Bill Johnson - Everything About Our Lives Is Connected to Hearing God's Voice
Bless you, go and be seated. Oh, anyone here who has had a certain physical affliction for 20 years or longer, you’ve probably had it prayed for a number of times. If that’s you, just stand up—20 years or longer. Okay, I want all of you who are standing to move into an aisle, just scoot out into an aisle. Church, I think we’re supposed to say enough is enough. So just move into the aisle. You know, Jesus had a blind man go wash in the Pool of Siloam. There’s no magic in the pool; there’s no magic in that location. What was important is that there was an activity, and simply walking to the aisle is your Pool of Siloam.
So here’s what I’m going to ask: I only want those who believe God heals—not occasionally, but today. I want you to go lay hands on these folks. Let me give you a testimony first; I’m sorry, I should have provided one first. One of the most significant miracles I’ve ever seen happened about six years ago. I won’t go into the physical issue, but the person was bedridden for many, many years and was able to come to a meeting. We prayed, and the only thing I felt led to pray for was for her to be flooded with His presence. That may not sound like a very specific prayer, but what I saw was like a large vase filled with sand at the bottom, and you had a hose pouring water in until it overflowed, keeping the hose in there until all the sand had worked its way to the top. Does that make sense? You’re just trying to get something out. I feel like we’re just supposed to do that right now: pray for these folks, bless them, and ask God to overflow them. Let’s keep it very simple.
If you believe God heals, you can stand and go pray for these individuals. It doesn’t hurt to find out what needs healing, but for the most part in this situation, we’re just praying for God to flood their souls. Now start praying; I want to hear you praying. Thank you, Lord, just flood their souls. Literally, flood their souls, God. Overflow them. We’re going to take a few minutes for this, so don’t become weary in well-doing. Flood their souls; overflow them. We declare enough is enough—20 years is too long. Enough is enough. We pray for and declare healing grace—healing grace—to flood their souls. Thank you, Lord. Keep praying. I want to hear you praying out loud. Just flood their souls. The anointing breaks the yoke. We pray for that release of anointing into every part of their soul, every part of their body. Flood their souls, God. Thank you, Lord.
Yes, they’re starting to get some breakthrough, so that’s good. Don’t stop. I was going to end it, and then I started singing. It’s starting to lift, so let’s not quit yet. Healing grace of Jesus, flood their souls. Every single part, God. We declare online to our online family—we should have mentioned that earlier; forgive me—we declare the same thing over you: that the Lord Himself would flood your souls. Flood your souls, that every attachment of affliction, infirmity, every part of its attachment to your life would be broken and just flushed out of your system. Holy Spirit, come; increase the manifestation of Your presence and just flush out of people’s systems right now.
This whole issue of affliction, we just declare this now in Jesus' name. Now I want you just to declare over them, «Enough is enough. Enough, enough!» Declare it over them: «Enough is enough. Enough is enough!» This healing begins now; this cycle of affliction ends now—in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, amen! Bless you. Go ahead and bless them. Hug them, do something nice, then go ahead and be seated.
We almost always have people examine themselves and such, but I felt tonight that literally you’re going to see measurable increase in breakthrough over the next several minutes, but certainly in the next several days. I really want to encourage you to let us know because it’s always so encouraging for us to hear.
How many of you were at the movie last Sunday night? Yeah, we had someone—when someone was being prayed for in the film, one of our online Bethel family members was watching, and the exact part of the neck that was being prayed for in the movie was an affliction they had for 42 years. In the prayer on the movie, they were healed—completely healed from 42 years of affliction. That’s so amazing! We’ve also had people healed in Reading, like some of the books that have been written that come out of this house—they’ve actually read a story or teaching, and a miracle happened to them while they were reading.
Chris’s book, «Spirit Wars,» is a great example. Significant deliverance took place in someone’s life. They were in their bedroom by themselves, reading, and then they had a visitation from the Lord and were set free from horrific demonic oppression. So it just happens everywhere; you can’t get away from it. He will hunt you down.
I feel like we need to pray for a couple more things. I really want to talk to you tonight out of the Bible, and we’re going to do that in a moment. But there are a couple of other things I felt we were supposed to pray for. First, if you have family issues that have been there for many years—maybe even a 20-year deal, with years of conflict and impossible situations in family relationships—and you want that healed, stand up.
Now, say this with me: «20 years is long enough!» For some of you, I know it’s less than that, but there’s such an assault on identity. One of the reasons why there’s such an assault on relationships is that it goes to the root of identity. We often find out who we are and our place in life through our relationships. There’s a strong attack in that area.
