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Hear and Listen to the Voice of God
Episode #460
September 27, 2015
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Carole Nelson
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #459.
(J) Well, pre-salvation, my pre-salvation time, I always thought Christianity was boring, you know? So, you know, you go, and you have to sit on uncomfortable benches, and you have to listen to blah, blah, blah of men talking and preaching, and then you have to get in uncomfortable clothes, but I’ve found is He unites the adventure with my very DNA and makes a unique adventure and experience of Him that’s so much beyond what I would even make for myself.
(Martha) When I did the tape a few minutes ago, I spoke about commitment, commitment to His voice, commitment to listen. And when I was first born again, I guess, well, I must have been 27, 28, I just was like a child. And what it said in the Bible, I believed it, and I believed if you were a disciple you got everything a disciple’s got, and I didn’t have anybody to tell me that wasn’t true yet. But anyway, I said to the Lord, “I’m going to do what I hear You say. So, You better silence the voice of the devil and my voice, because what I hear, I’m going to do.” It was very child-like, very simple, and it was fantastic, because He could speak to me, because I would do it. I would go, and He started out with small things, you know, that weren’t too challenging. Then He went from there to bigger things that were more challenging until today. But it’s a commitment. “I’m going to obey You. Speak, Lord, Your servant’s listening.” And it’s simple as that. It’s child-like as that. I figured He would speak. I couldn’t imagine. People would say, “I can’t hear God.” I couldn’t imagine such a thing back then. How could you not hear Him?
(J) One thing that you said in the Message of the Month, you said that there was a lady who heard you say, “God spoke this to me,” and she came and kind of chastised you and said, “You can’t do that, because it makes people feel bad.” And I was thinking, I had a room-mate, and I’ve pretty much have heard God most of my life, and I would say to him, you know, “God said this.” And he said, “What the heck do you mean, God said that to you?” And I’m like goin..
(Martha) He was a Christian wasn’t he?
(J) He was a Christian, yeah. I said, “He said it. Who do you… If it wasn’t…I’m not telling you that, you know, I said it, when He said it. He said it. I heard Him say it.” And so, but he would get mad, so mad at me. Ooo, he would get so mad at me. Every single time I’d do that, I’d about like, “I’m sorry, I’m not going to tell you someone else said it.”
(Carole) Well, over the last days probably, Martha’s devotions, it just kind of prompted a pathway of thinking for me that… It’s a little, it may sound a little peculiar but, it kind of provoked the thought of all the WWJD folks, and “What would Jesus do?” Because in the message today, you said the only ones that really will hear God are the, like John said, the weak, the needy and the ignorant. And if we really think we know anything, we will not hear Him. And we will not hear Him, because really we want to control the situation anyway. We really think that we can control the situation, but what would Jesus do in any given situation? I know what He would do. He would listen. That’s what He would do. He would listen and look. He would look at the Father, and He would listen to what He had to say, because we absolutely do not know what He would do in any given moment. But that I know. Jesus would listen, and He would look at the Father’s face.
(J) Well, if I could… What would Jesus do? If I could know what He would do, then I wouldn’t have to listen.
(Carole) Exactly.
(J) It would prevent me from listening, because I’m projecting what He would do, so I’m doing what I think He would do, rather than listening to what He actually wants to do.
(Martha) Today in the devotional the Lord had me write, “Obedience is based on relationship, not rules, not goodness, not slavery, not anything other than intimacy with God.” See, why does He want us to hear Him? Because He wants relationship. It’s not just to get His will done. He wants relationship. And in the Spirit Filled Life Bible, Dick Eastman does the section on warfare. And I haven’t got it in front of me, because I didn’t know I was going to say it, but there’s a place where he talks about warfare is a matter of relationship. And he uses the word, interprets in the Hebrew, the word relationship, and it’s ‘Yada,’ which is marriage, marital intimacy. And it’s intimate knowledge of each other. It’s an intimacy, the greatest intimacy that can be, and that the intimacy God wants. He wants to be known. It’s not just let me tell you what to do and you go do it, and you’ll be blessed. It’s not that. His excitement and desire is for relationship, and we get to know Him through His voice, through His will, through His speaking. And that is intimacy with Him. And if you don’t have His voice, then you don’t have the intimacy.
(J) If you don’t have the Voice, you don’t even have the Life, because if you aren’t letting Him speak and aren’t listening to Him and aren’t following – you said that as well – you follow Jesus by listening. But if you’re not listening, then you don’t have the Life. I don’t know what life, well I do know what life you have, but it’s not good. Another thing you said in the message is that, “You don’t go to the Scriptures to read. You go to the Scriptures to hear,” and I thought that was fascinating. You go to it for relationship and to listen and to hear, and you let Him read. That’s what you said. Go into that some more. You talked about letting Him read it to you.
(Martha) Well, I said that it’s like if you go to Barnes and Noble and you buy a book, the author goes home with you to live at your house and reads the book to you and explains to you what it means. That’s what it’s like to have the Bible. It’s like you have in-house the Author of the Bible, and at anytime He can read to you, and as the Lord reads it to you, you’re registering it with your mind, but you’re also registering with your spirit that you’re hearing Him give it to you, and I call it neon. It turns on, the light turns on certain words. You all know that, and then you know that’s what He is saying to you, and He’s highlighting it to you. So, I’m just ask Him, “Read to me where you are. Show me where You are this morning.” And so many times I’ll open the Bible, and it will be precisely what I need to hear. So, I’m hearing the Scripture, but I’m actually hearing the Person in the Scripture. And you know that. Everybody… And sometimes I will wait, get up, go to my desk and the Bible will already be open, and I will look at it and know that is His voice. That’s what He saying, and it’s just amazing.
(J) It’s real amazing when it is. I mean the Bible could just be there at another time, the exact same place and it wouldn’t be. And it’s not like you’re saying, “Oh, well that would be good if You said that right now, so that’s what…” It’s literally you’re..
(Martha) It’s alive.
(J) It’s alive, and it quickens in you, and you know it’s Him. I mean, you know it.
What a wonderful blessing!
Tender love in Christ Jesus.
Ah… yes. Some time ago I quit reading the Bible. I just wanted the Lord, not the Bible.
Today I do not open the Bible to find anything less than a kiss from Him, and everytime I open it I swim in a river of life. I also get spanks, but His spanks at the end are kisses.
Love!