Now let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 143
for our Scripture reading.
I'll read the first, the outnumbered verses.
Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in the
reading of the even numbered verses as we
stand to read God's Word.
Hear my prayer, O Lord.
Give ear to my supplications.
In thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy
righteousness.
And enter not into judgment with thy servant,
for in thy sight shall no man living
be justified.
For the enemy hath persecuted my soul.
He hath smitten my life down to the
ground.
He hath made me to dwell in darkness
as those that have been long dead.
Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me.
My heart within me is desolate.
I remember the days of old.
I meditate on all thy works.
I muse on the works of thy hands.
I stretch forth my hands unto thee.
My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty
lamb.
Hear me speedily, O Lord.
My spirit faileth.
Hide not thy face from me, lest I
be like unto them that go down into
the pit.
Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in
the morning, for in thee do I trust.
Cause me to know the way wherein I
should walk, for I lift up my soul
unto thee.
Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies.
I flee unto thee to hide me.
Teach me to do thy will, for thou
art my God.
Thy spirit is good.
Lead me into the land of uprightness.
And quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's
sake.
For thy righteousness' sake, bring my soul out
of trouble.
And of thy mercy, cut off my enemies
and destroy all them that afflict my soul.
For I am thy servant.
Let's pray.
Lord, as David opens this psalm asking that
you would hear him, we find ourselves so
often asking, Lord, hear us when we pray.
Lord, hear us speedily.
But we ask, Lord, that today you will
help us to hear you.
Give us an ear to hear what you
would say to us, Lord.
How you would guide and direct our lives.
We ask, Father, that you would help us
to hear and know your voice.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
This morning we'd like you to take a
look at the first verse of chapter 15
of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah said, Then said the Lord unto me,
Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet
my mind could not be toward this people.
Cast them out of my sight and let
them go forth.
As you remember, last week, we studied how
that the Lord said to Jeremiah, don't pray
anymore for their good.
We talked about going over that line for
which there is no hope, no return.
And how Judah had gone over the line
and they crossed over now and could only
face the judgment of God.
And so God is saying to Jeremiah, don't
pray anymore for their good.
God speaks to Jeremiah about two other men
who had prayed for these people.
And it's interesting when the Lord speaks of
men of prayer to Jeremiah, he speaks of
Moses and Samuel.
And he sort of sets them apart as
special men who interceded for the people.
James in the New Testament, when he wants
to talk to us about a man of
prayer, he speaks to us about Elijah.
He tries to help us to understand that
Elijah was no super saint.
He didn't have a cape with a big
S on his chest to stand for super
saint.
But he was a man, common man, just
as we are common.
And yet this man prayed and it didn't
rain for three years.
He prayed again and it did rain.
As we look at these men that are
held up as classic examples of men of
prayer, one thing that we note about all
three is that they were men who had
a listening ear.
These were men who heard the voice of
God.
And I do believe that that is an
important part to prayer.
I fear lest most people think of prayer
as a monologue.
My talking to God about what I want
God to do for me.
Prayer, they seem to think, is a marvelous
device created by God, whereby I can enlist
the help of God in getting my will
done here on the earth.
It's as though God is sort of a
genie let out of the bottle, ready to
grant our three wishes.
And so much of our prayer is just
pure petition.
But I believe that prayer is more than
just petition, and it's more than just talking
to God.
I think that prayer is also listening to
God.
It's a dialogue.
It's learning to hear the voice of God,
as these men who were men of prayer,
were men who heard the voice of God
speaking to them.
It's important for us to train our ears
that we might hear the voice of God
speaking to us.
You remember Pastor Romaine used to say, God
gave you two ears, but only one mouth.
That should tell you something.
What God has to say to you is
more important than what you have to say
to God.
And yet, we so rarely stop to really
hear the voice of God.
David, in the psalm we read this morning,
there in the first verse, asks the Lord
to hear him when he prayed.
But then in verse eight, David said, help
me Lord to hear your loving kindness.
Yes, when we pray, we want God to
hear us, but more important, that we hear
from God in our prayers.
Moses is the first of these three that
have been mentioned as men of prayer.
Moses somehow, very early on, recognized that he
was a man of destiny.
That God had supernaturally placed him in that
position in Egypt, where God could use him.
And he had this sense of divine mission.
God has put me here to deliver the
children of Israel out of their bondage here
in Egypt.
And he seemed to understand that.
And he had this sense of destiny.
God wants me to deliver the children of
Israel from this bondage.
And we read that he was walking one
day out among the people and he saw
an Egyptian who was beating an Israeli slave.
And so he looked around, didn't see anybody,
and he killed the Egyptian, buried his body
there in the sand.
The next day, as he was out again,
walking among the people, he saw two Israelis
who were fighting together.
He broke up the fight and he said,
you shouldn't be fighting each other, you are
brothers.
And they said, are you going to kill
us like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
Suddenly Moses realized that his deed was well
known.
It had become public knowledge.