So I want you—if you’re seated, you’re the ministry team—go and stand, just lay hands on someone who’s standing. Start praying over them. Some of you who are standing together can pray for each other. Just start praying: «God, do the impossible.» Do the impossible. Loose a spirit of reconciliation. I want you to pray that specifically; bind division. Loose a spirit of reconciliation over these households.
We bind that spirit of division with confusion and chaos that has entered into household after household, and we declare this ends tonight. We loose a spirit of reconciliation. Pray for family members to have dreams right now. Pray it right now—for family members to have dreams, all over. People are dreaming of the man in white; let’s pray that it happens in our world—that people dream of Jesus, the man in white, and that there’s reconciliation because of these dreams. Thank you, Lord.
Okay, stop your prayer for just a moment. Look at me because we’re going to add part two to this. How many of you who are receiving prayer? Put your hands up. I want to see who you are. Okay, how many of you who are receiving prayer feel like you’ve done so much to bring reconciliation, and it just hasn’t worked? Put your hands back up.
All right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pray, «God, take my loaves and fishes.» Everybody might want to get in on this one: «Take my loaves and fishes. Take my loaves. Make it enough, God. Make it enough. Touch what is insufficient and lacking, and make it enough.» We ask this in Jesus' name; let Him be exalted. Everyone said, «Amen! Amen! Amen!»
Wonderful. Please be seated. I really do want to teach, but we’re going to pray for one more thing. Now, this one is very specific. There’s this thing called systemic poverty where multiple family lines—your parents, your grandparents—have just never had enough. Forget the reason why. The Bible says, «The soil of the poor holds major crops, but injustice keeps it from them.» Picture someone in poverty, a family just stuck in poverty, with a steel plate underneath them that keeps them from the soil that could produce abundance. We’re just going to call that steel plate injustice.
I feel like we’re supposed to go after this thing tonight and watch what happens over the next—we’re going to say the next 12 months. I’m not praying for anyone to win the lottery, because the Lord has to make us prosperous in here before we can maintain prosperity out there. It’s true; we have to learn His ways here so that we can be good stewards.
So if you’re part of a family that has been locked in a cycle of poverty, what I just said makes sense to you. I want you to stand. Guess what we’re going to do. I know it’s hard to imagine right now, but I’m going to have those who are seated stand—you’re the ministry team. Go to these folks, and I want you to begin to confess the word of God over them. If you only know one verse about finances, just say that one verse over and over again, but I want you to confess the word over them and declare that the cycle of poverty ends tonight.
Let’s pray; pray out loud. Once again, online we declare the same. In fact, there are going to be households in our online family that you will notice in the next 12 months that everything changes about the economic environment of your home: attitude, spending, income, favor—everything. We declare it shifts and changes tonight in Jesus' name.
Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, we declare an end to the cycle of poverty. Pray right now for prosperity of soul—not just for that individual, but the entire family line. Pray that their relatives would be visited by the Spirit of God tonight. Change the identity, Lord, of every single household represented here—from being locked in not enough to moving into more than enough. More than enough. Just declare over them: «More than enough! More than enough!»
Thank you, Lord. Pray and declare over them that God is giving you the capacity to make wealth. Yeah, in Jesus' name. Amen! All right, go ahead and bless them, hug them, do something nice, and then be seated.
I’ve got stuff I want to talk about, and it’s already late, so if you get done before I do, just go home. That’s all I know to say. I want you to open your Bibles to the Book of Exodus, chapter 14. We’re going to be reading out of chapter 14, verses 19 and 20, and hopefully Deuteronomy 8.
Don’t become terrified; it may not be as long as all that, but still, that’s where I’m hoping to go tonight. I don’t know what your Bible reading is like or what you enjoy reading about; I honestly do love the entire Bible. I even wade through the genealogies just because it’s in the book, so I just make sure to slow down and read through that. But I have a special affection for the story of Israel coming out of Egypt, going through the wilderness, and into the promised land.
I like stories that are not just metaphors. They’re real stories, but the lessons in the story are much like metaphors, and they’re easy for me to learn from. It’s like David and Goliath; I love these Bible stories for children because they are really Bible stories for adults—they’re Bible stories for me. I like the pictures involved in the stories: Daniel in the lion’s den, Moses parting the Red Sea—all these stories are so wonderful to learn from.
