God is a Talker - Week 2: Your Birthright, and the One Who Moves First

him back in the 80s, but his name was Vance Havener. Has anybody ever heard of Vance Havener? Few of you have that are old like me. But Vance Havener was just a great, great evangelist preacher of the gospel. But one of the statements that he said back then, so this would have been back in the 70s and 80s, that he said one of the greatest problems that pastors in America have is they no longer take the long walks in the woods. And what he was meaning is getting away and just getting into solitude for a little bit with no distractions. And so one of the things about hearing God's voice is giving yourself space to have that distractionless time with God. And so I hope you took that opportunity and had a chance to do that. So let's go ahead and we're going to start lesson two. And so as we step into this, I've titled it tonight, just your birthright and the God who moves first. And we're going to be talking about several things. I've added some stuff in here that I thought would be probably good to go on and dump it out now. And it's way more than we're going to be able to cover in any detail. But we'll try to do our best. So I just, on your outline at the top of it, I just said, here's my primary goal for tonight. This is the primary goal. And that is to begin a shift in the way you view hearing God's voice. I have found that the vast majority of Christians want to hear God's voice, think at times they're hearing God's voice, wonder if they'll ever hear God's voice, and even will ask me, well, what does it sound like? And so we're going to take and make a huge shift. Now some of you who are accustomed to walking in the reality of knowing God's voice, this is going to kind of be second nature, but I found for a lot it's not. And so we're going to work on that. And so let me just start off, and I've got three things that I want to kind of have as outlined, but we'll be looking at several things here. So the first thing, if you have your outline, want to write it down, I'm just calling it longing for more than God's bio. There is insight of you. First of all, as a human, but especially as a believer to long for God. But what many of us have equated that, especially in the West, is we've equated that to more Bible studies. In other words, we have equated it to knowing God's biography and calling that knowing God. Years ago, and I've told this story and so listen, you've heard most all my stories. But in it, I wanted to share this because this is really what I'm trying to say is I was a sophomore, transfer student to a small Christian college. I had been at Georgia Tech and I transferred to a small Christian college. We got there my

first semester and met a lot of people. And anyway, they had at that time, they had a little January term. And at that time, it was five week, January term. And I found that I could literally take two classes in five weeks and be done with them. So I picked the classes I hated the most and thought, you know what, it's kind of like eating your spinach if you don't like spinach. Just go ahead and just suck it down real quick. Hold your nose and you're done with it. And so that's what I decided to do. And so I was getting ready. I was sitting eating lunch and it's in winter. And at this small Christian college, the cafeteria was in a place where the main thoroughfare was people going to classes was going actually through the cafeteria. And so I was sitting there with a friend of mine named Mike and we were just talking about different things and having a good time. And it came around about 1245 and getting ready to leave to go to my one o'clock class. So I thought I better take my tray and get out of here. It's winter time, it's cold, but we're inside and all the classes were in that area. And so as I get up to stand up, I see this girl and she's in and got a big winter coat on and she comes walking through. And it's the first time I'd ever seen her. Seen her before. And I am stunned. I mean, it's like, you know how it is whenever it feels like everything blurs except for the center little picture. And that's the way it was. And I see her walking by. And I say to Mike, who's over here busy taking his tray? I said, who was that girl? And he turns around and she's already around the corner and gone. Oh my gosh, I gotta go find him. You know when I go look, of course, I didn't see her. And about a week later, I happened to put some enough comments together and I see her off in the distance at a friend of mine, says, "Oh, that's Kathy Gurley." And she's a nursing major. And I thought, "Oh, that's why I haven't seen her." It's the first time I'd ever seen her. It was January about January the 20th. And he said, "She lives in Milan, Tennessee,"

