Christian Living

LISTENING TO GOD

by GLENN PEASE
03/19/22
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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.' "

The above text make it clear, prayer is not a right but a privilege that must be earned by respect for God. not to listen to him is disrespectful. God 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 teenager 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 non-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. In other words, listening changes history, and so does non-listening, but it is listening to God that changes history for the best, and non-listening that changes history for the worst. Look at Psalm 81:8-16

"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.

Do 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 the biggest 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 done without our cooperation that begins with listening to what God has revealed his will to be.

God is just like an earthly father who has rebel children. He wants the best for his kids, and he is willing to bless them and help them get the best in life. But what can he do if they refuse to listen to him and follow his advice, and instead do the very opposite by doing what is wrong and destructive to their lives and that of others? He is forced to become their judge rather than their benefactor. He has to change his plans and refuse to honor their folly with his favor. That is what God had to do in this text above, and in many other places. God has to be disappointed in his children just like any father, and he does not get the pleasure of blessing them when they refuse to listen. Sometimes theologians are superficial in dealing with the problems of our heavenly Father. They say things like, “God never wishes that things happened another way, because they have happened exactly as He controlled them.” How anyone can read the prophets and all of the condemnation God hurled at this rebel people and think God always gets just what he wants is unbelievable. God does not get what he wants when his people turn from him and worship idols, and they were doing it over and over again, and God hated it, and judged them severely. He was not faking his sorrow and his anger. It was real, for God feels pain and frustration just like any parent with a rebel child.

For centuries Christian theologians followed Aristotle's idea of God that he was an Unmoved Mover, meaning that he had no emotions. God was above all of that human feeling that is so common in man. This was pure blindness to the Word of God because they were following a philosophy rather than listening to what God was saying. People have begun to listen to God's feelings in recent generations, and they have come to recognize that God does feel just like a human father when his kids turn to evil when all that is good is right at their fingertips. God feels hate, anger, sorrow, and disappointment with his children because they will not listen. Anyone can read the prophets and see this truth clearly. Not listening to God is the number one sin of his children. It started in the Garden of Eden, and continues all through history. If that is the case, then listening to God becomes the number one way of pleasing him and receiving his blessings.

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." Listening was the key to prevention of disease.

Proverbs 19:27 Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. This quickest way to become a fool is to stop listening.

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.” Jesus became a wise and brilliant man as well as our redeemer, and it was because he was a listener from his youth.

Luke 10:39 “She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.” The difference between Mary and Martha was Mary chose to listen, and Martha chose to be busy. This choice makes a difference in lives all through history, and in your life as well. It is listeners who rise to the level of praise in the Bible, and in life.

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.” All people who are saved are first of all listeners. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord. Nobody is saved by the Gospel who does not listen to it. People hear the Gospel for years in many forms, and yet they do not respond and accept this good news of salvation as a free gift. It is because they do not really listen. Only when they do listen will they see it for what it is, as an open invitation to abundant and eternal life. Then they will want that gift and enter the kingdom of God by trusting in Jesus as their Savior. Listening is the key to salvation.

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.” Here is a case of non-listening, and if you read this chapter you will see that because they did not listen to Paul, they lost everything, and the ship went down, and only by the grace of God did they have their lives spared.

James 1:19 “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” A good listener is going to avoid a lot of folly in life, and come out a winner. The one quick to speak and become angry is shooting for the title of loser.

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.” Hearing demands listening, and when we listen to the voice of our Lord he becomes the true Shepherd who guides us to pleasant pastures and still waters.

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."

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 do not always agree, but if you listen to enough of them you discover there is basic truth that they all come to understand. Then you come across some who have unique insights, and they support them with other Scriptures, and you are thrilled with the depth of understanding they add to your grasp of what God is communicating. You stop and praise God for this is an answer to your prayer, which is the desire to know God and his will better. Bible reading, and the study of it, needs to be seen as a form of prayer. It is listening prayer. You are praying like young Samuel who said, “Speak Lord, thy servant is listening.”

For most people in Bible times listening was the only way they could hear the voice of God, and this has been true for most of history. People had to listen to the prophets, and then the preachers for many centuries to hear God speak to them. In recent centuries, however, and especially in our generation, we have an abundance of Bible translations, and an even greater abundance of commentaries. We can now hear God speak to us through the eye gate rather than just through the ear gate. We need to be practicing listening prayer as we read and study the Bible. We need to pray that God would help us to hear his will as we read. This listening attitude will enable us to see and understand more of what God is saying, and by practice we will become truly good listeners. The result will be greater blessings, for God delights to bless those who delight in hearing his will. 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.