As a result, peace has always been present whenever and wherever God is.
Conversely, the absence of peace has always meant the absence or disapproval of God too. We can use this law to distinguish God’s voice in our hearts. Whenever a voice is urging us to do something and we are not sure whose voice, we should try and find out whether or not that voice instruction is accompanied with inward peace also.
If yes, then it is likely to be God speaking. The inward peace is placed there by the Holy Spirit through whom God’s voice witnesses to our hearts. Romans 8, 16 Absence of this witness confirmation by the Holy Spirit means absence of inward peace.
For instance, if after praying for God’s guidance in marriage, a particular brother or sister persistently comes to your heart, you may use the peace joy test to know whether the leading is of God. All you do is to listen to your insight as the thought of the brother or sister comes up. Is that thought accompanied with peace and joy? If you think of that person, is there peace inside your heart? Do you have joy as you go about planning to get married to that person? If you are true to yourself and your heart has not been darkened by sentiment and emotion, you will surely get approval or disapproval through this test.
As long as you presented it at the foot of the cross, there will be a confirmation or disapproval to that decision that you are taking. And the way the Spirit lets you know is that you lose your peace if you are taking the wrong decision. Whenever we have misunderstood God’s inward witness and wanted to act on contrary, the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost has always safeguarded us by withdrawing God’s peace and joy, leaving us restless until we check and then abandon the wrong decision.
We call it Holy Ghost check. It works for us. It will work for you too, so long as you are sensitive to the Spirit.
Practice makes perfect. If practice makes perfect in hearing God, then it is most applicable to inward witnessing. At times, it even works like trial and error, so to say.
This is because it has been shown that by constant and conscious effort, backed up by faith of course, one begins to distinguish God’s small inward voice with relative ease and accuracy until perfection is almost achieved. Further, however, there might have been some mistakes, say, when one has acted in a wrong voice or when one has ignored God’s voice in error. We should not be afraid of those initial mistakes, provided they meet from a sincere heart that is ready to learn.
God really does expect us to learn through initial but not too harmful mistakes, like it happened to Samuel too. He ran dead three times to a wrong person, Eli, before learning that it was God’s voice and not Eli’s. Samuel’s story actually brings to fore the awful possibility of someone even being the lost servant and yet not able to hear from him.
It is true of the Old Testament now. I said, first Psalm chapter three, verse four and five, and Samuel ministered unto the Lord. And the Lord called Samuel and he answered, here am I. And he ran unto Eli. Verse seven, then explains why the problem. And Samuel did not yet know the Lord. He said, yet he was ministering, serving unto the Lord in verse one.
Are you like that right now? Then ask the Lord to reveal himself to you today so that your life may change for the better.
4) PROPHESIES/ WORD of KNOWLEDGE
Okay. So we now look at prophecy.
This is quite popular too. In first Corinthians 14.1, we read, desire spiritual gifts but rather that you may prophesy. So by prophecy, God may speak to us through word of prophecy also. Okay. This can be done either to us directly through our own lips or through someone else.
God may speak audibly to us through our lips, in which case one is prophesying to oneself loud. It may happen when one is praying alone or even in the midst of other people. However, it could make an experienced Christian to know that the message being given by him is for himself.
God’s Holy Spirit will however help us to understand at last. The more common type of prophecy is the one giving through another person to us. If this happens in a gathering of many people, it will again require the Holy Spirit witnessing to our hearts that the message is for us.
However, for the safety of your soul, do not get into the habit of people prophesying to you or you prophesying to them all the time. Many people are in this habit which could easily lead to various errors. As much as possible, try to depend on hearing directly from God.
Other people may then be used to confirm it. Whatever happens, subject every prophecy to test before applying because familiar spirit can also give false prophecies to people.
Confirming God’s voice.
To be on the safe side, it is always better to test any voice that says something to us to sustain its source. This is important because even the enemy can imitate God’s voice and sign. Below are some ways we can test the validity of God’s voice we have heard.
God’s word. The Bible remains the most authentic and readily available means of confirmation. Any voice we hear that says something contrary to what is already written in the Bible is not of God.
But one may argue that Satan also quotes the Bible. Even at that, when Satan quotes the Bible, he often presents it out of context or incompletely in such that any watchful Christian can pick the whole easily. To use the Bible for confirmation, however, it can only work out well where the Christian is well-versed in the word.
