If You Want To Hear From God

We have discovered and we’ve been sharing the secret with many that proclamation is one of the most powerful weapons that God has given to us in the spiritual warfare in which we are engaged. It’s the way we take the Word of God and we apply it practically to ourselves. So we are going to make a proclamation of the last four verses of Psalm 19, and this will have a considerable relationship to what I’m going to be speaking about.

“Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”

Many of you know that Ruth and I took what we called a six-month sabbatical beginning the first of November last year and scheduled to last through April of this year. We had a secret destination which is no longer secret—we went to Hawaii which is a lovely place to be, and we went there because we felt we’d finished a certain phase of our lives and ministry. We’ve handed over the whole direction of Derek Prince Ministries to David Selby and his very competent staff and to the board of directors. And in a certain sense we’ve been able to walk away without any further responsibility except prayer. And we felt that we were going to be passing into a new phase of life and ministry and our main purpose was to seek God for His direction and that He would prepare us and equip us, and we set aside six months for that without any ministry commitments at all. I didn’t preach anywhere to anyone.

We had anticipated that it would be a really relaxed and restful time and that we would spend plenty of time just reading the Bible and praying and walking on the beautiful hills, and it wasn’t like that the least bit. It was one of the most difficult and intense periods that I’ve ever experienced in my whole life. Incidentally, let me say that I have been a Christian almost exactly fifty years today. It was the end of July 1941 about midnight that I had a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ in an Army barrack room, which totally and radically and permanently changed my whole life. I certainly wasn’t perfect as a result of it, but I was different and the difference has continued and increased until this day.

Well, our time in Hawaii, as I’ve said, was more difficult really than almost anytime we’ve had together since we were married. I won’t go into all the difficulties, but I myself was struggling for my health the whole time from beginning to end. I spent two and a half weeks in hospital with a heart condition which is very hard to diagnose and which until recent antibiotics were discovered, was incurable. In fact, it would have been fatal. But here I am alive and well. I thank God for the doctors and the nurses and for all the people that have prayed and stood by us. And I want to share with you this morning some of the lessons that we learned during this period.

First of all, let me say briefly, that the direction we received was very simple and very practical. God showed us that from now on our first ministry is to be intercession and prayer and worship and waiting upon God. And He also showed us that the place that is to be our base for this ministry is our home in Jerusalem.

Now if we had only allotted the Lord five months we wouldn’t have had the answer to our questions, because for five-and-a-half months He didn’t tell us anything about the answer to our question. He told us a lot of things, but not the answer. So it was only in the last two weeks, the last half of the last month, that God gave us an answer. And there are many lessons, I think, for that. First of all, it was prophesied here this morning, I think it was very appropriate, God wants our time. And if we’re not prepared to give God time, I don’t think we can expect to hear from God. And we’ve learned by experience and God has confirmed it many ways, that God wants open-ended time. He wants time where we don’t say, ‘Lord, we’ll give you the next half hour or the next hour or half a day.’ But, ‘Lord, we’ll give you the time until we hear from You; no matter how long it takes.’ I think that’s tremendously important. I feel that there are many of you here this morning that would love to hear from God, many of you praying to hear from God, but you’re not hearing. And the reason you’re not hearing is you’re not meeting God’s conditions. And so what I’m trying to do this morning is to share with you the lessons that we’ve learned about hearing from God.

God has wonderful plans for many of you, but you don’t know them. God has different ways for many of you than the way that you anticipate, but you’ll never find them unless you hear from God. So that’s a priority.

You might say, ‘Why did we have to wait five and a half months?’ I’ll give you two answers. First of all, God is sovereign. That’s a truth that is hardly ever mentioned in the church today. My definition of God being sovereign is this: God does what He wants, when He wants, the way He wants and He asks no one’s permission. And if you haven’t learned that, you’ve got a very important lesson to learn. We cannot dictate to God and say, ‘God, now I expect to hear in the next half hour or in the next six months.’ God decides when we will hear.