Only a matter of time until the Pharaoh
would hear that he had killed the Egyptian.
And so Moses fled for his life.
He spent the next 40 years out in
the solitude of the desert, far away from
the noises of Egypt, from the noise of
the palace.
A great place in that solitude of the
desert to learn to hear the voice of
God.
Other voices silenced.
Great to hear the voice of God.
And one day he was attracted to a
burning bush.
And as he approached it, he heard the
voice of God saying, take your sandals off,
you're standing on holy ground.
And the Lord began to talk to Moses
about the mission of delivering the children of
Israel from their bondage.
Moses, like so many people, had that sense
that God wanted him to do a special
work.
But like so many of us, he made
the mistake of trying to do the work
of God in the ability and the power
of his own flesh.
And he was a failure.
God wanted him to deliver the children of
Israel, but Moses' timing was off and his
method was off.
It wasn't that the task was off.
He had that right.
But his timing, his method, trying to do
the work of God in the energy of
our flesh or the ability of our flesh
can be one of the most frustrating things
in the whole world.
Interesting with Moses, with the ability of his
own flesh, he was not able to bury
successfully one Egyptian.
Later on, as he was following the directions
of the Lord, he buried the whole army
of Egypt in the Red Sea.
Oh, God has a work for us to
do, but God has a way by which
he wants it done.
And we have to listen to the voice
of God to get the instructions, not just
as to the task that we're to fulfill,
but how we are to fulfill it and
when we are to fulfill that task.
With Samuel, that trained ear came much earlier
in his life.
He was just a small child when his
mother, in keeping with her vow to God,
brought him to be raised there in the
tabernacle with Eli, the high priest.
And he became more or less a altar
boy, a little servant serving the priesthood there.
And one night, the candle was going out
in the tabernacle.
And the voice of the Lord came to
him and said, Samuel, Samuel.
He got up and he ran into the
room of Eli and he said, you called?
And he said, no, I didn't call you,
go back to bed.
So Samuel went back to bed.
He heard again, the voice calling Samuel, Samuel.
He went running in again to Eli and
said, you called?
And he said, no, go back to bed.
The third time Eli thought, maybe God is
speaking to this young boy.
And so he said, if you hear the
voice again, answer, speak Lord, your servant is
listening.
And so he went back to bed and
he heard Samuel, Samuel, and he said, speak
Lord, your servant is hearing.
And God began to speak to Samuel.
God began to tell Samuel of the future,
things that were going to happen with Eli
and with the nation.
And he began to hear and to listen
to the voice of God.
We find that throughout his life, God was
speaking to Samuel and he had that trained
ear to hear God's voice.
With Elijah.
When we think about Elijah, we usually think
about that contest with the prophets of Baal
on Mount Carmel.
Israel was ruled by a very wicked king
who, with his wife, Jezebel, had introduced and
led the people in the worship of Baal,
that false god.
And Elijah appeared to Ahab and said, it
will not rain again until my word.
And then Elijah went off and he hid
for three years.
During this three years, there was no rain
in Israel.
As a result, no crops, as a result,
a great famine.
And as a result, Ahab was searching for
Elijah, wanting to kill him because of this
drought.
Elijah appeared to a man by the name
of Obadiah and he said to him, after
three years, go tell Ahab to come and
meet with me.
Obadiah said, please have mercy on me.
If I go tell Ahab to come and
meet you here, and the Lord takes you
away someplace, he said, he'll kill me.
I've been a good man.
I've actually helped some of the prophets and
all that, you know, don't do this to
me.
And Elijah said, I'll be here.
Tell him I want to meet him.
So Ahab came and Elijah challenged Ahab to
gather together his prophets and his priest of
Baal, meet him on the top of Mount
Carmel.
And they would have a contest of the
gods to prove who was the true God.
They would build altars.
The prophets of Baal would build the altar
for Baal, whereas Elijah will build the altar
to Jehovah.
They would place the sacrifices upon the altar,
only they would not kindle the fire.
And they would pray and ask their gods
to kindle the fire.
And let the God who answers by fire
be acknowledged as the true God.
So the prophets of Baal accepted the challenge.
And they came with the people of Israel
to the top of Mount Carmel.
And there they built the altars.
And there the prophets of Baal prayed that
Baal would send the fire, consume the sacrifice.
And after praying all morning with nothing happening,
you remember the story, Elijah started to make
fun of them and said, I've got it.
Your God's asleep.
You got to pray louder.
You know, get into it guys.
Really begin to shout, you know.
Or maybe he's away.
You know, cry louder.
And so they began to scream and cut
themselves and go through all kinds of religious
antics and nothing happened.
And then Elijah said, okay.
And of course, just in your face kind
of a thing.
Take and pour some water on my altar.
Pour more water.
And they soaked the altar and they built
a trench around it.
The water is filling the trench.
And then Elijah prayed and God sent the
fire, consumed the sacrifice, consumed the altar, consumed
the water, licked up the water in the
trenches.
The people all fell down and said, Jehovah,
he is God.
