Why Don’t I Hear from God?

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Transcript:

All right, turn with me, if you would, to 1 Samuel chapter 3. 1 Samuel chapter 3. Now I mentioned this morning, I don’t think I mentioned it in here, but somebody asked me about it in Sunday school, that I’m from Moore, born and raised, and most people don’t know where that is until a massive tornado comes through and they see it on the news.

That and Toby Keith are really our only claim to fame. So I’m from tornado country, At last count, I think in my lifetime, we’ve had eight significant tornadoes that have passed through Moore. And I have been there for all of them, including the almost three years that I was pastoring in Fayetteville.

We had tornadoes that came through Moore just when I happened to be on vacation back visiting my parents. So that and I was in Joplin the day before they got hit. So y’all might be careful for the next week or so.

Just be weather aware. I may have some kind of magnet implanted in me. anyway I’ve been through enough of them we kind of have it down to a science we know what to do when certain things happen we start packing our tornado shelter bags and putting them by the back door and when sirens go off we can be underground in under 30 seconds but there’s always there’s always a struggle for all of us after something like that happens and I understand y’all had some some weather like that come through here.

Brother David over at Whitesboro was telling me yesterday about tornadoes coming through there. There’s always a struggle for us after it comes through because it’ll take out cell phone towers or, and nobody has landlines anymore, hardly. It’ll take out cell phone towers or people are overloading them and you can’t get a hold of people.

This last one that came through earlier this year, we had closed the school early where I was working and had to try to get everybody home before it came because we knew it was coming. We closed the school early. I had gone to my mother’s house.

I was there with her and my kids and I think a couple of nieces and trying to get everybody underground. then you come up and you’re glad to see that everything’s still standing, at least on your property, but then you go to check on everybody else and you can’t get hold of anybody. There’s a tremendous issue with isolation in a moment like that.

And, you know, we’ve come to rely on technology so much and it’s great. I love it. It showed me just how to get right here.

Siri, all for our love-hate relationship we have, told me how to get straight here. It was great. But in moments like that where You’re counting on making a connection with somebody.

I’ve got a grandmother who lives across town. I’ve got a grandfather who lives across town. Friends from church, other relatives, my dad and sister, both working in Norman.

My students, I need to check on them. We can’t get a hold of anybody. And you can go for a day or more without being able to.

And all you want, all you want in a moment where there’s been a catastrophe, all you want when there’s a moment of upheaval and you’ve got loved ones, is you want to be able to talk to them. You want to be able to hear from them. You would give anything to hear their voice and know they’re okay.

But there’s just deafening silence and isolation and longing to talk to them. Folks, I wish we felt that way more often about our relationship with God. Not the isolation part, but the sense of longing when we haven’t heard from God lately.

And a lot of times we will get to a point in life where we haven’t been listening to God’s direction, haven’t been following God’s direction until we get to a moment of personal crisis. It may be a good crisis. Where should I go to college?

Should I take this job? Should I marry her? Should I do, you know, we have moments where we need to make a big decision and suddenly we want to know what God wants us to do.

For a church, that can be looking for a pastor. I mean, we all get to moments of personal crisis where we want to hear from God. It can be sometimes negative crisis.

Oh, Lord, How did I get myself into this problem? Get me out of it. Lord, speak to me.

Tell me what to do. We get to moments of crisis where we realize, hey, I haven’t heard from God for a little while now. And it’s not that God’s not speaking.

It’s that we’ve isolated ourselves. Folks, God is still speaking. God still speaks to his people.

Now, I will caution you. I’ll give you this warning before I go any further with this message. When I say God is still speaking, if you’re hearing something you believe to be the voice of God, you compare it against this book right here.

Because God will not contradict himself. He will not reveal things that are contrary to what he’s already said. Oh, I think it’s okay to cheat on my taxes because of this.

No, God’s already laid down some principles here, and what you’re hearing is not in line with what God says. So be very careful. But we get to a point where we think, I haven’t heard from God in a while.

