Bible Studies

LISTENING TO GOD

by GLENN PEASE
12/06/21
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The quickest way to kill your prayer life is to stop listening to God. He refuses to listen to those who will not listen to him. In Prov. 28:9 we read, "One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer shall be an abomination." God has given man revelation in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and if man will not listen to what God reveals of his will, God will not pay any attention to what man wills. In essence, the man who will not listen to what God has already said, will not get any further word from him, except condemnation for his folly in having the audacity to come asking for something more than what he has given. It is a sin in God's eyes to pray when you have refused to listen. What this is saying is that Bible study is the key to prayer, for that is where we learn to listen, and listening is the prerequisite to acceptable prayer. If you don't listen neither will God.

In Zech. 7:8-14 we have a perfect example, "And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: 9 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'

11 "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

13 " 'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the LORD Almighty. 14 'I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.' "

prayer is not a right but a privilage that must be earned by respect for God. not to listen to him is disresectful. he can be hard nosed about non-listeners

That is how they dried up their land, and that is how we dry up our effectiveness in prayer. If we do not listen to God we shut off the fountain of his grace, and block the stream of his compassion, and close the doors of heaven from which his showers of blessing fall on us. The garden of grace can quickly become a desert of despair if we close our ears to God's Word.

Someone wrote, "Imagine having a teen ager who is told to help out around the house by taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, helping with a number of chores, and he never lifts a finger to do any of them. Then he comes and asks dad for 100 bucks to go with his friend to the fair. Dad will think, of all the nerve. You do nothing that I want you to do, and now you want me to help you do what you want to do. Some foolish fathers might fall for this nonsense, but our heavenly Father does not spoil his kids rotten. He refuses to support lazy rebellion, but rejects their request as utter folly. If there are parts of God's Word that you deliberately ignore, or refuse to obey, then your prayers, however earnest, will be considered disgusting to God."

Jer 6:10 (NIV) "To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the Lord is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it."

God's greatest problem with his people was their lack of listening to him. Listening and nonoo-listening both change history, for when we listen God will do what he otherwise will not do. On the other hand, when we refuse to listen God will not do what he would do if we did listen.

Look at Ps. 81, " 8 "Hear, O my people, and I will warn you—
if you would but listen to me, O Israel!

9 You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not bow down to an alien god.

10 I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

11 "But my people would not listen to me;
Israel would not submit to me.

12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts
to follow their own devices.

13 "If my people would but listen to me,
if Israel would follow my ways,

14 how quickly would I subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes!

15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,
and their punishment would last forever.

16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;
with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

God has chosen to limit what he can do in the world based on his people's listening and doing. All to often I hear preachers say God in his sovereignty gets his will done always, but that does not fit dozens and dozens of text like this. God wanted them to listen to his warning and forsake idols, and he would bless them abundantly, but they would not listen, and he had no choice but to give up his will for them and be their judge rather than their redeemer. God does not get his way often, because he will not fulfill his will without the cooperation of his people. You want to know how you can wrestle with God and win? Just refuse to listen to his word and do your own thing rather than his will, and you win. You get the life you will and not the one he wills. It is a win, however, that makes you a loser, for God's will is always the best, and any will contrary to his is the worst, and so by winning you lose, and that whole battle ends up with you as a fool. Why do we pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? It is because it will not be without our cooperation that begins with listening to what God has revealed his will to be.

I read things like this and wonder how people can believe all is just as God planned. "Our God rules. He is the high and exalted One. He is transcendent over time. Nothing can ever take Him by surprise. It's impossible. Nothing unexpected ever happens. God never wishes that things happened another way, because they have happened exactly as He has controlled them." so his sorrow is just fake, he really likes his people to not listen and be condemed.

MATT. 1313-18 This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.'[a] 16But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

18"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:" And Jesus goes on to tell the meaning.

Listen to how important listening is in the Scriptures.

"It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Exodus 15:26. and he said, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians; for I am Yahweh who heals you."

Psalm 81:13. Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

Proverbs 18:13 He who answers before listening— that is his folly and his shame.

Proverbs 19:27 Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge.

Luke 2:46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Jesus was a listener.

Luke 10:39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.

Acts 16:14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.

Acts 27:11 But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship.

