By John Thiel

We are to recognise God’s voice speaking to us.

Isaiah 30:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This [is] the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

We have a very distinct enunciation of the possibility of God’s children to be guided by hearing something, someone speaking to us so that we are in a position of relationship beyond merely being with the Word of God in our personal research but to actually go into something deeper than what the Bible is saying. Many Christians are reading the Bible as a guide book which what we should do, but they still hold the book and themselves in a position of guiding their own lives by reading what they choose to read. Many read the Bible but they are not in the truth so something more is needed. God will personally walk and communicate with us so we can find our way. We are to find an assurance within ourselves that I’m communicating and how to discern that. We are to remind ourselves how the Lord has led us.

1 John 4:6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

To Know God

To know about God and to know God is different. Jesus said in John 17 that this is life eternal that they may know God and Jesus Christ. This is that extra step that each one of us is called upon to enter into beyond getting to know the truth. It is true to know the truth we will be saved but to know the truth in a living exercise. The concept is conveyed is that we will hear a word behind us.

As Christ lived the law in humanity, so we may do if we will take hold of the Strong for strength. But we are not to place the responsibility of our duty upon others, and wait for them to tell us what to do. We cannot depend for counsel upon humanity. The Lord will teach us our duty just as willingly as He will teach somebody else. If we come to Him in faith, He will speak His mysteries to us personally. Our hearts will often burn within us as One draws nigh to commune with us as He did with Enoch. Those who decide to do nothing in any line that will displease God, will know, after presenting their case before Him, just what course to pursue. And they will receive not only wisdom, but strength.. {DA 668.4}

This is the companionship God wants us to enter in. To hear His voice and to know His personal involvement with me strengthens me.

Power for obedience, for service, will be imparted to them, as Christ has promised. Whatever was given to Christ–the “all things” to supply the need of fallen men–was given to Him as the head and representative of humanity. And “whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” 1 John 3:22. {DA 668.4}

Power will be given us to obey the instruction. This is something for us to exercise ourselves in. We are to be well versed in the Lord. Do you have any knowledge of recognising whether God is speaking to you? How do you know if you are actually experiencing His direction in your life or if you are planning your own course and it’s just you on your own? We are to know if He is speaking to us directly. Have you had it and then run off without it? How can you discern in difficult situations Gods voice or your own impressions? Is there anything by which you can remember how the Lord really distinctly identified his voice speaking to you? 

Everyone’s experience is different to another’s. We are to take into consideration counsel from God’s word and how to let it all come into place because the Lord must hear my mind. I’ve just gone through something recently where again the Lord drew close and revealed to me something and I heard his voice along the way and I didn’t obey. Do we often hear that voice but we still go along and do something from my own perspective and think, oh I shouldn’t have done that. There is a combination of experience with a thus saith the Lord that we discern. There is an interaction of experiences. God speaks to us by multiple situations. Providence is involved and harmonises together which what was written and the Lords consciousness. God speaks to us via about nine different avenues and it’s His voice whether I hear a man’s voice speaking or whether I get Bible texts which is God speaking directly from His word and also the providence that He has surrounded me with. You will see and hear your teachers. The preacher in the presentation of God’s word is Gods voice, in the sermon we hear Gods voice speaking to us. The collation of all that God identifies himself with our inward self. There is a person there beside myself that is may come as a voice or something else but it is still the internal reality of companionship there. The Lord uses our intellect in cohesion with His and that is what He wants us to enter into. After experiences like that you have a warm relationship with Him and you need to take it into other areas of life so it’s a consistent walk with Him. That is the companionship concept that the Lord wants us to have. We can have what Enoch had.

Enoch

We can have what Enoch had. We can have Christ as our constant companion (MS 38, 1897). {1BC 1087.6}

All too often we can sense the Lord with us and we go off and do our own thing. Is He still there? He is but it may take a while for us to realise He is still there.

Enoch walked with God, and when assailed by the tempter, he could talk with God about it. He had no “It is written” as we have, but he had a knowledge of his heavenly Companion. He made God his Counsellor, and was closely bound up with Jesus. And Enoch was honored in this course. He was translated to heaven without seeing death. And those who will be translated at the close of time, will be those who commune with God on earth. Those who make manifest that their life is hid with Christ in God will ever be representing Him in all their life-practices. Selfishness will be cut out by the roots. {1BC 1087.6}

We can talk to God about every situation of our life. Enoch had no it is written as we have. He is there just like in a marriage. The husband or wife is there but you take them for granted and life goes on and you are off on your own little world and every now and then the husband or wife say I’m here, where are you as we become so familiar with each other. It is that first love where the Lord says you have lost your first love and it begins to warm our hearts where we have drifted and heard Him but we take Him for granted but He’s been there all the time. Although you have ignored Him, He hasn’t forsaken you and He calls you back again.

You may have done so many mistakes and you think it is so bad, it’s too late but no He is still there but He wants you to learn from this experience. This companionship is what we have entered into and we want to retain it and we want to deliberately interact with Him as if we don’t, we will be alone. If we retain our companionship with God he will help us throughout our grovelling’s. Even though I make mistakes, it’s not a reason for me to think He has forsaken me. When we make mistakes, when the voice of God says something and we don’t do it, we should not despair over it. Especially as we feel so shamed for what we have done and can hardly lift our heads because of those sad situations. We weep over our mistakes and suffer as David did with his sin but we persevere.

Through all our trials we have a never-failing Helper. He does not leave us alone to struggle with temptation, to battle with evil, and be finally crushed with burdens and sorrow. Though now He is hidden from mortal sight, the ear of faith can hear His voice saying, Fear not; I am with you. “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore.” Revelation 1:18. I have endured your sorrows, experienced your struggles, encountered your temptations. I know your tears; I also have wept. The griefs that lie too deep to be breathed into any human ear, I know. Think not that you are desolate and forsaken. Though your pain touch no responsive chord in any heart on earth, look unto Me, and live. “The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.” Isaiah 54:10. {DA 483.1}

What does that tell us? I died because of your sins. What is He doing now that is He is alive? He is helping me. This is what the Lord wants us to lock into that He does not forsake us. Why are we weeping and stressed? Because of sin and Jesus came and took part with us and became sin for us. I am He that died but lives to do what? To be your high priest who is compassed with infirmity and it’s all present tense for Him and He knows all the detail of our experience and He does not leave us. As He is a companion with us, He shows us the way through the terrible experiences. How many times have we botched it up in our spiritual experience? Its exploded in our face and He says come on, put it back together. I’ve mucked up, can it all work again? Will it have to be repeated a few times until we can see what the Lord is telling us do as I say? This is our experience and we must keep on persevering. He that endures to the end the same shall be saved. This companionship is what we need to explore within ourselves so that we become more and more sensitised to the Lords presence as we can so easily take it for granted. As we have gone through this we can gather new determinations. We want to find how to get the depth of God’s word. The Lord has promised that when we are standing before the people, He will remind us of the scriptures that we are to share. We read the word but we don’t get the knowledge out of it. We have to learn to actually get everything out of the statements of God’s word.

Amen.