The Listening Process

Announcer: Welcome to Sword of the Spirit, written and presented by Colin Dye, senior minister of Kensington Temple and leader of London City Church. Sword of the Spirit is a dynamic teaching series equipping the believers of today to build the disciples of tomorrow. We pray that you find these programs inspiring, and a catalyst in deepening your knowledge of God, your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and your intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

Colin Dye: Hello, and welcome to The Sword of the Spirit, a school of ministry in the Word and the Spirit. Our topic is Prophetic Listening. And I’ve entitled it that very deliberately. Because when we’re talking about God, the God who speaks to us, it means that we have to learn to listen to Him. And it’s prophetic in the sense that we learn how, not just to listen to God, but to apply that Word, the Word that He speaks to us, to our lives personally, and at times also pass His Word on to other people. Now the heart of the Bible is the revelation of God Himself. God speaks to us so that He may reveal Himself to us. Jesus is called the Word of God, because He is the fullest expression of who God is. He is the fullest revelation of who God is. The Bible says, “No one has seen God at any time, but God the one and only Son has made Him known.” So that’s why Jesus is also called the great prophet. Not just a prophet—more than a prophet. But He is the one who perfectly reveals the Father to us. And so when Jesus sends us His Holy Spirit, He gives us the link to this prophetic process. In the last program, I began to speak about the prophetic process. Of course, the purpose of it is that we might get to know God. But remember, this is a process. It doesn’t happen instantaneously. We don’t get text messages or email messages fully formed from God. The closest we get to that are the scriptures—the written Word of God. But the process of taking God’s Word, listening to what He’s saying, and applying it to our lives personally, is what I call prophetic listening. And it is a process. As I’ve just been saying, we have to get to know the Word, hear it for ourselves, allow the Holy Spirit to apply it to us personally so that we can begin to put it into practice. So this listening process is very important and we’re going to be talking about how that process actually works in our lives. We need to understand that this process is rooted in the revelation of God. It’s not something that we make up or that we become to receive just out of the air from nowhere. No, it is a whole historical process of God speaking to His people and the scriptures being written down throughout the centuries, right up until the closure of the canon of scripture. Now when we talk about this process, we’re not suggesting that there is first of all the scriptures and then something else that has to be added to scriptures. That’s a very important point. Every revelation and every word that we hear from God must be a scripture word. It must be judged by the scriptures. It’s a continuous process. God is always speaking to us. He is the communicating God. So it’s rooted in the revelation of God, it’s a continuous process, and it is also always bearing fruit in our lives. Now when we come to today’s program, we’re going to analyze how this prophetic process actually operates step by step—the kind of things we have to bear in mind when we’re talking about listening to God. Because it’s not about listening to our own imagination or just imagining things—if God were here, this is what He might be saying perhaps. No, it’s not like that. It’s learning to discern the voice of God that is coming through His revelation to us in all the wonderful means and ways in which God does speak to us—through the scriptures, by the Holy Spirit, through our circumstances, through godly counsel and advice, through the inner witness of our own hearts when we receive a very clear impression that God is doing something special and that God is speaking to us. And so as we get ready for today’s preaching, I pray you open your heart to receive this prophetic process.

So let’s begin now to appreciate the listening process. All right? And in parts 2, section 2 and right through to section 9, we’ll be looking at different aspects of this. We’ll see the God who speaks, the way He speaks, and His purpose in speaking. We see the Old Testament prophets, how—and Jesus’ example, how they heard from God, and we will see ways in which we should learn to listen today. Now, although each of these sections that are to come will be focusing on different aspects of God speaking and the believers listening, but there are some general overall principles that we should remember and I’m going to come to these at the very beginning. And these principles I would like you to keep in mind as we come to the teaching and go on from here.