which was about 20 minutes from where our school was. And so I thought, you know, she's a nursing major, so I never seen her, but I've gotta know more. Now, I know now her basic bio, but I wasn't satisfied with that. I wanted to know more. And so I kept working at it until January the 29th of 1979, we went on our very first date. We went ice skating, my feet were so frozen. It was an outside skating rink. You can imagine, January 29th, my feet were so frozen, but I so didn't want to stop that I had made a decision, conscious decision that if I have to amputate my legs, I'm gonna stay right here. And not knowing that she was having the same feeling. And let me just long story short, that was 47 years ago. (audience chattering) And I know that voice so well that she can be in another room. In fact, I know it so well that there can be a lot of people talking, and if I hear her voice, I know it's her. And here's what I'm saying. I could have settled for the bio, but I wouldn't know her. And sadly, that's what many of us do, is we settle for the bio of God. We go to Bible studies. We listen to other people.

You come to maybe even times like this, and you learn more about God. But don't be satisfied because inside of you is a longing for more than the bio of God. You want to know Him. And so this is really what I'm saying, if you want to write this down in your notes, just write this down. When you open your Bible, here's the question. Are you reading a biography or keeping an appointment? In the morning or tonight, whenever you sit down and you open your Bible, are you going to it kind of like you're reading a biography or going to it like you're reading a history book or going to it like you're, quote, studying God's word? Are you going or are you going to it for an appointment? An appointment with God. So what I'm saying is my hope through this is to help us make a shift in what it means to hear the voice of God. And so it's got to start with a longing. You just have, I know it's in there, but you've got to know that He wants it out and He wants you to know His voice. He wants for you after a few years that you can just know that's God. I can tell you right now. In fact, if I took the time, I could go back and read a journal every morning. And in my journal this morning, not thinking about tonight,

I'm just having an appointment with God. I wrote a pretty long journal note about I can sense in my spirit there's a stirring that's going on. I can just sense God is about to say something to me more than where I am and I can't wait for it. And so I just talk to Him about it and I named all the various things that I'm seeing these signs. In all of the noise I can hear, there's something He's saying to me wanting to say more. And so I said, God, in fact, I ended it by saying, I don't know what it is, but my yes is already on the table. I'm in. And listen, that's not that I'm more spiritual. That just happens to be 45 years of appointments with God. Whenever I was in seminary, seminary is the, it's when most people that go to seminary, it's the most spiritually dry time of their life. It's when many of them actually start pulling away from God. And sadly, it's because in there, many times, they let the Bible turn into a textbook. and not spend time with God. And so just know that that's one of the struggles we have. So the first thing is, a longing for more than God's bio. I want you to just go there. I want you to pray about that. I want you to ask God to take you farther

than just a history lesson. In other words, let your Bible turn from something that's confusing into a time where you're just listening for Him. You're just sitting and saying, you're about to say something to me and I'm ready. I'm here listening, whatever that is. Second thing, we're gonna be just gonna take a few minutes on, is hearing, and I just said it this way. It's gonna be two things, so I kind of put it like this. It breaks the grip and flips the script. Hearing God's voice does really two things. And this is where we're gonna start having to make a shift. And these are gonna be hard for you to do. One of them's not as hard as the other one. The second one's not really as hard as the first one, but they are tough. We need to first of all break a grip. Now, what do I mean by that? So let's just look at it. The first thing I'm saying is, it hearing breaks the grip. What do I mean by that whenever I say that? The grip is this, the grip of religion, the grip of religion must be broken for you to ever begin hearing the voice of God in all its multicolored paths. Now you say, well, I'm not bound in religion. Let me just say, and you've heard me say some of these things,

but let me just go on and say them. That religion is the default natural response of fallen humanity. It is the natural, that's why the Bible says the fool says in his heart there is no God. In other words, he has to say it in his heart. Why does he have to say it in his heart? Because his heart's telling him there is a God. Why is that? Because you and I have been created for a relationship with our creator. It is locked in to the very essence of who you are. And so you have that in you, but that was broken in the fall. And as a result of that break that took place, religion was birthed. And we even saw it in the very first two humans born on earth, Cain and Abel. God had already shown them very clearly. This is how you approach me. It has to come through a blood sacrifice. And he even showed the approved animals by the way that he showed them and made clothing for Adam and Eve, showing the covering that was gonna be necessary to have a relationship with him until such time whenever he was going to be the covering in Christ. And so in that, you saw that that both of them knew this is what needs to be done, but Cain decided, I think I can do things to win God's approval. And so by the work of the ground that he had done,

