How Can I Hear God?

Hello. This is Mark’s wife Shell with an introduction to this teaching.

I have often told Mark he needs to tell people the reason he hears from God so quickly. He takes an hour each day sitting in stillness and silence with God. Sometimes he won’t hear or sense anything for days, but he still shows up.

In his message on Faith Comes From Hearing, Mark shares some of experiences. You can also watch this sermon on his Youtube channel – https://youtu.be/Ssczr8cOiIg

FAITH COMES FROM HEARING

“…faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ”. Romans 10:17

Let’s break this verse down:

“Hearing the message” means literally to perceive sound. It refers to the sense of hearing. Faith comes when we “hear” something, just like hearing a voice. This means that faith does not come from us trying to create it. Faith is the result of an experience of hearing. What we “hear” comes to us somewhat like sound. It is either in words or some other sound that means something specific to us, e.g. like the sound of an ambulance siren. And what we hear is through the word of Christ.

This tells us two things. The first is that Faith has a personal source – it comes from Christ/God/The Holy Spirit. Real faith cannot be produced from any source but God. The second thing this phrase tells us is that faith comes from the “word” of God. The Greek word used here which is translated as word, is “rhema”. It comes from a root work that means “to say” or “to speak”. It translates as follows; “that which is or has been uttered by the living voice – “an utterance”. It also means “any sound produced by the voice”, and “having a definite meaning”. This tells us that we should expect this word from God to come in words most of the time. It is like any spoken message. It is discernable.

How should we expect these faith producing messages to come?

1. Through the Holy Spirit as we read the Bible. [we call this revelation] God speaks to us through His Holy Spirit as we read His written word. Most of us have had this experience one time or another, hopefully often. You are reading the Bible and suddenly a verse or phrase “jumps out at you”. It is like the bible is speaking directly to you in your present circumstances. It is like you are hearing that verse or phrase for the first time. It has great impact upon you. You believe it! It is producing faith to believe what it is saying to you. How many of us have had this experience? Was it helpful? Would you like it to happen more often? How do we increase these experiences? We make a habit of reading the bible every day.
2. Through the voice of the Holy Spirit as He uses the Bible to bring the message. [again, we call this revelation] This experience is a little different. It doesn’t start with reading the bible, it starts with listening to the Holy Spirit. It works this way; you are pouring your heart out to God/Jesus/Holy Spirit because you need to hear from Him. You could go to your Bible search program and type in a word that describes your condition, e.g. fear, sickness, depression, uncertainty, hopefulness, etc. but you have not done that yet. You are just pouring out your heart to God. Suddenly, a scripture address comes to you. You look it up and it “jumps out at you”. You experience what we just described – it speaks from God to you, and it produces faith.

Some years ago, my father was suffering from dementia. He was experiencing bouts of paranoia and delusions. He believed people were out to take his money. He called me daily to phone his lawyers and have them start law suites against people that had done him no harm. Ten minutes after hanging up the phone he would call again, and we would go through it all over again.  It was a terrible number of years for all of us but especially for me because I had to manage his affairs while his dementia was undermining them.

After doing this for several years I acquired a genuine fear of putting Shelley through the same kind of experience when I get older. I was telling God how much I did not want to do this to her, and I was asking for a sudden death that did not involve some sort of slow, withering, exhausting death that would make Shell’s life miserable. He interrupted my request with a scripture address. It was not a scripture that I was familiar with. It was Psalm 16:10. I turned to it and this is what it said, “…nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” Ever since He said that, I have had faith that my death will not be a burden to Shell.

Check out Part 2 for the final point and an encouraging example