James 1:19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Listening is a part of prayer that we do not practice well enough. Soren Kierkegaard said, "The true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God wills." Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep listen to my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.” 

William Barclay once said, "Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest, we wait in silence for God's voice to us."

Abbott Lyman, "IF God is to be to us the Great Companion, we must form the habit of listening to God. Prayer is something else than talking to God. It is something else than asking things of him which we expect to receive. I have heard prayer compared to a draft on a bank, which the holder presents, expecting to receive the money upon it. This is a very inadequate and unsatisfying interpretation of prayer. Prayer is communion with God. It is the intermingling of our life with his life. It involves listening to him as well as speaking to him. The answer to prayer is furnished not in things given, but in life im- parted, in fellowship enjoyed, in counsel received, in uplifting, in- spiring, life-giving influence. Prayer is living in the conscious presence of God."

If I confess that I do not spend a lot of time in prayer, and then turn around and say that I spend a good many hours a day in prayer, you would assume that I am confused or lying, but there is a valid reason behind this paradox. The valid reason is that reading is a form of prayer when you do it from the point of view of listening to God. When I do Bible study, my primary motive is to hear what God is saying. In other words, I am asking God to guide me to a meaningful grasp of what he is saying. I want to hear what God is revealing, and that desire is a form of listening. What happens is that I keep reading godly authors who are also seeking to know what God is saying. They say things that don't make sense, and do not fit the context, and do not fit with the teaching of other Scriptures. But then they will say something that strikes me as a clear insight into what this part of the Bible is saying. I keep reading other authorities and they see it as well, and after most of the great scholars of history agree that this is what God wants us to hear, I can have assurance that I have a good understanding of what God meant for us to understand. That whole process is a form of listening. Now most people do not have the time or the inclination to go through this process, but they still do the same thing if they read their Bible with the same motivation. Pray as you read that God would make the text say something to you that is a practical motivation to think, will, and act in some way that pleases God. When you do this, you are doing what Samuel did when he said speak Lord, thy servant is listening.

Reading is listening when you are praying to hear what God wants you to hear. For most people in Bible times listening was the only way they could hear the voice of God, but today we have the Bible and many aids to help us listen to God's voice. The Bible has only been available for the masses in the last couple of centuries, and so for most of history the ear gate was the only way people could listen to God's word, but today the eye gate is now available to just about anybody who wants to hear what God has to say. It takes a deliberate effort, however, and a willed focus on the art of listening. Longfellow wrote,

Let us then labor for an inward stillness,
And inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only.

We need to develop a listening spirit when we come to church, or in our private time of devotion. Eccles 5:1-2

1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

2 Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.

Rev 3:22 (NIV) "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

ACTS 17:11 SITE, "# God speaks to us through our minds and hearts. God occasionally speaks audibly to His children when He has placed them in situations that require great faith. Thus, the miraculous aspect of a physical voice coming from nowhere allows us to believe in situations that are beyond us.

John 12:28 (NIV) [Jesus prayed,] "Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine."

# Why did Jesus go out of His way to point out that the voice was not for His benefit? Because He heard God all the time. He was in constant communion with the Father. But the disciples needed to hear it, so they could have faith to believe. Remember, Jesus was about to be rejected by the religious establishment, taunted and humiliated, and executed. So God spoke audibly. God knows when we need a sure word, and works around our lack of maturity in times of great need.

2 Pet 1:16-19 (NIV) We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it."
If we listen to Paul,we will be listening to God and His Word, and such listening will lead us to the best that God has for those who are listeners. Another way the Bible puts it is that if we delight in the Lord because we listen to what His will is. He will then delight in us and give us the desires of our heart. Let's pursue this further by looking at the Scripture.

Ps. 37:4, "Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 40:8
“I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart” (NKJV).

Romans 7:22
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.

To delight is to find pleasure in, and so believers are to be pleasure oriented, but pleasure that is also a pleasure to God. This is called Christian Hedonism. Hedonism is a pagan concept that refers to living for pleasure, and that usually means wine, women and song. It refers to the party animal who lives for self centered physical pleasure. But there is also a world of pleasure in the spirit realm where Christians find great pleasure in finding, learning and doing the will of God. It can be just the pleasure of understanding something in the Bible. Truth gives pleasure, and discovery of it is pleasure. Ministering it to others is pleasure. Love is a great pleasure. It is fun to love people and minister to them in ways that they have need.