he offered some of the works that he had done, thinking that would make him approved by God. And God said, that's not it. That is the definition of religion. And all of us have it in us. Just go ahead and know it's in you, but you must break that grip. You must have that broken. And you say, well, what does all that mean? In fact, I just say it this way, I call it the religious reflex. You know how you have a reflection of a hit your knee, just right it pops up. It's the religion is the religious reflex. And what do I mean? It's this idea that hearing God is climbing. You earn it, you prove it, you work your way up to a God who's distant. It's all of us have that. And we can say, well, I don't have it, you do. If you didn't have that in you, here's what would happen. You would want to be with him. You wouldn't have trouble spending time with him every day. But what religion is is man, it's man made, but it's our attempt to reach God through our own efforts and through our own strength. It's our response to say, I can reach him my way. So that's why you've got some people that say, well, hey, you know, I can spend time with God. And it's just, you know, whenever I'm sitting out

on a fishing boat, just, you know, fishing. I'm in nature and well, I mean, yeah, kinda, but not really. And so, you know, I've said it many ways about this, but the verse, really, just to kind of give this to you, and then we'll look at something that I've shown you before, but Ephesians 2.89 tells us, and we know this, that this is an error in the line of thinking that no person has ever reached God through effort. No one has. It says, "For by grace you've been saved through faith, "and this is not of your own doing. "It's the gift of God, not a result of work, "so that no one may boast. "There's not gonna be anybody in heaven "that God's gonna say, well, you did good. "You made it on your own effort. "You did it yourself. "Nobody is there." Now, this is a picture that, personally, I believe that this is the mountain, Mount Sinai. And there's a lot of reasons I'm not gonna get into that tonight. All right, but anyway, let's just pretend that on that mountain, 'cause it's really happened, on top of that mountain was where God came down in fire, and as he came down in fire, at the base of it, was Israelites. Now, we know that God, in readying things, trying to prepare things, he sent Moses up the mountain and he went up there and met with God,

and we know that happened. But sadly, we think that's the way we all approach God. He's this distant God off on this mountain, and I've gotta work my way to get there through effort and through doing things that are effort. And I know that we can say, well, I don't really think that, but we're doing in our core. I have that same thing, and you do too. But the Bible teaches us, and I've given you this before, that God came down the mountain. He came down the mountain to us. God, he became a human and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory is what John says in chapter one, the glory of the one and the true God. And so in your notes, if you wanna just write this down, you're not climbing, you're positioning. You're positioning yourself. You're not climbing a mountain. You're not trying to win God's approval. In other words, when are we talking about pursuing God? It's a pursuit of positioning ourselves. Into a position that we are in his presence. We're not climbing a mountain. In other words, my part is not to climb, but it's to tune into his channel, where he's speaking, where he's talking, where he's moving. The balance I'm giving you these before, but Hebrews chapter four, verses 10 and 11, I like the way it says it. For whoever has entered God's rest

has also rested from his works as God did from his. Then look at what it says after it. Let us therefore strive, that means put in effort to enter that rest. That means let us pursue that position. Does that make sense? And when we step into that position, then we'll be in his presence and we'll be walking with him. So the first thing I guess I'm saying here is that hearing, it breaks the grip of religion. So it's one of the things we're doing. We're positioning ourselves to hear, not trying to win his approval, so that then he goes, well, I guess I'll speak to him now. It's not like he's avoiding you. That's not what is happening. And we'll talk more about that, and let me just go on to the second one, because here's the second part of that is that hearing, I just say it this way, it flips the script. And what do I mean by that? Well, that's what I want to show you. So we've talked last week, I showed you what scripture says, Jesus said this in John chapter 10 verse 27, he said, "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me." And so whenever he says, "I know them," many of us, and this is what I've found with a lot of people is that we think, well, yeah, God knows everybody. But we need to understand it's much more than that

