What For?

Up to this point, we have talked about learning to hear the voice of God for the purpose of an intimate walk with God. Intimacy is at the heart of the Christian life. Without intimacy, the Christian walk can appear to be dry and formula based. The meat, the fulfillment of the Christian life is intimacy with God, a life that is a walk with Him, in which you want to please Him and you want what He wants in the world. Then you partner with Him to do His bidding. The added value in learning o hear His voice is to obey Him and do what He wants you to do.

So hearing His voice also brings with it the desire and responsibility to serve Him or to obey Him. Charles Finney, sometimes referred to as America’s most successful evangelist, believed that Christians are on the earth for one purpose and only one purpose. That is to bring unbelievers to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I am of the same belief.

Scripture says that the Gospel must be preached to every nation and then the end will come. 1 Timothy 2:1-4 expresses the heart of God, His will and desire for this life on earth.

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks,

be made for all men;

For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life

in all godliness and honesty.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”

This wonderful passage states that we should pray for leaders and all in authority so that we might have a quiet and peaceful life. Then it says that God is not willing that any single person should be lost. His desire is that all men be saved. That’s why we’re here on earth, to win the lost to Christ. When the job is done, we’ll go home. It’s very simple. That lost people should come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is God’s very top priority. Every other theme in the Bible is secondary to that one.

So when I say that we should learn to hear the voice of God, someone might say, “What for?”

For at least two reasons:

The first is just because He loves you and He wants you to get the full benefit package.

One of the provisions of the New Covenant is that all shall know Him, from the greatest to the smallest.

The second reason is so that we can more effectively partner with

Him in the work of bringing all unbelievers to salvation.

To illustrate that principal, I will tell you a story of something exciting that happened to me when I was a young Christian of 19. I had been a Christian just over a year, and I wanted to take the great commission seriously. After all, He said to preach the Gospel to every creature. It was the summer after my first year of Bible College. I wanted to do something that would count for the kingdom, so I decided I would witness at every possible opportunity I was given.

On a trip to visit a friend in Kansas City, I stopped at a wayside rest on I-94 in Iowa. Though I was dog tired because I had been witnessing nearly non-stop, I laid a Gospel tract on the display.

“Sir, you can’t do that,” came a voice from the other end of the rest stop. It was a high school senior whose job was to clean the rest area. He wanted to know what it was. I told him that it was a Gospel tract and I gave him a one-minute testimony of how I came to Christ.

To my complete consternation, he wanted to have what I had, even though he had been a church goer all of his life. So, we bowed our heads and I led him in the sinners’ prayer. When he looked up his whole countenance had changed. He said he wanted to read the Bible through and asked me where he should start. He was clearly “born again.”

Because I had been listening for the voice of God, I clearly knew I was supposed to witness at this wayside rest. I was amazed with the results, especially because I was so tired and I thought I probably had done a lousy job of witnessing.

Again, hearing the voice of God is not just for our own benefit, so that we can have intimacy with God. Being able to hear the voice of God is also so that we can serve Him in the area of His first priority, bringing all unbelievers to salvation.

Learning to Hear the Voice of God – Part 9