A person who lacks knowledge of the word will obviously find it difficult checking against it. David had said that he hid God’s word in his heart, obviously, to act as a check in Psalms 119 verse 11. And as a lamb, Psalm 119 verse 105, let us make effort to store God’s written word in our heart, also to be able to detect and reject errors in time.
Revelational times can be used to confirm God’s voice. So it could be revelations to you or to someone else concerning you. The peace and joy test, as earlier discussed, is also helpful.
VERY IMPORTANT: The Peace Joy test will not work if you are not in rebellion or deeply in sin. Especially if the prophecy had to do with something in your life that is hindering God from perfecting issues in your life. The prophecy could come as resentment or conviction but we should not remain there. We should move on to repentance so that the peace joy test can return. We know how many prophets were killed because they revealed the truth to the intended recipient and that got them to the point of being killed. Darkness hates light. Sinners hate truth. So, peace joy test works if you are in right standing with God. We see that with Jesus and the Teachers of the law in terms of resettlement, the Pharisees. We see that with John the Baptist and Herod the king where they took out his head to celebrate birthday wish. We see that with Jeremiah put in the pit and fed with bread of affliction and the king of Israel because of the hash prophecies. The list can keep going on.
God will always know the best way to confirm his voice to you if you let him know you need his assistance. Okay.
SOME ESSENTIALS STEPS to Hearing and Dialoguing with with
Are you really desiring to be hearing from God directly? Then, in addition to what you have read already, try to go through these ones diligently, checking at each point whether it affects you. Thereafter, apply any new things you have learned, and God will surely meet you at the point of your need.
Be still after prayers. After praying, some people often rush out on God just as he’s about to say something concerning the prayer. So if you should take prayers to be one-way thing, they don’t expect God to reply to their prayers on the spot, and so they miss the mark.
The right thing, however, is to remain at God’s presence, quiet, after prayers, expecting him to do what? To speak to us. You see, the air of expectancy is one of the ways that God speaks. You shouldn’t go to your father during prayer, discuss and present your case and after prayer, and just walk out. He didn’t say anything. You move on to something else, and you’re not able to decern because God needs our attention. Look at how He called Simon several times to get Samuel’s attention.
Samuel acknowledged that he was here to listen, and God spoke. God did not say, oh, Samuel is a small boy, so he wouldn’t understand. Samuel heard quite okay, and God didn’t just begin to speak down, and speak down his throat. He waited for him to respond. God wants to get our attention, and so when we finish praying, we should wait in silence. Keep quiet and BE EXPECTANT. Don’t even think about your prayer. Just ask the Lord, speak to me, and it comes to the inward witness, words being projected through telepathic mean to You. You just know.
I’ve had encounters with angels, their mouth are shut, and I’m hearing everything they’re telling me in my spirit man. It’s just beginning to get thoughts that you never thought about, options that you never looked at before, and they just come, very powerful, and you know this is not from you. Sometimes it could be so close to home, acknowledging and confirming what you’re thinking about, but the peace check has to go with it.
God wants to speak at once concerning the prayers we have said. Therefore, it is not proper to leave God’s presence in a hurry after we have finished talking to him. The scripture says that if God knows you are waiting for him to speak, He will Spirit to spirit. And then from your spirit to your mind.
Don’t fear whether the voice you are about to hear is God’s or Satan’s. Some people, because of the fear that they might hear a wrong voice and end up not listening to anyone at all, even God’s, if you have spoken to God, simply believe that it is God also and not Satan that will speak back to you. Also, trust that even if the enemy attempts to counterfeit God’s voice, the Lord will help you detect and reject him.
If God sees that you trust him completely to speak to you, He is wise enough and able also to give you what you have desired and to shield you from the serpent. Jesus has already assured us saying in
John 10: 5 and 27, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me, and a stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers.
So, are you always listening to the voice of Satan? Do you always listen to the voice of the enemy more than the voice of God? In fact, so many people are turned to be able to hear the voice of the devil, expecting always to hear the devil speak to them than God speak to them. They are right. They will always hear the voice of satan because they are expectant to hear satan speak to them.
How is that? Is that proper? Avoid Samuel’s error. Samuel was in God’s service as a young believer with every zeal. However, when God called, spoke to him, read and answered God, Samuel went to a man of God, Eli, who wasn’t calling him.