in him knowing you in John chapter 10. He says this, the same chapter, but in verse three, he says it this way, "To him the gatekeeper opens the sheep hear his voice." He's talking about the gatekeepers, which he's himself. And he calls his own sheep, look at this, by name. In other words, the sheep that are following him are doing it by him calling you by name. Do you see how personal that is? How individual that is. How focused that he is on you, not just us, but you. And so as we look at that and see that, we need to understand that it is a personal thing. So let me give you -- well, before I give you, let me tell this, I've told this story before because this is when it awakened in me. But let me just share it again just to kind of pull it in together. As I've talked about -- you know, I've learned this about about the personal importance of this, what I'm talking about him knowing me by name. And I really -- the first time it really hit me deep was at the birth of my first son. Now, that was a long time ago. I don't know exactly how old he is. I know he's over 40 because my second son turned 40. So he's somewhere over that, but I don't know which one it is. It's in the -- I don't think it's 45. I'm pretty sure it's not that, but it's somewhere under. And it's -- I wish that wasn't serious when I say that,

but anyway, I just tell him happy birthday. I know it's December 19th, so -- and I'm sure what year, but I'm pretty sure I know one. So anyway, sorry. But I was there. And we were living in Atlanta. Kathy and I were. And he was a preemie. He was born six weeks early. And, of course, preemies, you know, six weeks. We said, "Well, that's not bad." I know it was in the early '80s. I'm pretty sure -- and I think it was '83. I'm pretty sure about that. Kathy's not in here tonight to correct me, and I don't even think she would. I think she would just sit there and go. But anyway. So it was the -- I know it was the coldest winter in record in Atlanta where we were living at the time. So anyway, long story short, he was born. He had to be put in the neonatal intensive care. He stayed in that in Northside Hospital in Atlanta, and Atlanta stayed in there 13 or 15 days. And Kathy had a cold and had a little bit of fever. And so she, being a nurse, didn't want to go in there with him. Afraid that she might make him sick. So I went in there. And so I go in the room and I go in there and, of course, they keep it dark and, you know, and all that anyway.

I sit him down and I sit him in my lap, and he's a little bitty. He's about that long. Have you ever seen a glowworm? Anybody remember the glowworm? Yeah, some of you do. We have a picture of him next to a glowworm. They're the same size. They're really warm. So have you seen one of those? You go in one. So I sit him down between my knees, and I started a ritual day one. He's laying there, got a little beanie on his head. And, of course, then they flip the lights on in that room where we were, which keeps his eyes closed. So I cover like a little baseball cap over his eyes like that, in which makes him open. And, of course, he can't focus day one. I mean, he's just going everywhere. And he is too, and I started with it. I said, "Hey, Kevin. This is your daddy. Hey, Kevin. I want you to know this is your daddy." And I kept talking that same way. And he just sat there and made no response whatsoever. But I did it anyway. So anyway, day two, same thing. I do the same ritual day three. I sat him there, sat him down, the ball cap. The moment he said, "He's doing all the rolling."

And I said, "Hey, Kevin. This is your daddy." And I'm not kidding you. This literally happened. He went, and he just looked. And for that moment, he focused on a tone. He didn't know a word I was saying. He didn't know who I was. But he recognized a tone. And this is something that God taught me in that. - What God taught me was that I was teaching Kevin about me. I wasn't teaching him how to talk. I wasn't, you know, wanting him to understand what I was saying. I was wanting him to know who his dad was. And here's what I want you to know. That's the way the father is with you. When you gave your life to Christ, he took knowing that you don't know really who he is. You don't have a clue what he's saying. You don't understand his language, but he puts it on himself for you to know his voice. And I promise you, until you let that soak down in your spirit, you will always default back to religion instead of a relationship of knowing that he is pursuing you. In the morning, when you get up and open your Bible, I want you to know this,