What was important for me to learn early on in my faith and walk with the Lord is that I thought the promised land was heaven. It was hard for me to navigate the lessons involved in that story. If you’re new to scripture, Israel grew as a nation in the land of Egypt. Long story short, they prospered there. God released them from Egypt through the shedding of blood of a lamb, and they put the blood on the doorposts of every Jewish household. They were set free from slavery by blood into their promised land. It took them 40 years, but, technically, it was only an 11-day journey.
Oftentimes, we slow down the journey that God takes us on because we have better ideas. They go through this process where they finally come so many years later and enter the land of promise. Now, the land of promises in the Old Testament is life in the Kingdom of God in the New Testament. So when it talks about entering the promised land, it’s talking about us entering into the realities of God’s kingdom here on Earth.
When Jesus lays hands on a person tormented by demons, He delivers them and says the kingdom of God came upon you. So it was a present reality—the evidence of the presence of that kingdom, the King’s domain, was demonstrated through deliverance or liberty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. This Old Testament lesson is literally about us leaving the old ways of life, the old ways of thinking, and experiencing the unique way of thinking and the unique way of living in this place called the kingdom of God. Yes, someday we go to heaven, but right now, we get to live in the reality of heaven.
Whatever measure you desire, that desire has to be matched with pursuit and radical obedience. You can have a dream of wanting to live in the reality of heaven, but it has to be matched with pursuit because He says to seek first—it’s a priority. There has to be radical obedience that matches that passionate pursuit. Wherever there’s passionate pursuit matched with radical obedience, you see heaven come to Earth.
Exodus 14—are you there? The reason I share this is for many reasons, but I say that the promised land is not heaven. Moses didn’t make it; I’m pretty sure he made it to heaven, but he didn’t make it into the promised land. All right? That was overwhelming, but it’s all right. I’ve worked with less, so it’s all right.
Here we are: I actually read this passage this morning in our first two services. During our ministry time, verse 13 says, «Moses said to the people, 'Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.'»
Here’s where we’re starting the story. Moses has this incredible, let’s call it, words from the Lord. He has a faith—a confidence—that if you can imagine all of Israel, a couple of million people standing on the banks of the Red Sea, the Egyptians are right there, just being held off by a cloud. They’re kept at a distance; the soldiers want to come and kill the Israelites. So they’re there in fear, terrified. Moses stands up and says, «Stand still, don’t be afraid; the Lord’s going to fight for you. See the Egyptians? Take a good look because you’ll never see them again.» He makes this prophetic announcement, but what happens next is interesting. He got most of the word right; he said the Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.
Verse 15 says, «The Lord said to Moses, 'Why are you crying out to Me? '» So what does that tell us Moses was doing after he prophesied? Has anyone else ever done that? You make this confident confession of faith about what God’s about to do, and then after the words come out of your mouth, you go, «Oh no!» And we start crying out to God. Well, that’s Moses here.
He gives this profound word, and then the Lord speaks, saying, «Why are you crying out to Me?» This tells me he was crying out to God. So He says, «Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.» Now, how many of you know there’s a little difference between standing still and going forward? Moses thought they were going to see the deliverance by standing still. God said, «You got the deliverance part right, but you’re not going to see it standing still; you’re going to see it going forward.» Sometimes we get the heart of the word right, but the application is where we struggle.
Please listen to me on this. Oftentimes, we have this prophetic sense of what God is saying, what He’s doing, and we’re confident in what He’s about to do, but we misinterpret how it’s going to be released. So we stand still long past the time where we should have been moving forward. Come on, lift up your rod. Verse 16 says, «Stretch out your hand over the sea; divide it. The children of Israel shall go on dry ground.»
Moses takes the rod, which, by the way, was the rod of Moses until he threw it down. When he picked it up, it became the rod of the Lord. Do you remember when the magicians in Egypt threw their rods down, and they turned into snakes? Remember? The rod that swallowed their rod.
So he stretched out his hand, and the sea parted, and Israel walked through on dry ground—instantly dried from moisture that had been there for thousands of years. They walk through on dry ground into the land of promises. But what happens for many believers is they go through this body of water. I apologize because I’m going to make a whole bunch of assumptions and leaps in logic, so you just need to get your gospel track shoes on and run with me on this one.
So Israel leaves Egypt and goes through the Red Sea, which is water baptism. They come to the second baptism, which is a river, not a sea, and the Holy Spirit is called a river in John 7. They go through a second baptism into the land of promises.
The second baptism in the Spirit takes you into a supernatural lifestyle. Many believers go through that second body of water—this is the crossing of the Red Sea. The second crossing is the Jordan River, where they go into the land of promises. They live their entire life on the banks of the River of the Land of Promises, able to pray in tongues but never taking territory. The entrance into that second body of water was to give access to triumph that you didn’t have access to on the other side. Is anybody catching what I’m trying to say? All right, let’s just move on.