As in 1 Samuel 3, 1 to 8. He wasn’t expecting God to speak directly to him. He preferred going to man of God instead of dealing directly with God. Today, many believers prefer going to some big man of God with great anointing for counseling rather than going to God directly. The lesson is that it was only after Samuel had learned to talk with God directly that God began to reveal great things to him and soon he became a great man of God himself. Don’t be satisfied in your heart until you are able to talk with God directly. Let that desire be intensified in your heart.
Then God will assist you to begin to hear from him. The children of Israel perished in the wilderness because they did not make any effort, nor had they any desire to hear God on their own. They were contented with hearing from Moses only – Exodus 20:19
It is dangerous to hang the salvation of our souls on any man. Whatever his apparent position with the Lord, let’s go beyond men of God, please. Always fine-tune.
Hearing from God is like receiving programs from the radio house. Though programs may be beamed from the station, yet there may be interferences which will hinder clear reception by the radio set. To receive properly, the radio set has to be in good working condition with with good and powerful antennae in place.
Fine-tuning is then necessary to remove undue interferences. In the same way, when we are waiting to receive from God, there could be interferences that may block the way. Sources of such spiritual interference include our own thoughts, which might begin to wander about.
At times, one’s mind could wander to places like the office, market, kitchen, or the shoe that irritated you the day before. The moment one is about to break through in prayer, if that happens, we are to speak to our minds and thoughts and command them to be still and to be subject to the word of God. 2 Corinthians 10.5. The devil could also inject destructive substances into our mind, like arrows, which produce negative tendencies.
It might even send us words that sound as if it’s from us in the first person for sins already confessed and forgiven many times ago, fear, self-pity, doubt, anxiety, we are to clear these interferences at once, rather than dwelling on and considering them while trying to listen to God. By commanding them to be still, we should then consciously try to focus on God for clear reception.
Guilt-feeling is often very powerful in causing interference to clear reception from God. We should use Hebrew’s fourth system to overcome. That place says we should come to God when we are in need and not wait till we are good enough.
Unconfessed sins should be confessed the moment they are brought to focus. Hidden anxiety causes interference too. Remember the Lord says we should be anxious for nothing.
A relaxed mind is necessary for clear spiritual focus and reception, like a TV set. Well, like the TV set, to receive signals and clear programs, certain conditions should be met. First, the TV set should be in good condition.
Then it should be hooked to the source of power, to the mains. Sockets should be switched on then for power to come into the TV set. The TV antenna should also be properly stretched out, the bigger the better.
THE ROLE of the HOLY SPIRIT and constant INFILLING
The TV set here represents man in his natural state. To be hooked to the source of power is to be in the Holy Ghost, the source of our spiritual power. That is when we are born again and are filled with the Holy Spirit.
We are then alive and the filling of the Holy Spirit has to be continuous. To switch on, if not, our main power supply will be on low voltage for some of us that live in Nigeria or where there’s low voltages here and there. So that’s why we need to keep recharging the Holy Spirit, get fresh infilling.
The fact that you got baptism of the Holy Ghost 10 years ago does not mean you have to stop. You have to keep building yourself up in the most holy faith, speaking in the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues – Jude 1:20. Okay, so those who are born again but who live in disobedience to God are quenching the Spirit and will soon find it difficult from hearing God.
Requirement of FAITH
In this illustration, the TV antenna is like our faith for faith helps us to receive divine signals. The bigger our faith, the more we receive. Don’t wonder whether you too have got the spiritual antenna faith for yourself.
You surely have. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been reading or even have been getting involved what we’re doing in this series. However, what you need might might be to stretch out that antenna as a folded antenna cannot receive well stretched out.
The antenna is to exercise one’s faith. For emphasis, a folded antenna is faith that is not exercised and it hinders hearing from God. Because the thing that instructions will come to you that you need faith to act on them.
For instance, the time I received the word to to go around the country at the point where kidnapping was going on all over in 2021. I went on and I came back safely, safe and sound. The mission was accomplished in peace. I had the peace of God to go ahead.
We need to act it out. Faith is demonstrated by works. That’s what I was trying to say that you can’t say you have faith in God and you’re looking for money, God says, start a business.
Faith without works, you step out and start working on it. And then God will bring the blessing. Faith is demonstrated by works.
If you have heard God, then act it out. Put it to work. That will encourage God to make his voice clearer and louder next time.
Since he knows you will also put it to work. Repeated obedience gradually removes every hindrance and you can now talk with God face to face as a best friends world.