And then Elijah said to Ahab, prepare for
rain.
It's going to rain.
And so Elijah, you remember, prayed and he
sent his servant to look out towards the
Mediterranean Sea.
Servant came back and said, clear blue skies.
He prayed again.
He said, go again.
Servant came back, said, skies are still blue,
beautiful.
He prayed again.
He said, go again.
And seven times.
And the seventh time the servant came back
and said, there's a cloud that seems to
be rising out of the sea.
It's small.
Elijah said, let's get out of here.
It's going to pour.
And soon there was this heavy downpour and
the prayer was answered.
You think, well, how did he have the
nerve to challenge the prophets of Baal?
How did he have the nerve to say
it's going to be raining?
Get ready for a real downpour.
Well, go back to the first verse of
chapter 18, there in first Kings.
And there we read in verse one, that
the word of the Lord came to Elijah
after many days in the third year of
the drought, saying, go show yourself unto Ahab
and I will send rain upon the earth.
You see, he had the word of the
Lord, the listening ear.
God said, go show yourself to Ahab, I
will send rain.
So his prayer was based upon what he
had heard the Lord say to his heart.
The listening side of prayer.
John tells us that we know that if
we ask according to his will, he hears
us.
And if he hears us, then we have
received those petitions that we have desired from
him.
So important to know the will of God.
How do we know that?
By hearing the voice of God.
And then we have that confidence in prayer.
But how can we train our ear to
hear the voice of God?
First of all, I think that it's important
to get a quiet and comfortable place as
free from distractions as possible.
Usually you have to get away from the
house.
I have found that walking walking is great
for just meditating and listening for the voice
of God to speak to my heart.
As free from distractions as possible.
Quietness.
Seek to free your mind from the problems
of the day, or those things that are
causing you worry and concern.
And then start meditating on God, his greatness,
his power, his love for you, his goodness,
his son that he sent to die for
our sins.
And then ask God to speak to you.
If there are issues that you're concerned about,
things that you are praying about, ask the
Lord about them.
And then stop to listen for the answers.
I think that so many times we we
pray and then we just get up and
we rush off.
And we never stop to listen to what
God might be wanting to say to us
in regards to the situation that we've just
brought before him in prayer.
I have found that one of the best
ways of training your ear to hear the
voice of God is by reading the word
of God.
Have you had the experience of reading a
passage of scripture?
And all of a sudden there is an
enlightenment, there is illumination.
All of a sudden you see a truth
that you've never seen before.
That suddenly the scripture comes alive to you
and you think, I've read that, you know,
a dozen times.
I've never seen that before.
That's God speaking to you.
God speaks to us through his word.
You see, the word of God is what
God has spoken to other people.
And God will speak to you through his
word.
And it's a great place for you to
train yourself to hear the voice of God
when he speaks to you through the word,
when he opens up a passage of scripture
to your heart.
I experience this all the time.
And it's a thrill whenever God speaks to
me in a passage of scripture and just
begins to open my understanding and my heart
to the word.
George Mueller was known as a man of
faith.
And people would ask George Mueller, how many
chapters of the Bible do you read every
day?
You see, there are always those people that
are looking for formulas.
If I read so many chapters of the
Bible a day, if I will pray so
many minutes or whatever, and you know, they're
looking for success formulas.
How many chapters must I read?
How long must I pray in order to,
you know, have the kind of results and
all that you have, George?
And George gave them an answer that wasn't
really satisfactory to those who are looking for
formulas.
He said, I read until the Lord speaks
to me.
And the moment the Lord speaks to me,
he said, I stop and I just meditate
and let the Lord continue to just open
up the passage of scripture to my heart.
He said, it may be the very first
scripture that I read in the morning that
God will begin to speak to me.
He said, it may be that I will
have read 15 chapters before the Lord speaks
to me.
But the whole idea was reading until God
speaks to you.
Not trying to read broad passages and say,
well, I've got to get my 10 chapters
in, but read, seeking to understand, seeking to
devour it.
The old word of ruminate, just going over
it and over it, seeking to sort of
just let it soak into your heart and
let God speak to you that way.
In sermon preparation, it's wonderful how God speaks
to my heart.
And as Paul the apostle said, that which
I have received from the Lord, I also
deliver unto you.
The listening ear, how valuable and how important
that is.
It's easy to pray with real faith when
I know that my prayer is based upon
what the Lord has spoken to my heart.
Develop the listening ear.
Develop prayer as a dialogue.
Sit down and dialogue with God.
Listen and then speak.
Ask and then listen for the answers.
And your prayer life will take on a
totally whole new dimension as you learn to
listen to what God has to say to
you.
Over and over, Jesus said, he that has
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
says to the church.
God, give us listening ears.
Father, Father, thank you for speaking to us.
Give us ears, Lord, to hear.
A listening ear to understand and enhance, Lord,
our communication with you.
May it never be just a monologue, but
may we take time, Lord, to dialogue with
you.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.