What we have here is Israel starting to receive some instruction on their purpose and identity, so I want you to jump over to chapter 19 of Exodus. They walk through on dry ground and enter the wilderness. This is not the promised land yet; this is wilderness, so it’s the beginning of their journey. Everybody’s excited because they just saw the miracle, and then the Lord decides to give them a couple of tests.
Verse 3 says, «Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself.'»
Now listen to me carefully. Israel has a problem. They experienced the blessing—the bounty of the Lord, incredible breakthroughs, water out of a rock, pillared fire by night, cloud by day, mana on the ground—all these extraordinary miracles that sustained them and kept them alive, but they would repeatedly fall back into their lifestyle of complaining.
It actually cost them their inheritance. They did not enter the promised land because of their continuous complaining. Why did they complain? Because they had unfulfilled promises. Everything they complained about was a legitimate problem. They came to a place where they hadn’t had food for a while, and they’re complaining because they have no food. «Moses, why did you bring us out here to die? We could have died in Egypt; at least we ate there.»
So their complaining is a legitimate concern—a parent’s concern for their children being able to eat is a legitimate concern, yes? The проблема is what we do with the challenges that we face.
We all face challenges, but when I turn my challenge—when a challenge gives me permission to complain—and rarely do we complain about God; we much rather complain about His people. That’s the subtle way to complain against God. They complained against Moses, and God said to Moses, «They’re not complaining against you; they’re complaining against Me.»
Or maybe it’s the system, maybe it’s the government, maybe it’s this or that, but the problem is that we feel justified in speaking words that are not life-giving. I’ve asked you the question before: if God inhabits my praise, who inhabits my complaints?
Come on, words are habitations; they will house something. I think it comes down to the fight we are in every day of our lives—a fight to sustain the lordship of Jesus over every part of our life, and that’s the fight. To embrace a lifestyle of complaining, I find myself resorting to that when I feel pain, when I’m uncomfortable, when I’m afraid—this is a lordship issue.
Most of the time, for example, we actually don’t have a financial issue; we have a lordship issue. It’s the same for all of us. We wake up every day with the opportunity to yield ourselves to the lordship of Jesus or to come up with our own spiritually shaped values from the scripture that keep us in charge of our Christian routine.
I know you don’t need this, but there are people out there who need to hear this—you know them too. Yes, you do.
I didn’t get very far on this, did I? But I stopped here because look at this verse again: «You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself.» Does that minister life to you if the Lord speaks that to you, «I brought you on eagle’s wings?» Does that encourage you?
It didn’t last long. It didn’t last long. They needed to hear it again and again and again. I’m embarrassed to say me too; me too. It encourages me, it edifies me, it strengthens me for a little while, and then for some reason I forget, «Oh yeah, that eagle’s wings word—that was a good word. I should have written that one down.»
I should have maybe memorized it. I should have developed a prayer life reaction to the word of the Lord so that I could sustain long past the immediate moment of inspiration. Because it was a defining word that could have impacted the rest of their life. Would it make sense to say we often times hear life-changing words that have very short shelf lives?
Life-changing words have the potential to define the rest of our days, but because the place they have here isn’t entertained enough—we often times hear life-changing words that have very short shelf lives. This is why Jesus said, «If you abide in Me and My words abide in you,» let what I say over you—"I bore you on eagle’s wings to bring you to Myself"—let what I say over you stay in your heart forever.
Once you make that connection with what I say over your life, I trust you to ask for anything, and I’ll do it. This is the covenant He makes with us—to receive a life-altering word so that we can release a life-altering movement based on a life-altering word.
This is going to take forever; I got to get moving.
Verse 5: «Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you will be a special treasure to Me.» Wow. I have that underlined—a special treasure to Me, above all people, for all the earth is Mine. «And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.»
These are the words you shall speak to the children of Israel. Real quick, in Genesis, as the nations began to multiply and develop, God extended Himself to all the nations of the earth. They all rejected Him. He chose Israel; He chose Abraham, and out of him raised up one nation—not in rejection of the rest but to illustrate His heart for one so that all would be invited in.
Did that resonate with you? Now we have Israel, twelve tribes, extending the priesthood call to every tribe. They rejected Him, so He raises up the tribe of Levi to illustrate on the one what is open to all. In the New Testament, you hear not «You will be a kingdom of priests,» as it is written here, but «You are a kingdom of priests» (1 Peter 2:9).