The second reason why we had to wait was practical. We discovered, and God revealed to us, that there were many barriers in us which had to be removed before God could speak and have His way. And it took Him five and a half months to deal with those barriers. I want to say that I’m not talking about sins such as sexual immorality or drunkenness, just so that you won’t get the wrong impression. Those are not necessarily the worst sins, but they’re the first sins that everybody thinks about when Christians talk about sins. Those were not the sins that God dealt with in Ruth and me, and I’m not going to tell you here this morning the sins that He did deal with. But the way God required us to remove the barriers was by confession of sin, repentance, and self-humbling, and I think the key really is self-humbling. Somebody said, ‘Humility is not something you are, humility is something you do.’ Don’t try to feel humble. You’ll never achieve it, but do what humility dictates and the results will follow.

I believe the great barrier between God and us as human beings is pride. I don’t think we sufficiently understand the nature of pride. The first sin in the history of the universe was not drunkenness or immorality or even murder, it was pride—and it didn’t take place on earth, it took place in heaven—and out of pride all other sins subsequently followed. And if we can deal with pride, I don’t believe there’s any other sin we can’t deal with. But if we do not deal with pride, pride will keep us from dealing with many other sins.

So I want to suggest to you three ways to remove the barrier of pride. They’re very simple. The most important things in the spiritual life nearly always are simple, but sometimes it’s difficult to be simple. It takes a lot of God’s dealings to bring us to the place of simplicity. The first way that we can humble ourselves before God is by confession our sins. In 1 John 1:9 it says:

“If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

I want to emphasize here this morning, God does not want to hold your sins against you. God has made total provision for you to be completely forgiven and completely cleansed. But He has laid down a condition: If we confess our sins. If we do not confess our sins, they continue to be reckoned against us. The only way we can escape from the consequence of our sins and from the guilt of our sins, is by confessing our sins. Acknowledging—‘God, I did this. It’s true.’

Now I would urge you not to start a process of self-examination, because the more you examine yourself the less pleased you will be with yourself. And it’s not the way. God has given us an examiner. You know who He is? The Holy Spirit. Jesus said, ‘When the Holy Spirit comes He will convict of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.’ Those are the three eternal realities on which all true religion is based: sin, righteousness and judgment. And John says, ‘All unrighteousness is sin.’ If you know what straight is, you know what crooked is. Anything that’s not straight is crooked. It may vary by many different degrees, but it’s crooked. And it’s the same with sin and righteousness. Anything that is not righteous is sinful. There are only two categories. Not a lot of different shades of color. It’s either righteousness or sin, and the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts.

Satan makes you feel guilty. The Holy Spirit doesn’t do that. Satan always leaves you wondering— have I done enough, should I have done more, was that all that’s required? The Holy Spirit says, ‘This is what you did; this is what you have to do to be clear.’ He’s very specific. He doesn’t leave any blurred edges; He doesn’t leave any room for Satan to come in with unfair accusations. ‘If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.’

I want to emphasize with all the power I have, God wants to forgive your sins. He does not want to hold your sins against you. He does not want you to go around guilty, but you have to do one thing: You have to confess, you have to say it. I did it, I did it. And if you will open yourself to the Holy Spirit and give God time, He’ll show you—believe me, He will show you. He will show you things you’ve forgotten, things that you never even thought were sinful, but He’ll show you them as God sees them.

For me personally, it really wasn’t the enormity of my sins that made it difficult, it was that they were so stupid and so petty, and I could say to myself, ‘How could I ever have said or done something like that?’

I believe if we confess our sins and receive God’s forgiveness we will never have to account for those sins, ever again. But if we do not confess them, one day we’re going to have to answer to God for them. I found it embarrassing to tell God privately what I’d done, but think of how much more embarrassing it will be if the whole universe hears what you’ve done. That will be embarrassing.

The second remedy is very similar to the first and very simple. These are all very simple. In James chapter 5 and verse 16, and I’m not reading the New King James because it’s not accurate, Confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed.

I think it’s very clear there from the context that unconfessed sin is a barrier to healing. It’s probably the commonest single barrier to healing. I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed that people who just get saved so easily receive healing. Have you ever noticed that? They come forward, they don’t deserve anything—they’re forgiven and they’re healed. You know why? Because they have no barrier. At that moment every sin they’ve ever committed has been forgiven. But as we go on in the Christian life, unless we are very watchful and careful, we will begin to pile up sins that we haven’t confessed. And then when we come for healing there’s that barrier of unforgiven sin that keeps us from receiving healing. So James says, ‘Confess your sins one to another.’ Now it’s humbling to confess your sins to God, but believe me it’s even more humbling to confess your sins one to another. But it’s a very healthy form of self humbling.