First of all, recognize it’s the living God who is speaking. And this will bring into our hearts a sense of wonder. And it will shape and color everything that you think about or talk about or your full appreciation of what prophetic listening is. And we, the moment we do this, we’ll start to appreciate what a privilege it is that we have been called to listen to God, because He is the great, almighty God, the creator God, the God of heaven and earth, and He is our great, gracious redeemer. It’s the living God, who reveals His mind and His counsel to us in exactly the same way that He did in Bible times. And He is the same God who revealed Himself to the patriarchs, the same God who parted the Red Sea, who provided the law, who protected the people of God in the wilderness, who smote Jericho so that those walls came down, who dealt with Goliath and Sennacherib, who set fire to Carmel, and shut those lions’ mouths; the God who came in the flesh, the God who sacrificed His Son, the God who raised Him from the dead, poured out His Spirit, and the same one who’s coming again, that’s the one who is speaking to us. And that great God speaks to us personally, privately, specifically, lovingly, tenderly, graciously, and continuously. What a great privilege is ours. Now, we must be careful to avoid the other danger of being over confident and a little bit blasé about the fact that God is willing to speak to us. We mustn’t become presumptuous, over familiar and just complacent. These are holy things. Holy things. And the way in which we can guard our hearts in this respect is constantly to recognize and to realize who it is to whom we are listening. It is the living God who is communicating to us.

Secondly, we need to appreciate that our listening to God is a ministry to Him. It’s a ministry to Him. When we listen to God and wait upon Him, this is—it blesses God. It blesses God. [stutters] We realize in our ministry as counselors that what people need more than anything else is someone to listen to them. Now I’m not suggesting that God is in heaven with some kind of emotional problem and unless He can pour out His heart to us, then, you know, He’s going to be sort of psychologically disturbed. I’m not suggesting that. But I’m saying we know the value of people listening to us because it’s to do with relationship. God wants to pour His heart out to us. And quite frankly, I believe He is just looking for people who are willing to listen to Him. If you put yourself in the place where you listen to God, that ministers to God and He says, “At last I’ve found somebody who is willing to listen.” And there is no limit to what He can show you, no limit to what He can tell you, and no limit to how He can use you and bless you as a result. Now in the book of Acts, we read in Acts chapter 13 of how the apostles—well, they weren’t specifically apostles, but the Bible teachers Barnabas and Saul became apostles because they were listening to the Holy Spirit at this particular point. But it reports how the prophets and teachers at Antioch ministered to the Lord. How they were ministering to Him. They were fasting. But also, they were listening. That’s why the Holy Spirit spoke. If you find yourself to be a listener, you will find yourself to be a hearer, because God will speak. And so we must take care that when we are listening to God, we are not doing it simply for self centered purposes. That we are in relationship with Him and we’re enjoying that relationship. We’re ministering to God and we are blessing His heart and we are listening in order to deepen that relationship.

Now a third primary principle is this—remember the purpose of revelation. What is the reason for this? Why is God speaking? Well, in part 3, when we come to that, we will see that God speaks essentially to reveal Himself. He speaks in order to reveal Himself, to share who He is, to communicate Himself—self revelation. So He speaks to us, firstly, that we may know Him better. That’s why He talks—so that firstly, we will know Him better. And only secondly—secondarily—that we may know what to do or know what to say in any particular situation. So the heart of listening to God is relationship—developing our relationship with God. I’ll never forget the first time when I began to really hear God and understand this listening process. It was so affirming when God spoke to you, even when He was telling you off, it was sort of, you know, nice and warm, because He’s so tender. And He will speak to you in a way that’s very surprising. I remember when I was first learning how to hear God in this way, I was kneeling down in prayer and I was—I don’t think I was adopting a particularly religious posture, but there I was kneeling and had my hands over my eyes and I was kneeling [stutters] on the [stutters] leaning on the couch, and I was praying. And I was very, very careful in my praying and I heard a voice behind me.” Now, when preachers say this—this is what I was saying earlier—you’re going to picture it as too dramatic. But there was no audible voice, but it was a clear sense of direction. This inner voice that seemed to resonate from behind me. And so I turned round, and the most comfortable position then was just to sit on the couch that I had been praying over. And the voice said, “What are you doing, Colin?” And I thought to myself, that should have been particularly obvious, especially to the Lord. I said, “Well, I’m praying, Lord.” And He said, “But I’m over here.” So instead of this saying my prayers to God and humbly beseeching and everything, I just sat down and I talked to God in a two way conversation. And it might sound very weird, and believe me, some who talk like that are weird, but no, no, no; this was a lesson that the Holy Spirit was wanting to teach me. And so when God speaks, it’s to reveal Himself to you intimately, personally, so that you can go away and communicate that knowledge of God accurately to others.

