1. Hearing God’s Voice Anytime
Session Three:
What it is and what it isn’t
Bill Perry

2. Reviewing what we’ve seen
God has been speaking forever

3. Reviewing what we’ve seen
God has been speaking forever
God knows us better than anyone

4. Reviewing what we’ve seen
God has been speaking forever
God knows us better than anyone
God’s ways are higher/better than ours

5. Reviewing what we’ve seen
God has been speaking forever
God knows us better than anyone
God’s ways are higher/better than ours
God wants us to know his will; that’s why he communicates with us

6. Reviewing what we’ve seen
God has been speaking forever
God knows us better than anyone
God’s ways are higher/better than ours
God wants us to know his will; that’s why he communicates with us
God has communicated in a lot of ways

7. Hearing God: What it isn’t
Formal “contemplative spirituality”

8. A seminar: “The Sacred Way: Re-discovering the Ancient Art of listening to the Voice of God”
“Is it really possible to hear God speak to you? How do you listen to God’s voice? Is there more to hearing God than just reading your Bible and praying more? Come and discover some new ‘ancient’ ways of communicating with God and discovering God’s plan for your life.”

9. Practices/Disciplines turned into rituals
A seminar: “The Sacred Way: Re-discovering the Ancient Art of listening to the Voice of God”
“Is it really possible to hear God speak to you? How do you listen to God’s voice? Is there more to hearing God than just reading your Bible and praying more? Come and discover some new ‘ancient’ ways of communicating with God and discovering God’s plan for your life.”
Practices/Disciplines turned into rituals

10. These examples illustrate what are not ways to hear God’s voice.
A seminar: “The Sacred Way: Re-discovering the Ancient Art of listening to the Voice of God”
Labyrinths
“Centering Down” prayer
Chanting
Repetitive meditation
Assuming certain postures
Ascetic practices
Long periods of silence
Focusing on visual stimulation
These examples illustrate what are not ways to hear God’s voice.

11. Hearing God: What it isn’t
Formal contemplative spirituality
God hiding himself from us

12. A Hiding God?
Deuteronomy 31: “I will forsake [Israel] and I will hide my face from them… I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they turned to other gods.”
Psalm 88:14 -- “Lord, why do you cast off my soul? Why do you hide your face from me?”

13. A Hiding God? -- No!
Hebrews 13:5 -- “For [God] himself as said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”
Philippians 1:6 -- “…He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 4:30 -- “…You were sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption.”

14. Hearing God: What it isn’t
Formal contemplative spirituality
God hiding himself from us
Others? … (What have you found as ways or methods not to hear God’s voice?)

15. Hearing God: His voice From Psalm 29:
v.3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters…
v.4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
v. 5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
v. 7 The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.
v. 8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
v. 9 The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare: and in his temple everyone says, “Glory!”

16. Hearing God: His voice From Isaiah 30:30-31:
And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones. For through the voice of the LORD Assyria will be beaten down, as he strikes with a rod.

17. Hearing God: He speaks
~500 times in the Bible:
“Thus says the Lord…”

18. Hearing God: He speaks Hebrews 12:25:
“See that you do not refuse him who speaks…”

19. Hearing God: He speaks Hebrews 12:25:
“See that you do not refuse him who speaks…”
If you know he is speaking to you and
you refuse what he says, you have no
assurance he’ll continue speaking to you.

20. Hearing God: His Word
John 5:37-38: (about unbelievers)
“And the Father himself, who sent me, has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form. But you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe.”

21. Hearing God: His Word John 5:37-38: (about believers, adapted)
“And the Father himself, who sent me, has testified of me. You have heard his voice at any time, and seen his form. But you have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do believe.”

22. Hearing God: His Word
John 8:47
“He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

23. Hearing God: His Spirit
Proverbs 1:23: (Wisdom says…)
“Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.”
John 14:26: (Jesus said to his disciples…)
“The Holy Spirit…will teach you all
things, and bring to your remembrance
all things that I said to you.”

24. Hearing God: His Spirit
John 16:13-15: (Jesus to his disciples…)
“When he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak; and he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you.”

25. Hearing God: His Spirit
I Corinthians 2:10-12:
“But God has revealed [the things which God has prepared for those who love him] to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”

26. Hearing God: His Spirit
Romans 8:16:
“The Spirit himself testifies with our
spirit that we are God's children.”

27. Hearing God: His Spirit
1 Corinthians 2:13-14:
“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned [understood/distinguished].”

28. Hearing God: His Spirit
1 John 2:20, 27:
“But you have an anointing from the Holy One [Jesus], and you know all things….But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in him.”

29. Hearing God: His Word What would you prefer: To hear God’s Word, or
to have God’s Word?

30. Hearing God: His Word
“Let us seek to know Him in the Word. It is in the Word we will find the Holy Spirit. Don't read too many other things. Some of you will say, "Look who's talking!" Well, go ahead and say it, I don't mind; but I am reading fewer and fewer things as I get older, not because I'm losing interest in this great, big, old suffering world, but because I'm gaining interest in that other world above. So I say, don't try to know everything. You can't. Find Him in the Word, for the Holy Ghost wrote this book. He inspired it, and He will be revealed in its pages.” --A. W. Tozer

31. Hearing God Himself
“God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth. A good sermon is the truth about the truth about the truth, about the Truth. It is not the Truth. The Truth is God alone. Around this Truth there is a scaffolding of words, of theologies, and of exposition….and we have to penetrate through sermons, through theological books, through everything which is 'words' and be bound up with the reality of God Himself.”
-- Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, founder of Voice of the Martyrs