Bill Johnson - Hearing God's Voice Through Other People
We don’t have it all. The Bible does not say, «I have the mind of Christ.» It says, «We have the mind of Christ.» It says, «Our Father who art in heaven.» There is something that is gained in the corporate expression that you cannot gain any other way. I want you to look at a couple of verses with me: II Chronicles 20 and Ezra 6. There’s just a theme here I’m going to pull on. I’m not going to do what I normally like to do, which is more of a full study, but in Second Chronicles 20, we have this military conflict, with the Lord giving strategy, direction, and a plan to the people of God.
In verse 20, which is easy to remember, 20/20, clear vision: «So they arose early in the morning and went out to the wilderness of Tekoa.» As they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, «Hear me, O Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.» Now listen carefully. I want you to hear this over and over again in your heart: «Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.»
There’s this crazy idea that has entered much of the church—that because I am a child of God, all I need is Him. I love people, I care for people, and I spend my life with people, but essentially my life depends directly on God speaking to me and caring for me. There’s enough truth to that to keep people in deception. My need to hear from God for myself does not nullify my need for the prophets. My need for the prophets does not cancel out my need to hear from God for myself. They work in tandem. The way most of us function is that if He only spoke to us directly, we would become independent. We would use what He said to prove we’re superior. We would argue, proving we’re right and someone else is wrong.
When the word comes through community, it affects community. It blesses community and emphasizes our need for one another. The Bible says we are members of one another and uses the physical body to illustrate what it looks like to be joined together. In Acts chapter 2, we won’t go there, but in Acts chapter 2, King David is actually called a prophet. A prophet is someone who hears directly from the Lord. But when he wanted to build a temple for God, God wouldn’t talk to him. If God is silent, it’s never punishment; it’s either because He has already spoken and you need to review what you’ve heard, or He’s trying to connect you with the right people that will add to your life the missing piece.
Because it emphasizes connection, it emphasizes the fact we don’t have it all. The Bible does not say, «I have the mind of Christ.» It says, «We have the mind of Christ.» It says, «Our Father who art in heaven.» There is something that is gained in the corporate expression that you cannot gain any other way; this excites me. Now, the healing revival—how many of you have read or heard anything about the healing revival back in 1948 into the 50s? Some of the most extraordinary things that the world has ever seen happened in that era, but it was all through the generals of the army. It was their season; it was the generals of the army.
What God is doing in this hour is that the generals are equipping the saints. So picture it this way: here’s this high level of anointing that nobody can reach, so this general of the army equips all the saints around him until they come into a place of anointing that was once only occupied by the generals of the army. That releases them to explore even greater dimensions and realms in the Spirit of God so that we can manifest Jesus much more clearly—in glory, in power, and in presence, in purity.
I remember, Chris, do you mind if I share your story of William Branham? You’re asking the Lord for it? Is that all right? Yeah, I ask him in public so that he’s shamed if he says no. No, I wouldn’t do that. Yeah, bad joke, bad timing, no class at all right there. I was really inspired by this; it happened, I don’t know, maybe 15 years or so ago. Chris was asked—one of the great heroes we’ve had in the realms of anointing is a man named William Branham. Tragic things happened at the end, but that doesn’t mess up how God used him. Solomon still made it into the Book; value what God values. If you want to live smart, favor who He favors.
All right, he asked the Lord, «Lord, I want to operate in his anointing,» or something to that effect, and the Lord spoke very clearly: «You couldn’t handle it.» Am I right? «You couldn’t handle it.» And Chris then came back and said, «Well then, don’t give it to me; only give it to the entire church.» The moment he had in the Lord, if I remember correctly, was that he felt the Lord was pleased with his response. It wasn’t about him having an anointing that draws everybody’s attention; it was about the church coming into a place in God that represents Jesus more clearly. I love that example so much; I’ve used it a number of times.
So here is this powerful moment in Israel’s history, and it says they believed God and they believed His prophets. Interestingly, in Scripture, it says, «And Israel believed God and they believed Moses.» They weren’t contradictory; it was necessary to see a co-laboring expression of what it looked like to trust God. It’s easy to say, «I trust God» and don’t trust any people because it can’t be measured. John put it another way: it’s easy to say you love God whom you can’t see and hate your brother whom you can see. It’s illegal to claim a spiritual reality that cannot be measured in the natural.
So I love God with all my heart. It has to be able to be examined and measured in how I treat people. It’s what validates that unseen reality that I am supposed to walk in. It’s the same in faith; it requires a faith in the gifts of God. Not because people are always 100%, but the Spirit of God is within us to help us weed through the times there’s error or someone’s opinion has been added to a word—that’s the truth. In the Old Testament, the prophets were judged; in the New Testament, prophecy is judged. Get Chris’s teaching on this; it’s good. If there were royalties from the message tonight, Chris, I’d give them all to you.
So here it says they believed God and they believed His prophets. It says they believed God and they believed Moses. Gideon at one point says, «Give this shout; it’s a shout of declaration. Shout out praise here to break these vases with candles.» It’s a weird story—break these candles and then shout, «For the Lord and for Gideon.» Sometimes we can live impressed by our own faith that cannot be measured when, in fact, it is measured by our confidence in the sovereignty of God to use the people around us to fill in where we lack. It’s called trust.
So it says, «Believe the Lord your God; you will be established. Believe His prophets, and you will prosper.» Does anybody in here want to prosper? Now, I know that some are too holy for it, and I get it—I get it, you don’t need it. But the rest of us really want to prosper. I’ve told people every once in a while, «Listen, if you’re not hungry for more, then you’re just being selfish.» Yeah, it’s the most acceptable form of selfishness because it proves to me you’re untouched by the needs of people around you. That’s not you; that’s my other folks. It’s their mother folks; it’s not even you on TV; it’s not you either; it’s everybody else.