I just realized that. First of all, where’s the longing? Where’s the sense of, oh, yeah, it has been a few weeks since I’ve really had a conversation with God.

A lot of times it’s going to be because we wandered away. My grandmother, my grandmother, my grandfather passed away when I was about five years old. And when I was in college, she got remarried to a wonderful man that had known the family for years.

I got to perform their wedding ceremony. I think it was the first one I ever officiated. Married a wonderful man.

But I remember them coming out to visit us at the house and riding in his truck, and she would sit in the middle. She wouldn’t sit in the passenger seat. She’d sit in the middle, and we’d look at them.

Oh, how cute. They’re in their 70s, and they like being close to each other. That’s nice.

If she were ever to slide over and say, I just feel like we’re not as close as we used to be. Well, folks, who moved? Who moved?

Was it him or her? He’s right where he’s always been. The point of that is if we feel distant from God, folks, he’s the same as he’s always been.

He’s exactly where he’s always been. And when we feel, when we notice that isolation from God, it’s because we’ve distanced ourselves. And where we get to this passage in 1 Samuel 3, we’re going to see that they’re in a time where God isn’t, there’s not a lot of communication going on between them and God.

I don’t think it’s a time period where God said, I just don’t want to talk to you anymore. I think for a lot of it, the nation of Israel had not been listening. There’s a time later on when God revealed through the prophet Amos and said there would come a time when there was a famine in the land of the word of God.

Now his prophecy to Amos came a lot of years later. But I think that’s the same kind of thing we’re talking about here in 1 Samuel where we enter a period of time where God hasn’t said a whole lot. And it’s not for lack of his desire to lead Israel.

He told them, if you’ll come and walk with me and follow my commandments, you’ll be my people and I will be your God. Part of that was him leading them. And so when God didn’t speak to them, it wasn’t for a lack of a desire.

It was they haven’t been listening. As we’re coming into the book of 1 Samuel, we’re coming out of the period of Judges where all throughout it, it says, every man did what was right in his own eyes. He didn’t care what God thought.

The people of Israel didn’t care what God thought. And so God just, they wandered away. They couldn’t hear him anymore.

But we get to chapter 3, verse 1, and it says, And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days. Now, this is not on purpose, but there’s that word again from this morning.

I was rereading this passage again this afternoon and went, wait a minute, I just talked about that word this morning. The word of God in those days was precious. There was no open vision.

So what it’s saying there is that this was a time, essentially, when there was a famine, a shortage of the word of God. It’s not that they didn’t have the scriptures. They had the law that Moses had.

They had the same law they had during the book of Judges. But God was not actively speaking through his prophets the way he used to do. God was not speaking through men like Moses.

And the reason was, I believe, because the nation of Israel had said, you know what, we know what God’s word says. We don’t care. We’re just going to go do what we want to do.

And so, you know, eventually they wander far enough away where they can’t hear God anymore. There was no open vision. So what they had of the word of God, what they had of God speaking was precious.

It was a rare thing. This is supply and demand, folks. When there’s an oil embargo or a hurricane hits a refinery and the shortage of gasoline goes down, what happens?

The value, the price goes up. It’s a law of supply and demand. God’s word was such a rare commodity.

if I can say the word commodity and not sound like I’m trivializing the word of God. It’s such a rare commodity in those days that it was a precious thing. And it says in verse 2, It came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim that he could not see.

And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep. Samuel, if you recall the beginning of the story, His mother was barren and had prayed for years that God would give her a child. And finally, God gave her a child and she promised that if you’ll give me this child at a certain age, I’ll take him in the temple, I’ll dedicate him to you.

Now, they were supposed to dedicate their children, but she’s talking about, I’m going to give him up to your service. Recognizing this child is a gift from God. He’s a gift on loan from God that I’m just giving back to the one who really owns him.

And so when he was ready, when the time was come, Samuel was taken to the temple and was committed to the Lord, to his service. And from that point on, he lived in the temple. He was raised under the tutelage of Eli.