Number four, another foundation principle for listening to God is that we must be willing to respond with obedience. That runs throughout all that I’m going to say. That under girds everything. It’s pointless to listen to God without being willing to obey Him and to be ready to do what He wants us to do. Now in Living Faith, in that manual, we see that the faith process involves hearing, believing, confessing, acting. All doing this, acting on God’s Word—hearing it, believing it, confessing it, and doing it. Biblical faith is not true faith until all of this process is in place. And so the seed of God’s living faith will not mature in us until we nurture it, obey it, confess it, act upon it. And so God’s Word to you will not find fruit in your life unless and until you are willing to act on what God says. It has no value whatsoever simply to listen to God if you don’t demonstrate what you are hearing by obeying and doing. And so as we see this listening to God process within the wider context of the whole prophetic process, we’re going to underline the truth time and time again, that revelation that we receive must be acted upon.

Number five, understand the process by which God speaks. Now I have anticipated this in my comments earlier. Because as we understand the process by which God speaks, then we’re going to be able to hear Him more clearly. So, for example, if we understand that God is a spiritual being—God is spirit—therefore, He will not normally speak to us through an audible or a visual experience. In other words, we’re not going to hear with our natural ears an audible voice—not normally. And even when that does happen, I’m not so sure that it is a physical phenomenon, frankly, because experiences in the Word of God where people hear the voice from heaven, not everybody understands it. Some said it thundered, some people hear a noise, they don’t understand [stutters] what is being said. So it doesn’t seem that God normally adopts some kind of physical means of communication—that He forms vocal chords into thin air and the vibrates those vocal chords, but even in an audible—something that comes across to us as being an audible voice, is still, nevertheless, a spiritual phenomenon. He usually speaks to us in a non physical way, and that is, we simply hear in our spirits. We hear internally. We hear the Holy Spirit—a prompting—some inner prompting, some nudge of the Holy Spirit. And that will help you begin to discern, therefore, when God is speaking to you. And so in this series, I’m going to be concentrating on the way God communicates. Because if we understand that, then we are going to eliminate error, deception, and manipulation, because one of the things that people, when they come and want to put something on us too much is they claim it’s God speaking—‘God spoke to me, and this is what He said,’ and they give you a verbatim of the conversation in such a kind of way which then becomes a little manipulative, can lead to deception. So we need to know that God’s voice doesn’t come like that. And very, only very, very rarely can you actually pinpoint specific wording that God would say to you. Most of the working belongs to you, that you had this impression and then you’re putting that impression into words. It’s very rare that you can actually say, “I can tell you what God said word for word.” It does happen, but even then we must be careful. But more often, it’s the person who is expressing in human words what God has placed in their heart. It’s the giving words to a general sense of the direction or the revelation that God is saying to you. And so be careful if people constantly put upon you great, high sounding statements with a ‘God says;’ with a ‘thus says the Lord.’ Usually, that leads to difficulty and danger. And we’re going to cover this when we come into the process of prophecy itself.

So, number six, the key is to develop a hearing heart—to develop a hearing heart. That’s the key. That’s the whole purpose of this teaching on listening to God. I want you to learn how to have a heart that is ready and responsive and open to God, to develop a listening lifestyle or a hearing heart. And that must therefore be fundamental, surely, to our relationship with the Holy Spirit and our relationship with God. Now in 1 Kings chapter 3, we come across a statement in verse 9 of how God challenged Solomon in a dream to say, “What do you want?” And Solomon says in 1 Kings chapter 3 and verse 9, “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?” He is asking for an understanding heart and that means a listening heart. A listening heart. That’s what he’s asking for. And the Hebrew word that underlines this, biyn, can be translated as ‘understanding’ or ‘discerning.’ But it points to a receiving, a hearing of God’s understanding rather than a once for all gift; an ongoing experience of listening and hearing. And so he says, “I want a wise and understanding heart. I want to be able to hear your voice.” That’s what he’s saying more than anything else. Now when you understand it like that, you can see, surely, this is what we would want more than anything else. If God said, “What do you want? I’ll give it to you, more than anything else.” What would you say to Him? Surely you would say to Him, “Lord, I want to be able to hear your voice. I want a wise and understanding heart. Because if I can hear your voice, then that’s the answer for everything.” I know we’re in a training situation here to release people into Christian ministry, but you, if you have a wise and understanding heart to hear His heart, hear His voice, you will be equipped with everything you need. All you need is to be able to hear His voice and then to act on it. That’s how ministry flourishes. When I received the leadership of Kensington Temple way back in 1991, I knew all I had to do was hear the voice of God and in discerning the voice of God, I then needed simply to obey it. Hearing and obeying. Because if you’re hearing the voice of God and you put that into practice, then you’re going to have the answer to everything. You will never ever be short on wisdom. And so Solomon wasn’t praying for a heavenly encyclopedia, some kind of CD ROM installation in his heart so that he could be always able to access God’s encyclopedic knowledge and wisdom, this miraculous store—no. He was asking for the ability to hear the moment by moment revelation of God. And in John chapter 14 verse 13, surely that’s what’s behind Jesus’ encouragement when He says, “And whatever you ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” And He says, “Whatever you ask you’re going to receive,” just like He said to Solomon, then we know if we ask Him, as Solomon asked Him, for a wise and understanding heart, the ability to hear His voice, He is going to give it to you. You’re going to develop a hearing heart. And so as we go on, later on in this series, to examine the different aspects of the Bible teaching about how God’s forth speaking comes to us and how our prophetic listening enables us to hear from Him, we would do well in the very beginning to learn how to discern and how to have a hearing heart and to develop that attitude in our lives.