that your father is going to come to you and he's gonna cup his hand over, a person is just distracted by a thousand things, and he's wanting to talk to you in a tone that you begin to learn his voice. That is how you begin to hear and know the voice of God. So just write this down in your notes. Hearing God is not an achievement to attain, but a birthright of belonging. This is not something that is special for me because I'm the preacher. It's not that he's gonna talk to me because, oh, I've got this important job. Has nothing to do with that. It's not something that you have attained through achievement. It's a birthright. There were a lot of other babies in that, in that Northside neonatal intensive care unit. I didn't talk to one of them, but there was one. It was mine. Does that make sense? Until that view of God starts shifting inside of your mind and your heart, I promise you you will struggle with hearing his voice. But once you start making the shift from religion into a dynamic birthright that is yours, it's just gonna start opening. It's gonna start happening.

You're gonna go, wow. Now I know that some of you in here are going, yeah, but how do I know when somebody gives me a word of prophecy as that was God's not? We're gonna get to all that, okay? Right now, I want you to know that he's talking to you. And he wants to talk to you, and he's a talker. That's who the God is that we serve. Now, let me go to the third one. So we're gonna, what I'm trying to say is, we need to flip the script in the morning. You're not getting up to hopefully maybe by chance the God who is all, you know, worried about whether, you know, Pluto's a planet or not to know that he's wanting to meet with you more than you are him. I can tell you right now, I am more desirous of my boys calling me than they are a meek, all in them. I can promise you that. And that's not because, you know, I'm sad and woe for me, is me or anything like that, it's because I'm their dad. I'm only going to the third one, and that is simply this. And I'm just, as we, I thought, this is something that is, I think it's gonna wind up in the book being a, an appendix at the end because there's just a lot of details in it. But I thought, I need to give this, at least put it out here for you. And I'm just saying it this way,

expanding the scope of your bandwidth. And here's what I mean. Most believers have been taught that hearing God means receiving words, something like this, a scripture that suddenly lights up an inner voice during prayer, a phrase from a sermon that feels like it was meant only for you. And, listen, those things are real. Now, every one of those are real. I have those often. I don't, I'm not downplaying those, but if you reduce God's communication, you're gonna miss the majority of what he's saying. We need to expand the bandwidth. In other words, there's a lot of ways in which God talks to us. A lot of ways that God, and once you start letting it be expanded, you're gonna start hearing him in multitudes of ways. And so just again in your notes, write this down and just simply this. God does not merely speak, God communicates. He's a communicating God. He is a talker verbally, but he's a communicator in a much wider bandwidth. Do you know what I mean by bandwidth? I think everybody here does. I shouldn't have said that that way. I'm gonna assume we do. All right, I'm gonna say it on bandwidth, wider.

What do I mean by communication? It's simply this. Communication is the transfer of meaning from one mind to another through every available channel. I mean, honestly, you know this, when I walk in the house tonight, I promise you before Kathy says a word, she'll be communicating something to me. It may be a look, and at that point, I quickly go back in my mind and think, what did I not do? What have I left undone? What did I left? I should have done. She's communicating without saying a thing. I mean, when I walk in the room, I've told you this before, you know, I have allergies and all that, and I walk in the room. I sniff and immediately I've communicated that to her, at least, I probably gonna need sinus surgery again for the third time. I don't, but I'm saying we communicate in multitudes away to each other. I mean, you just think about how the multitude of ways that we communicate through our actions and through our, not just through our vote verbally, we do that in text. You know, as one of the things I don't like about texting is we leave out about 90% of what we're communicating,