And so he lives there in the temple with Eli, and he’s laid down to sleep. It’s late at night where the lamps are going out. Eli can’t see in the darkness that’s going on around him, and Samuel’s been laid down to sleep.

And it says it came to pass at that time, verse 4, that the Lord called Samuel, and he answered, Here am I. So the Lord called out to him and called him by name, and he answered, Here am I. Now we know from reading on a little further, which we’ll see in just a minute, Samuel doesn’t realize that this is God’s voice.

He just realizes somebody’s calling his name. So it says in verse 5, And he ran unto Eli and said, Here am I, for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not.

Lie down again. And he went to lay down. If this is anything like my house, I’m assuming at this point you’re just trying to delay bedtime.

I love my children, but about the fifth time you get up out of bed and say, I’ve got to tell you something. I love you. I think there’s a kernel of sincerity in it, but I think the bulk of it is you’re just trying to stall bedtime.

So I don’t know if that’s what Eli thought about this. I didn’t call you go back to bed. You were told to go to bed.

Go to bed. He said, go lie down again. And he went and lay down.

And verse 6 says, and the Lord called yet again Samuel. God called out Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here am I.

Thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not. My son, lie down again.

I didn’t call you. Go back and lie down. And it says in verse 7, Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him.

And I had some confusion about this passage for a long time. Rereading it, it sounds like they’re saying Samuel had no idea who God was. He’d never heard the word of the Lord.

But reading it, that surely can’t be the case, because Samuel lives in the temple. It’d be like saying, you raised your child in church. And I feel like I was raised in church, but I didn’t actually live there.

I’m talking, you literally raise your child in the church, and they get to be seven or eight years old and still have no idea who Jesus is? That’s a little far-fetched for me. I believe what it’s saying here, just based on context, just based on applying a little logic to what the scriptures are saying.

What it’s saying here, when it says he did not yet know the Lord, I believe it’s talking about he does not yet have a personal relationship like Moses knew God, like Abraham knew God. They talked together. But I don’t think Samuel has had any direct revelation from God.

Now, and it says he didn’t yet hear the word of the Lord, that would go along the same lines. he did not yet receive that direct revelation that came from God. Now, does that mean he is totally ignorant that there’s a God in Israel?

No, they were told to raise their children up from the earliest ages to know who God was and to know what his law was and to follow it. And by the way, I think that’s still good advice for us today. But they were taught from a very early age, this is who God is.

They were taught God’s word by a certain age. I can’t remember. At one point, I knew this.

But by a certain age, they had to have the entire first five books of the Bible as we know them today memorized. Here, I can’t even memorize what age it was by that they had to know that. They had to have it memorized.

They were taught God’s word. So, folks, what this is saying is that Samuel didn’t know God and didn’t receive his word in the way that Moses had and in the way that Abraham had and in the way that Samuel was going to. This is really where it starts.

Verse 8 says, And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, Here am I, for thou didst call me. And Eli, he finally wakes up here.

He finally realizes, okay, he’s not delaying bedtime. He’s not hearing voices. It must have been God that called him.

And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go lie down. And it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.

So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Samuel at that point is looking, ladies and gentlemen, to hear from God. He’s looking to hear from the God who he’s been taught about all of his life, but he’s never experienced in this special way that only a few people, honestly, in their day got to experience.

We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit nowadays, but for them the relationship with God was different. And not everybody got this depth of understanding of God and His character. and in this period of time almost nobody’s getting that.

God doesn’t appear to be speaking to a prophet. God doesn’t appear to be giving any new revelation and so can you imagine how he must have felt if the whole nation for we don’t even know how long at this point the whole nation has been isolated from God and suddenly this little boy realizes he just might be on the receiving end of hearing God’s voice and breaking the isolation, breaking what they would have perceived as the silence of heaven. Can you imagine the excitement and the anticipation and maybe the fear as he says, I want to know this is real. I want to hear God’s voice.

I want to hear it. I want to know him. And so Samuel went and lay down in his place.

He went back. He believed he’d already heard, without knowing it, had heard God’s voice already twice. He said, I’m going back there again.