And so I want to end this teaching [stutters] in this session by sharing with you a practical story in which this was brought to me, perhaps for the very first time. And it happened when God brought a renewal of His experience in my life, and it was after a time of testing when I doubted the very things that I’m talking to you about, and it’s because I didn’t understand the difference between the Word of God and God speaking today. Because, you see, if the Bible is the Word of God, and it is; if the Bible is the sufficient and infallible record of everything that God has said to us for the purpose of our salvation and for the direction of our lives, if this is an infallible and complete record of God’s truth for us—not that the Bible contains everything that God has ever said, but it’s the written Word of God, is [stutters] an infallible and complete record of everything we need to know for life and for godliness—then why can we talk about God continuing to speak? Surely, all we need to do is just open the Bible, and there we have God speaking, and that’s absolutely true. When we open the Bible, there’s God speaking to us. But the written word is also part of God’s ongoing revelation to us. and so while the Bible is complete and closed, it’s still open in the sense that the Spirit will take God’s Word and touch our hearts, so we need the illumination on the Word; we also need the application of the Word in specific situations, and we do at times need to hear God’s mind on matters which are not specifically covered in the Bible. They may be generally covered, but not specifically. God says, “Go and preach the gospel.” That’s the general word. You step out on that word, you will hear His voice and He will then bring to you the specific word to you. That is, where you are called, which nation, which city, and what you are called to do, how you are called to implement that word. So we needed to have this process. Now, I, at that stage, was struggling with these issues. But what God did was began to stir up my heart and mind along the lines of the revelation gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I was receiving words of knowledge and words of wisdom for situations in the lives of other people. But one day, when I was receiving these words of knowledge, I found one was addressed to me. And I suddenly realized, ‘Oh, so I’m not just a postman. It’s not just that you’re giving me a word to share with somebody else.’ And that was a turning point in my ministry because it transformed my relationship with God and I realized that it was not just a question of maybe receiving a spiritual gift and a word for somebody else and then to impart that in faithfulness to the Lord; that underneath that, behind that, and through all of that process, God was calling me to an intimate relationship with Himself. And that meant that I needed to learn how to spend time with Him, how to quieten my heart, and to cultivate this wise and understanding heart—this gift, this ability that He imparts to us by His Holy Spirit that we should hear His voice. And so in the sessions that are to come, I’m going to share with you in more detail and more depth how to hear the voice of God and how to listen to Him. We’re going to go into some in-depth teaching from the scriptures to show you that everything must be founded and grounded in the Word of God. And this teaching on listening to God is an exposition of the written Word of God. But we’re also going to show you how important it is to listen to the living Word of God and the way He will speak to us in our lives. So God bless you as we come to an end of this session. And next time, we’re going to pick it up and we’re going to talk more about how God speaks to us.

Recommended reading

• Dye, Colin. Reaching the lost, Kensington Temple, 2007
• Bonnke, Reinhard. Evangelism by fire: Igniting your passion for the lost,Full Flame Gmbh, 2002

Additional reading

• Osborne, T. L. Soulwinning out where the sinners are, Harrison House, 1980
• Bonnke, Reinhard. Time is running out: Save the world before it’s too late, Regal Books, 1999