Priesthood means we minister directly to Him and we represent Him in ministering to people. So here is the announcement, «You will be to Me a kingdom of priests.»
Chapter 20, verse 18—now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. They said to Moses, «You speak with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.»
Moses said to the people, «Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that His fear may be before you so that you may not sin.» The people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. Did you see that phrase, «the thick darkness where God was?» Sometimes it’s dark because He’s so near—the shadow of His wings. Sometimes you’re in a dark place only because of His nearness, and He’s protecting you.
Verse 20 is interesting. Moses said to the people, «Do not fear, for God has come to test you.» Now go to Deuteronomy chapter 8.
God has come to test you. Verse 1: «Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.»
Man, I read an interesting quote to our staff this morning. I wonder if I could find it. It’s from St. Moses the Black in Ethiopia. It says, «You fast, but Satan does not eat. You labor fervently, but Satan never sleeps. The only dimension with which you can outperform Satan is by acquiring humility, for Satan has no humility.»
Just a little light-hearted comment there. All right, so here the Lord says He came to test and to humble Israel, which means you and me too— to humble and to test us to know what was in our hearts.
Let me keep going. He humbled you, allowing you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Let me go to verse 3 again. «He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.»
This verse fascinates me for some reason. He humbled you by letting you be hungry, and then He fed you. How did that teach us what we live by? God has provided sustenance. How is that connected to eating manna on the ground?
Are you getting my question here? He says, «He humbled you, allowed you to become hungry, then fed you with what-is-it"—you know, «what is it» is the meaning of manna. So I humbled you by letting you be hungry, and then I fed you, so you would always remember man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
How does that connect? We’re hungry, food appears, eat it. Now we should know man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
In Israel’s experience, the manna was released because of decrees made to Moses as he directed them, led by God. He announced to them, «The Egyptians that you see today, you’ll never see them again forever.» Where did Moses get that word?
It’s a safe guess—this is not a trick question. I know I know you don’t trust me, I wouldn’t trust me either. I get it. So he hears from the Father, «The Egyptians that you see today—you’ll never see them again forever.» Then they experience that miracle.
What was the lesson? They live because God still talks. Yes, we have a financial crisis. What do we want? Finances. What do we need? To hear from God. Everything is connected to us hearing from God, right? Everything about our life is connected to hearing from God.
You may say, «Well, I don’t hear from God.» Well, He talks loud enough to be heard. Come on, that’s good! I have a son who doesn’t hear well. He was born with 90 percent loss of hearing in both ears, so we raised our voices.
I’m not a better father than He is, and He doesn’t whisper to the hard of hearing and then punish them for not listening!
The capacity to hear is largely created by the desire to hear. It’s not a skill set; it’s a hunger. It’s an awareness of need and a place of dependency. God, I’m in a place right now where if You don’t speak to me, I’ll die. I have no other options. There’s no alternative; I’m in the wilderness.
Either You provide for us or we die here in the wilderness, and it’s that lifestyle of abandonment and trust that has this deep affection and adoration and attachment to the voice of God. It’s this need to hear from the Lord.
I’ve said it many times, but this is the only book you’ll ever read where the author always shows up when you read it, and He makes it alive. It’s alive! Even things you don’t understand are alive. You may question and think, «What does that mean?» Guess what? Nutrients just entered your soul!
He can deposit a word in you today that you don’t understand and bring it to the surface in a year and provide a miracle, but it was important that the seed get deposited today so that we expose ourselves to what He’s saying.
He said He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know. That He might humble you, test you, to do you good in the end.
Then you will say in your heart, «My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.» He’s correcting them so they don’t do that.
He tells them in verse 18, «You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.» My goodness, I actually didn’t plan on going there, but I feel like the Lord’s on that thing.
Let’s take just a moment more, and we’ll end this. I’m not sure how, but we’re going to end it. I might just walk off the stage.
I don’t know, Jesus, help us. I do pray, Lord, that for every one of us, it’d be this endearment to the voice of God. I love how He talks to us; He talks so differently. I love the still small voice, the audible voice; I’ll take all of it.
Often times, He speaks through this. Let me give you an example; this isn’t a third ending—this is an extension of number two!
How many of you were in the first service this morning when Dave Harvey stood up and talked about the triple yoke? I have three of the most impossible situations I’m facing right now, and when he said «triple yoke,» I knew that word was for me.
How do you know? You just do. We don’t demand that God speak to us in a certain way; we just recognize what He does.
So Father, loosen us up to hear from You better. Amen!