I’m going back to that place. And the Lord came and stood and called as at other times Samuel. Samuel.

So just as God had done twice before, he came back to Samuel and called him by name. Folks, God knows us by name. And he called him by name.

Then Samuel answered, Speak, for thy servant heareth. Now that’s a, that sounds like a command. We don’t command God.

I don’t know how you understand the scriptures. I would not presume to command God. But what I hear in there is not a command, but a pleading.

Speak to me, please. Won’t you speak to me? I’m listening, he says.

Your servant. He identifies himself. This is important too.

He identifies himself as I’m your servant. I belong to you. I work for you.

And he says, speak to me for your servant hears. Your servant is listening. And we see in the remainder of the chapter, we see in the remainder of the chapter where God begins to speak to Samuel.

Now I’d encourage you to go read that later on on your own because a lot of it deals with Eli and honestly it’s fairly negative. It’s fairly negative when it comes to Eli. But aren’t there sometimes you just want to hear from God whether it’s good news or bad news, I just want to hear something from you so I know.

But it’s not all bad news because even though the news about Eli, what God tells Samuel about Eli is fairly negative, it’s the start. This is the of a close relationship, a close walk between God and Samuel, where God raises him up to be a mighty leader for the nation of Israel, where God lets this simple boy become the one who anoints kings and removes the blessing from kings on God’s behalf. This is where it starts.

This is where Samuel starts hearing from God. And quite honestly, this is where the nation of Israel starts hearing from God again after a few years of silence after they’d wandered away from God. And folks, we read these stories, and I hate even to use the word stories because we hear the word stories and we think, oh, fairy tales, three little pigs, stuff like that, that we know never happened.

Please understand, when I talk about Bible stories, I don’t mean that I don’t believe that. I believe this really happened. But we read Bible stories like this.

We read miraculous things that happened in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and we think, why doesn’t that happen today? And there are some of the miracles that God did for a specific time that I think, you know, He gave us His Word, and we’re expected to have faith. That’s why some of these things don’t happen today.

But God still speaks to His people. God still speaks through His Word. God still speaks through His Holy Spirit.

I don’t think He’s giving new general revelation, and I’m not going to get into all that tonight, general and special revelation. He’s not given all of that in the same way He was when He was inspiring Scripture, But God still speaks to his people through his word and through his spirit. And sometimes I believe through godly counsel of others.

In the multitude of counselors, there’s wisdom, the Bible says. But God still speaks. But we can go for long periods of time and say, He hears from God.

She hears from God. They’ve told me what God said. I’ve heard their testimony.

Why is God not speaking to me? And especially, we can get into those moments of personal crisis. Again, good crisis or bad crisis.

just a point where there’s a decision to be made, there’s a choice of directions to go, and we want to know, finally, God, what do you want me to do? God, I’m here at the crossroads. Where do you want me to go?

And we feel like we hear nothing. Now, I will admit to you, I’ve been in that place before. Has anybody else here ever felt like, I just want to hear from God, but I hear nothing?

Well, let me share with you from this passage a few things that I think may keep us from hearing God’s voice. Because I don’t believe that God, I taught a whole series a couple years ago on God’s will and finding God’s will. And the whole premise of it is that it really, I don’t think it is supposed to be as complicated as we make it.

Some people want to discern God’s will like they play with a Ouija board. And I don’t know how those work, but I just have seen them on TV. It’s like we’re trying to read through an envelope and trying to discern, okay, who’s that to?

We’re being nosy about our neighbor’s mail. I can see a couple words here and there. Well, maybe it means this, maybe it means that.

And there’s a lot of speculation. And I don’t think God’s will was intended to be as complicated as all that. It’s God’s will because he wants us to do it.

And if he wants us to do it, he tells us what he wants us to do. And taught a whole series of lessons about how to discern God’s will that really boil down to the point that God wants to speak to us, I believe. God wants us to understand him and his word.

And God wants us to know the right way to go in life. And so I don’t tell you this to make you feel guilty, but who moved? If we don’t feel close to God, if we don’t feel like we’re right there where he’s speaking to us like we maybe once were, then I think we ought to be careful about blaming God for that.