and so somebody can read a text and think we're mad. I have that happen often. It's why I had more, you know, almost wanna say, I'm not mad, I'm saying this happily. You know. (audience laughs) But it's through, and so just think about that from the perspective of God communicating with you and how he has a multifaceted approach to communication and so in that, I just decided, rather than me taking the next four hours and talking through all of this, that it would be better just to put it in the outline. And so how many of you, if you've had mathematics, that right there, you get excited about. If you have and don't like mathematics, that right there looks like torture for you, but it's a three dimensional graph, and you don't have an x, y graphs are. There's a three dimensional one, has a z to it. And so in it, what I'm trying to say is that I took in, there's three main areas of communication that I believe that God communicates, and one is the posture or the way we position ourselves. And I've just put that on here as that up and down this way. And then the other two are, one of them are the forms, the various forms, and then the other one I just called couriers, and I'll show you what I mean by that in your outline.

And so this is what I mean whenever I say the six postures. And again, I have these directly in your outline for you, I didn't ask you to write them down. So you'll have them there, but you know these. And by the way, these are not channels, but they're positions, they're ways to position yourself. And they don't make God speak, but they make us reachable. In other words, prayer, why do we pray, you know what? Well, it's a posture, it's a positioning of yourself to be able to communicate with God. It's a way of communication. It's not just you dumping, it's a communication place. Bible study, and it's just working to know the word. And that is a way to communicate and position yourself in communication. And I say it kind of this way and I talk about it. some of you may have heard those, those are Greek words. Logos is talking about the scripture in general, and then Raima is another word for word, another Greek word that means word, but it's talking about a specific word, a particular word, and like the scripture in Romans 10, 17, I think, says, oh, well, I might look it up, I just had it in my head and just fell out of my head. But it says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and the Greek word there is the word Raima, means the revelatory word of God. In John chapter 1, where it says in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, that's the word Logos, and he's talking about the totality of Christ being the ultimate perfection of the totality of God's word. So anyway, so Bible study. And then worship is a form when we're worshiping God, our spirit is being opened, our hearts being opened, for God to talk to us, and you know that. How many times do you have for, you know, a song is sung, and as it's being sung, there's something stirring in your heart. Maybe it's not even sung, maybe it's just being played, and as you're hearing it, it's

just something stirs inside us. Worship, it's whenever we open ourselves there. Stillness and solitude, I'm big on those. I've just found getting quiet before God is a powerful place, cutting off distracting noise in the community of believers. It happens a lot. You know that. You get around with some other believers and you're talking about different things and talking about the things of God, and the next thing you know, man, somebody says something that just catches your heart, grabs you there, and it has you. And then honestly, one of the plays that opens that posture is through obedience. Just that obedience to the last thing he said, you know, you do that, and all of a sudden it opens communication lines. So those are just some postures to position yourself. So, you know, that's why I'm big on every day, getting in the posture of prayer in God's Word. It's not just to check a box. That's what religion does. That's an achievement thing. What I'm saying is positioning yourself in front of a God who communicates. And so as we do that, that's just one of the things. And so the next thing I have on there is I've got what I call the ten, I just call them forms for lack of a better term. And these are just general communication, but just some things that I've put down there, verbal, nonverbal, emotional, relational, behavioral, visual ways that he communicates. And this happens a lot through dreams and visions. Whenever somebody comes to me, as a matter of fact, just to let you know, some of you know this, you've done this, but I have people from time to time say they have a dream and they're not for sure if it's from Lord, I had recently had an email that I responded back to a dream someone had. And I tried to help them know the difference to how do you know if this is, you know, because you have a dream and you go, well, I don't know if that's from God or not. And what I say is one of the things I've learned. I'm not saying this is the way it always is, but I've learned this, that if it's a dream from God, you can recall it instantaneously. That right now, if you had a dream 20 years ago that was from God. And I said, tell me about it, you could go back and walk through every detail of that dream. It's like it. It's just, it's, it's an impression that he's made in your spirit. And, and you know that in the same way with visions, I can tell you right now the visions are the same way. Somebody says, well, with a vision, do you just see it appear before you? You know, I don't know how to explain it. Yeah. I don't think it's with these eyes, but I see it. My spirit eyes see it.

