Bill Johnson - You are Designed to Hear God's Voice
You were designed to hear from God; it is your nature. Jesus said, «My sheep hear my voice.» The very fact that I am a child of God means He created in me a capacity to hear Him. Everything about me is wired to hear from God; it’s just that we’re accustomed to hearing an audible voice from another human being, and we call that hearing from God, not realizing that God speaks to us in so many different ways. Hey, welcome back! Glad you’re joining us. I want you to turn in your Bibles, if you have a Bible with you, to First Kings chapter 3, the verse I alluded to last week. I want you to see what actually happened in Solomon’s life, and this is such a fascinating story to me. We know that Solomon was given an option, a choice; in the middle of the night, God shows up, and he has this opportunity to choose anything that he wants. It’s an extraordinary moment in his life, but how it came about and what he actually asked for was quite surprising to me.
So, let’s just jump right into it. We’re going to go right to verse 3 of chapter 3; that is what I want to read first because it sets us up. It says, «Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father David, except that he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.» Man, you don’t want to have God put an «except» in your life! Solomon was copying other nations instead of following the biblical patterns of worship. He adopted the styles and practices of surrounding nations that actually worshiped false gods. Even though he worshiped the most high God on these high places, at least initially, it was the worship of self-will, not surrender, so it’s a good thing for us to take note of.
Now jump to verse 7; we’ll get into the actual encounter that Solomon had. Verse 7 says, «Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant King instead of my father David, and I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or to come in. Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore, give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of Yours?» This speech pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing; and God said, «Because you have asked for this and have not asked for long life for yourself or riches…» He is going to give him exactly what he asked for. Here’s the interesting thing: verse 15 says, «Then Solomon awoke.» This tells me that all of this happened while he was sleeping. He was sleeping, and he had this encounter. It’s amazing to me that God would actually trust Solomon to make a decision that would affect the rest of his life and the entire nation of Israel in his sleep. Solomon would later coin this phrase in Song of Solomon: «Though I sleep, yet my heart is awake.»
Here’s the first thing that I want you to pick out of this story: it is possible to be so entirely devoted to one reason for being that it actually becomes a part of how you think. Your sleep, the decisions you make subconsciously—not just the intentional, disciplined decisions but the spontaneous eruptions of the soul—are consistent with this main reason for being. Solomon was so, can I say, married to this hunger for wisdom that his dad trained him for that when he was given this opportunity, God could actually trust him to make a decision in his sleep. The Lord gave him exactly what he asked for: that supernatural wisdom. But back up in the story; I want you to see one other thing here that I think is pretty critical. It’s in verse 9. He says, «Therefore, give Your servant an understanding heart.» I was looking that up in my Study Bible, and it says that understanding heart literally means a hearing heart. Think about this: the prayer for wisdom is actually, «God, give me a hearing ear; give me a heart that hears Your voice.» That’s extraordinary because what that’s implying is there’s not just wisdom that becomes resonant in me, but wisdom becomes the manifestation of my continual hearing from the Father. That’s critical for us to understand—we need continuous fellowship with the Lord to stay current in our wisdom.
It reminds me a whole lot of faith: faith comes by hearing. It doesn’t say faith comes from having heard; it’s not pointing back to a past experience. Faith, by nature, is a manifestation of present fellowship, of present engagement with God. That’s what Solomon was praying for: he was saying, «God, give me a hearing ear; give me an ear for Your voice so that I can stay in tune to what You’re saying, what You’re thinking, what You have purposed and planned for this great nation.» I love Solomon’s love for Israel; I love how impressed he is, if I can put it this way, with his dad’s success and his dad’s work. His father was a man of war; Solomon was a man of peace. So it wasn’t that he had the responsibility to copy or mimic his dad—he just needed to build upon what his dad had accomplished. That’s how we honor forefathers; it’s not about trying to mimic. I don’t need to try to mimic my dad; I just need to honor what he accomplished and build on it, taking it where he didn’t have time to go. In a sense, that’s what Solomon is doing here in this great story. He prays, and the Lord gives him the opportunity to have whatever he wants, and he prays for a hearing ear.
Most Christians that I know don’t think they hear very well. There aren’t many believers that I know who think they hear from the Lord that well, and we tend to almost shoot ourselves in the foot by the way we esteem our own ability and capacity to hear. Let me just wrap this session up with this thought: you were designed to hear from God; it is your nature. Jesus said, «My sheep hear my voice.» The very fact that I am a child of God means He created in me a capacity to hear Him. Everything about me is wired to hear from God; it’s just that we’re accustomed to hearing an audible voice from another human being, and we call that hearing from God—not realizing that God speaks to us in so many different ways: subtle impressions of the heart—we’re probably more accustomed to that one—but He often speaks through unusual circumstances or strange coincidences and things of that nature just to capture our attention. Proverbs says, «Hey, if you’re lazy, go to the ant and learn; watch the ant.»
The point is He is speaking through nature itself. There are things happening all around us in nature—the way that plants grow. I have a plant right outside right now that is growing twelve months of the year; it’s a flower, irises. They grow twelve months of the year here. We’ve never had that before; we don’t know what happened, but last year it started growing. It’s something that testifies to me that the grace and blessing of God can bring life whenever He wants. That’s why in Ezekiel you have trees that bear fruit twelve months of the year.
What’s the point? You and I live because He speaks, and we are designed to hear. My prayer is that your capacity and awareness of your ability to hear would increase, that together we would continue to hear the nudging, the directions, the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and that we would become more and more confident in our ability to hear from God. What He wants to birth in the earth is going to be through a group of people who truly yield to the Lord and to His voice. That’s our great thrill. Next week, we’re going to take a look at what’s going to sound like a little bit of a deviation, but it’s in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about us being the salt of the earth. I want to talk to you about that and get you ready for our exploration of the Book of Proverbs, so join us again next week.