A couple of things that I think keep us from hearing God. First of all, it’s just distance. Distance.

You notice in verse 9 that when Samuel wanted to hear from God, when Eli suggested to him for the first time, it’s probably God who’s speaking to you. What’s the first thing Samuel did? He went back to the place where he’d heard from God before.

He wasn’t necessarily going to hear from God in Eli’s room when God had always, up to that point, spoken to him in his room. In the quiet of the temple, in the darkness of the night, he spoke to Samuel. Samuel just simply went back to the place where he’d heard from God before.

Now, when I say distance keeps us from hearing from God, I’m not talking about geographical location. You don’t have to go out here to. .

. We went up on the Talamina Drive last night. I couldn’t even imagine how far down some of those drops were and how high up you were in the area.

In the part of Oklahoma I’m from, if you stand on the roof, you’d practically see New Mexico. I mean, it’s just flat. You don’t have to get up in the mountains on the Talamina Drive Thousands of feet in the air to be physically closer to God to hear from Him.

When I’m talking about distance, I’m talking about spiritual distance. Have we just kept God at arm’s length for so long? See, there’s something in the New Testament that talks about people sinning to the point where their consciences are seared with an iron.

I don’t know if you’ve ever burned your hand on an iron, but I have. Because I was dumb enough to think, well, I plugged it in and the light’s not on. I can’t tell if it’s hot or not.

Oh, I’ll tell you what, I’ll stick my hand on it. Tell you, an iron is not quite so hot after it has that nice protective coating of skin on it. I have burned my fingers more than once on an iron because I was dumb enough.

I was dumb enough to do that more than once. When really, I could have just squirted some water on there to see if it steamed up. And you know what?

After you do that a couple times, it hurts for a while. And then in my case, because I had burned myself so many times over such a long period of time, After the pain went away for a while, I just couldn’t feel anything in this finger because I’d seared the nerves. There was no sensation here.

Folks, the Bible teaches that our conscience is the same way. We can sear it with sin like a hot iron to the point where we don’t get any sensation from it. The Holy Spirit is there screaming and convicting us, and we can’t even hear because we’ve seared our conscience.

We’ve deafened ourselves to Him. And we can keep God at arm’s length for so long, we just keep Him at distance. and say, I’m not going to listen.

We’re like the kid who sticks his fingers in his ears and starts chanting that annoying song that I’m not going to do for you here tonight because they don’t want to hear. Or I’m going to pretend I’m over here where I can’t hear you. Or with my kids, if I just don’t look away from cartoons, maybe you won’t see me and you won’t know that I can hear you.

Folks, we find ways to put distance between ourselves and God. And sometimes when God tells us to do something, We can run as far as we can the other direction. Jonah’s a great example.

God said go to Nineveh in what’s now Iraq. So what does he do? He goes to Tarshish, which is in modern-day Spain.

As far apart as you can get in the known world at that time, he ran. I did that for a while. The first church God called me to pastor, I didn’t want to go to it.

Did not want to go there. They had been through, I think, I want to say 10 splits in 20 years before I ever came there. The night they eventually voted me in as pastor, the vote was six to zero.

I mean, they had just split so many times. And I said, God, I don’t want to do that. And I justified it to myself.

Surely I’m not hearing you. And you know what? I ran from that call.

Not the call to pastor, but the call to pastor where God wanted me to pastor. I kept God at arm’s length for six months until he finally sent some things into my life so big that he got my attention. And I said, all right, whatever you want.

We can keep God. And you think during that time, well, God, why aren’t you sending any churches my way? Why aren’t you doing?

It’s because you’ve kept me and my will at arm’s length and you’re not listening. We put distance between us. If we want to hear from God, we can start by spiritually going back to where we were the last time we heard from God.

What is it that we’ve used to put distance between us? What is it that we’re using to drown out the sound of his voice? Second of all, indifference.