[BLANK_AUDIO] Of that kind of, and then things like another one is narrative. That means God speaks through story. You know, He's talked to me many times through the story of my life. Environmental, that's basically talking about creation. Yes, God does speak. The Bible tells us that. That the heavens declare the glory of God. God does talk to us that way. Circumstantial. The way God many times speaks to us through the circumstances. Open doors and closed doors. And one of the ways He speaks a lot of times is through silence. These are just some basic forms, if you will, ways that He... But then the other one is one you're more... The third one is one you're maybe more familiar with. And that is what I call the courier, or the carriers of this. What are they? Of course, Scripture. It's a baseline of, you know, He's going to talk to you through Scripture. A sermon or teaching through another believer. That happens a lot. Directly to your spirit. He talks that way a lot. Through a dream or a vision. Through a sign in something that God did. An act that God did, you see the sign of that. I had a lady one time have this where she was asking God about something particular. I don't remember the details. It just popped in my head to say this. And she felt like God was telling her to do whatever it wasn't.

But she's driving. She said, "God, I desperately need a sign." And she said, "All of a sudden, this semi-truck buzzed faster." And on the back of it, it had this statement that was exactly what she was asking. And she said, "It fit in with a lot of other things." And I know people say, "Oh, that's just coincidental." There's no coincidence with God. And it fits in. If it fit in with the other things, then it did. It was the Lord. We go on and look at some other ones of these. Through an angel. God talks to us through angels. And, you know, the Bible is pretty clear about that. And I've taught before here a delta series years ago on angels. And I decided when I taught it, for those of you who weren't here, I only used the angelic manifestations that we see in the book of Acts. And the reason I chose that to teach it was because that's after the coming of the Holy Spirit. It's after Pentecost. In other words, people say, "Oh, but that was Old Testament angels. We live in the New Testament, okay? Well, we live after Pentecost." Well, okay. Let's look at that. I'm not going to talk about the angel Gabriel that spoke to Mary. Let's just go to the book of Acts and the angel that came to Philip and the angel that came to Cornelius and the angel that came to Peter and the angel that came to Paul. We can just go through. There's a bunch of them.

And even with those, I remember whenever I began to see that. And these are guys who have the Holy Spirit, have heard the voice of the Spirit, are actually writing Scripture, and yet they had angelic visitations to speak to them. And so, yes, that does happen. Again, through creation. He'll speak to us in those ways, speaks to us through our circumstances. Again, open doors. And then, again, one he speaks through tongues and interpretation of tongues. And primarily the way he speaks in that, I have found it's through the interpretation of a tongue. In other words, when I'm praying in my prayer language, the Bible says that this way Paul says my mind is unfruitful. But my spirit is being lifted up. However, if God does get, if I ask the Lord and I do this often, you know, are you saying anything you want me? And he says that that would be him talking to me. And that would be, you know, a word of whatever it could be, a prophetic word, a word of knowledge, it can be multitudes of things. And so in it, here's what I'm trying to say. That is, we start walking into the fact that God is a talker. And the way I say it, the church primarily in the West has so complicated this that most of us are fearful of it. Don't overcomplicate it. At best, I've said this so many times that if you cross-gates people who have been here a long time, you just roll your eyes when I say it, but at best we're all preschoolers before God. And the reality is this, at best, this is kind of like the little kindergarten book. You know, however you want to say it, Jane got a bike or Jane has a bike. Jane walked. Walked Jane walk, you know, it's simple God talk to his children.