GOD CAN SAY NO TO YOU – HE Told MOSES NO, He TOLD PAUL NO and HE TOLD JESUS NO.
This is another vital point to note in your request for a closer relationship with God. God can say no? Yes, let me remind you that in trying to hear from God, you should be prepared to hear him even when he says no. This reminder is necessary because we have often somehow unconsciously behaved as if God never says no.
We have often said that God has answered only when he says yes. When he says no, we don’t seem to hear and so we keep on asking. Let’s learn from the great man of God, Paul.
Paul had a need in his life. He wanted a devilish affliction to go and for three times he prayed God to remove it from him. And what happened? God told him no.
That his faith, his grace is sufficient. So, we must be ready to just be silent to hear him clearly. He says no as the answer and Paul did not pretend not to have heard the no.
Consequently, he stopped asking, right? Rather, he adjusted his mind and attitude towards the problem. Let’s hear him tell the story. And the last comment God says, I don’t want to hear this from you again.
That is God for you. So, God can say no. Paul’s understanding of God changed for better from their both situations. He told Jesus no in the garden of Gethsemane.
It’s not good for a believer to run about as one that has no present help. We should rather go to God with our problems and needs and be open enough to hear him say yes, wait, not yet, no and so on.
We should apply his answer however difficult it might seem. His grace will always see us through if we permit a difficult situation uh to remain. So, the key point is that we should never give up.
If there’s an issue, we should keep asking until clarity comes. Until God brings clarity to us. If not, we should not go back.
Okay. And that is that quite honestly.
5) THE WRITTEN WORD
The word of God, the bible is another way that God speaks which is number five.
It’s another way that God speaks to us. We have had situations where we have a request and then you open the Bible and it goes directly and it addresses the issue and you have a witness within you that that is Him pointing you to that scripture. What you do from there is a question of your faith or the Bible just slips open and then it just goes directly to the area that had the answer. The word of God or you going into church and you have a particular question you have and the the scripture the passage that was read addresses the issue on point. Or the preacher addresses the concerns you brought or the songs from the choir addresses the questions you brought. Or a child ministering in teaching addresses the issues you brought. Or the words from your enemy can address the issues you brought to God. So don’t put God in a box. God is beyond your box of human reasonings and calculations
It might even come from a book and you might have a book in your house for years and you’ve not read it and then one day the spirit just directs you and your eyes are directed forcefully to it to get your attention until you take that up and then God ministers and speaks to you through that. You’ve gone to church, nothing was said that answered the questions you asked. In your house, God decides to pick up a book that you’ve bought for a long time and you’ve not done anything to it and in there, the Lord begins to download through the speaker who had written this book 10 years ago not knowing that God was going to use that to speak to you.
God can speak through anything, can speak through the wind, can speak through a lot of things, you know, through the still small voice, the thundering, and all of that. God can speak to you through anything and so we should not lock ourselves down and say okay God has to come through this format that we define. Nothing is going to happen.
All right so in recapping we said that how to decode the voice of God. and various ways God speak to us and we read 1 Samuel 3 verses 1 to 19 and we said there are five ways but we should not limit ourselves to those five ways which is number one by audible voice, by revelations, vision, trance, and dreams, that’s in bracket, by inward witnessing, by prophecies, word of knowledge, by the written word.
So the Lord can point you to read a word in the Bible, in the books that you read, and so many other ways. I hope and pray that you’ve been blessed by this and it’s about 1 26 a.m here. We are in the morning of 18th. It is important we deal the issue of conversation with God. We took a series on praying to thrust out labourers. and if God is speaking to you to head to another nation you have to be able to hear his voice. If you’re in that nation and He is giving instruction to you, you have to able to hear his voice okay.
We are all tuned to hear and we just need training. Prophet Samuel didn’t have to do anything to hear God’s voice, he just needed to respond and then God went on and it’s just about how to decode, how to know that he is the one speaking. God is speaking but we need to tune in to hear Him. Praise the Lord, hallelujah.
Question for you!
The information shared today, does it make sense to you? if so, give further insights.
Going forward, what would you do differently? Make commitment to start immediately!
If you have follow-up questions, feel free to write back, call or chat us as we trust that the Spirit of God will give answers beyond your wildest imagination. We are here to equip you to be all that God called you to be and to do in Jesus name
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Shalom!
Ambassador Monday O. OGBE
God’s Eagle Ministries
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