The more pleasure we get in knowing God and doing the will of God, the more we are prepared to ask God for what we desire, and the more he is willing to hear and respond to such prayer. Matthew Henry wrote, " We must make God our heart's delight and then we shall have our heart's desire, Psa_37:4. We must not only depend upon God, but solace ourselves in him. We must be well pleased that there is a God, that he is such a one as he has revealed himself to be, and that he is our God in covenant. We must delight ourselves in his beauty, bounty, and benignity; our souls must return to him, and repose in him, as their rest, and their portion for ever. Being satisfied of his loving-kindness, we must be satisfied with it, and make that our exceeding joy,

(Psa 1:1-3) Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; {2} But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. {3} He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.

Delighting in God is delighting in what God delights in. (Jer 9:23-24) Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; {24} But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.

Wisdom, strength and wealth are the key foundations for mans glory. In these things he trusts to give delight and pleasure in his life. God says these have their values if you wish to travel through life in the caboose or second class. But if you want to really live with joy and delight on the highest level, you need to get your pleasure from knowing and understanding me. This means that theology is the highest science. Knowing God and his character as one of lovingkindness, judgment, and justice is the highest knowledge that man can possess, and when we gain this knowledge we will delight in it, and God will delight in us for choosing the very best life has to offer. We delight when our children choose the highest values, and God is the same with his children. When a child chooses the highest values, the father will trust them and give them what he would withhold from a child with poor values. The responsible child and the lazy irresponsible child will both ask dad for the car at some point. Who do you suppose is going to be the first to be trusted to get it? It will be the child who delights in that which the father delights in. Delighting in what God delights in is the best way to increase your odds of answered prayer.

God delights in us when we delight in him and his will. All through the Scriptures we read that God delights in us: “Such as are upright in their way are his delight” (Proverbs 11:20). “The prayer of the upright is his delight” (15:8). “My strong enemy [was]…too strong for me…but the Lord was my stay. He brought me forth into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:17-19).

Psalm 147. Verses 10 and 11 say:
His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of a man;
the LORD delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Delight yourself in the Lord.
One of the best articles I read on this verse is by Samuel Lewis Rico

Ah yes, Psalm 37:4...
...this is an abused passage in Scripture. The Church has used it to mean this: love God more, and the more God will get you. Of course, this "more" has by the Church never meant more of God, but the more God can get you. In our materialistic age, our age (in America at least) where humans are consumers, controlled by markets measured by the NasDaq, the Dow Jones...oh, by the way, what mortage rate you qualify for? Forget your soul, what is your credit? You are plastic, a Social Security number, a percentage rate, and maybe you get a decmial point. I think you get the point.

The Church has bought (pun intended) the world's marketing ploy. We in the Church read Psalm 37:4 this way: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you more of the earthly goods you really want but don't have right now." Is the Psalmist so foolish to think, that when you delight yourself in the Lord you will thewant more of the world's things? Does the man who delights himself in his wife, suddenly want more of her cooking?, or, does he want to taste more of her love, i.e., does he want more of her!?

The more delight yourself in God, the more you will want God. Psalm 37:4 translates more like this: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart, i.e., he will give you more of himself." If we delight ourselves in God, won't we want more of God? The more that we "taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Psalm 34:8), the more we "feast on the abudance of your house, and you give them [us] drink from the river of your [Christ's] delights" (Psalm 36:8), the more of Christ we will want. When we delight in God, we delight in God. In fact, the more we delight in God, the more we will desire him and desire the world less. So in reality, what meaning the Church has give this verse is actually contrary to what it means.

In review: the Church has understood this verse to mean that if you delight in the Lord, the Lord will give you more of the earthly stuff you want. In reality, the truth is this: if you delight yourself in the Lord, YOU WILL WANT LESS OF THE EARTHLY STUFF you thought you once desired. In fact, you will suffer the loss of all things to gain Christ (Philippians 3:7-10, 11-14). We will pick up our cross with joy. We will go outside the gate and bear the reproach that he endured (Hebrews 13:12-14). And we will do this because we consider the sufferings of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt (America)" (Hebrews 11:25-27).

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you more of himself.