And what we've done is we've made it so complicated and sadly, and I've said this last week, but it's the truth, sadly, so many leaders in the church are so fearful that you're going to get it wrong that we limit God's people from hearing God's voice. And you know what? You are going to get it wrong sometimes. And so am I. You know, let me tell you where all that comes from, by the way, that's nothing more than I'd say control. But you do know that, and I've said this just quick history lesson, the Catholic church had declared that there were only three perfect languages, and the Bible could only be written in those three languages, and they were Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. And they claimed that to be biblical because, and here was the verse they used why they said any translation out of one of those other than those three is heresy, and they claimed it through the passage where actually it was Pilate that did it, that when Jesus was put on the cross, it was to be written above his head, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, and it was to be written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. So they said, well, those are the only three perfect languages. So you can just imagine in, you know, the 1200s when nobody spoke Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, except for the priest. So nobody had a Bible, so nobody knew what actually the word of God said. And then in the 1500s, a guy by the name of Erasmus collected the Greek New Testament and all the collection of them, and to put together a Greek New Testament. And it was the first really collected modern Greek New Testament of the time. Now other guys, for instance, a guy named John Wickliffe was an English man that believed that you should have the Bible in a language you could read it. He believed that the word of God was to be read by every believer. So he translated the Bible in English and spent the rest of his life in hiding from the church, he died in hiding as a pauper 80 years after his death, the church declared him a heretic for translating the Bible into English, actually. They exhumed his bones and burned them.

Another guy named Martin Luther believed that the German people should have the Bible in their language and the Catholic priests were so upset at him they said, here's what they said, it'll cause nothing but confusion and division, which it has. But he said that even the cobbler give him two years with the word of God and he will know more than the priest or the monk in the monastery. And so him, they had to hide him, he went into hiding and translated the Bible into German so that the common person could have the Bible. And here's the thing, the sad part to me is we have these, now all of us have them, but here's another problem, and don't hear this wrong, I'm not mad at people, but I am kind of mad, is when I have preachers, try to tell you what you can and cannot see in this word. I believe the spirit of God, Jesus made it very clear, when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. My job is not to make you. but to make you a Berean to share the truth of God's words and then let you go out and believe that the Holy Spirit in you is gonna be able to know I think that's God. So don't rely on me, but let me be that place to where, at least I'm opening you to options for the Spirit of God to talk to you. Does that make sense? I believe that's the way God wants it to be. You know, I've told you before, my own personal testimony when God called me to preach. After I went through the whole thing, that's bad idea and all that, I didn't think He wanted me to go to seminary because of the fear. This was my fear. 'Cause I know the way this thing works,

that I would become so intellectual about it, that I would wind up forcing people to believe what I think they should believe. And so He didn't let me do that and I went eight years and did my own study 'cause I knew it was called preaching. So I knew I needed to study and then after eight years, He allowed me to go to seminary, but even when I went, you know, fasted every year, read my one year Bible on my own, not for studying for a test. I can tell you there were several times I said, Lord, even if I make a see on this test, I'm gonna spend time with you today. But could you talk quick? No, I didn't say that. But what I'm saying to all of us is, if you'll let the Lord expand your bandwidth on His voice, He's a talker, amen? Let's pray together. Father, I thank You that every one of your children, you're pursuing and that you're not just pursuing, but you're pursuing individually by name. So when I pray that would encourage us, when I pray even now that all of us, you would break the grip of religion or that you would show all of us, me, all of us, areas where we still are trying to achieve, and attain. Lord, I pray for every one of us as your children that tomorrow that we would see ourselves

crawling into your lap or for some here, man, you and them have close relationship. And so I pray that tomorrow you'd just continue the conversation, but for others, Lord, maybe they're at that place where they need to recognize the tones. So I pray that you'd speak to them, meet them there, but for all of us, God, I know that you're pursuing that kind of communication type relationship. So I just pray that we'd step into it and trust you. And then Father, I just ask that as we continue going, even this week, Lord, that we would take time to get quiet, that we would, when we pull up a chair, set down to read our Bible and to pray, God, we'd pull up another chair for you and invite you to join us, knowing that you're actually probably, and I believe you would be, even be there before we are. And God, I'm just gonna ask that the communication would begin to expand in ways that we're all just surprised. Lord, raise us up to be those children who hear your voice, recognize when you're communicating. So God, just guide us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]