Indifference keeps us from hearing the voice of God. I’m just tuning you out. I drive the women in my family nuts, and probably most of you men do this as well.

They talk about selective hearing. I have that a little bit, but actually I call it minimal hearing. And what I mean by that is my mother, my sister, Charla, my aunts, the women in the family will discuss plans for the family in the middle of having other conversations in the room, and then weeks later they’ll bring something up and say, You knew about this when I had the shocked look on my face.

We’re doing what tomorrow? We talked about it right in front of you. See, I was taught as a child you don’t eavesdrop.

So if they’re not talking directly to me, I just kind of tune everything out because I figure it’s not my business. I’m indifferent to the conversation unless my name comes up. Some of you women have the exasperated look.

I’m sorry. My mother sympathizes with you. I just tune it out.

I’m indifferent, and so I don’t hear it. We can do the same thing with God, can’t we? I don’t think we’d ever say this as believers in quite these words, but sometimes we know what he wants and we just don’t care.

We know what he’s telling us to do and we just don’t care. I’m going to do what I want to do anyway. Well, Samuel, in contrast, went back and said, Okay, I’m listening.

He said, Speak. Please talk. I’m attentive.

He’s basically, he’s the opposite of indifferent. He’s begging God to speak. I don’t know about you, but I don’t beg when I’m indifferent.

I just don’t. I’ll tune it out. I’ll walk away.

He was not indifferent. He was begging God to speak. So if we get into a moment of crisis and think, well, why didn’t God ever speak to me?

We need to ask ourselves the question, do we really care if he speaks to us? Is it really our heart’s desire that God speak to us? Until we get to the point where we really do desire to hear from God, he may not speak to us the way we expect to.

Now, again, let me say this. I’m not saying God won’t speak to you. Sometimes you can, you know, any of these things you can put in the way, and God says, I’m going to get your attention anyway.

It doesn’t matter. But I’m just suggesting these to you as possibilities at times. If you’re thinking, why am I not hearing from God?

These may be some answers. He may not speak to you. If you’re not really interested in hearing from Him, you’ve got to ask yourself, am I really willing to hear Him?

Am I really willing to invest some time and some prayer and some study and some tears into hearing from God? Third of all tonight, disobedience. Disobedience might keep us from hearing from God.

Samuel pointed out first thing, right here, your servant, I work for you. That was a sign of obedience right there. I work for you.

You give the marching orders and I do it. Sometimes I think through our disobedience, God says, okay, go your own way. Go have fun for a little bit.

Sort of like, here we go with my children again. When they were little, they had more of a problem with this when they were just starting to crawl. They wanted to play with cords and they wanted to check out the lovely places in the wall where the cords go in.

Now, I would never let them play with the wall outlets. But I’d tell them, don’t play with the cords. Even if they’re not plugged in, don’t play with the cords.

Leave the cords alone. Leave the cords alone. Leave the cords alone.

and it got to where because I knew they’re not going to know the difference. They might play with the cords. They might wrap them around their necks.

They might shock themselves. Something bad might happen. And so at times when I knew they understand what don’t play with the cords means and they’re doing it anyway, they’re being disobedient.

And so you spank them or you swat them or something. There were other times, ladies and gentlemen, where I’d let them play with the cords just for a little bit. And I don’t mean that I was okay with them playing with the cords or it didn’t even have to be chords, whatever it was, whatever I told them not to do.

This is just one example. But they knew they weren’t supposed to play with the chords, and I see them going for the chords, and for once I’m not going to stop them and get on to them before they start playing with the chords. I’m going to let them play with the chords just long enough, just long enough that when they get in trouble, they realize that that’s why they’re getting in trouble.

I don’t know if that makes sense to anybody else. But I think there are times that in our disobedience, God for a time says, okay, you go enjoy that. And when you’re ready to hear from me again, because you haven’t listened to what I’ve said already, you know what you’re doing is wrong.

So why? And again, I’m not saying that’s every time. Sometimes we’re disobedient and God is right there.

Sometimes I’m disobedient. Most of the time I’m disobedient and