I was interested years ago when I read The Journals of John Wesley about the Methodist societies that he established in England. One of the strongest Methodist societies grew out of a group of ten people who agreed to meet together once every week to confess their faults to one another. Our concept of starting a church today doesn’t go that way, but the problem is we leave a lot of things undealt with. I think especially for husbands and wives it’s very healthy to confess your sins one to another.

I was dealing with a man some years ago in a different country and he had this problem. He got unreasonably angry with his wife and his family. He was a Christian and really wanted to serve the Lord. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘one thing I would recommend is that you make a practice every time you lose your temper in the presence of your family, you specifically confess that as sin to your wife and children, because I think the mere thought that you’re going to have to do that will do something to inhibit your losing your temper next time.’ Ruth and I have confessed many, many things to each other. I don’t know of anything that I’ve withheld from Ruth or she has withheld from me.

Talking about giving God open-ended time, basically other things being equal, we give God every Wednesday. We set no agenda. We just take our time in the presence of God, and I’d have to say—we’ve been doing this for several years—no two Wednesdays have ever been the same. When you let God take the agenda it is astonishing where you’ll end up. Sometimes at the end of a Wednesday I’ll say to Ruth, ‘How did we ever get here? It wasn’t in our minds when we started.’ But you have to open up to God and give God time and basically be relaxed. Don’t kneel down and clench your fists and make up your mind you’re going to pray. Stop praying for a little while and start listening. You’ve done too much talking, most of you, and not enough listening. Let God speak to you. He will. If you’re open, He will do it.

I think many marriages, and some of them are represented here this morning, would be healed if husband and wife would humble themselves before each other and confess their sins. A husband could say to his wife, ‘I’m sorry I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I had no right to be so critical and unkind. Please forgive me.’ You know what that deals with? Pride. Male pride. Male chauvinism. There are many, many men who would never humble themselves before their wife. It’s something to do with the male ego, but it’s not from God. It’s a different way of relating and dealing with things.

Then the third way to humble yourself, ourselves, is to submit to God’s dealings. I want to say this very specifically. Let me quote the words of Moses. He said,

“Ascribe greatness to our God the Rock.
His work is perfect and all His ways are just.
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.”

Please do not entertain the thought that God has ever been unjust or unfair. He never is. You may think He has been, but you’re wrong. Set aside that concept that somehow God owes you something which He hasn’t paid you. It’ll make all the difference in your approach to Him. His work is perfect, He never makes a mistake, and all His ways are just. He’s a God of faithfulness and without injustice. Can you say ‘Amen’ to that? It’s so easy when we’re under pressure to begin to blame God and say, ‘God, you haven’t treated me right. You haven’t answered my prayers. I should have been married by now. Why didn’t You send me a husband?’ It’s not God’s fault. Can you say ‘Amen’ to that? It’s very important to understand God is totally and absolutely just, and He never does anything wrong. He never makes a mistake and He is totally trustworthy.

You see, all of us in the Christian life will come through periods when things seem to be going wrong. Things don’t work out the way we feel they should. Maybe we’re short of money, our friends have let us down; the things we were expecting haven’t worked out and what do we do, how do we respond? Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 6,

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and He may exalt you in due time,”

So things are not going the way you expect. What do you do? You humble yourself. You say, ‘God, I don’t understand what’s going on, but I know You’re perfectly just. You never make a mistake. What You’re doing is right. I submit to Your dealings. Teach me what I don’t know. Help me to learn what I need to learn. I’m willing to learn.’ See, God dealt that way with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt. He permitted them to go through things which were designed to humble them. I’ll just read two verses from Deuteronomy 8 verses 2 and 3. Moses said to them in retrospect after they had finished their journey through the wilderness,

“‘You shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
‘So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know…”

So how did He humble them? By allowing them to go through times of apparent need and insufficiency, and when their main carnal desires were not being satisfied. Why did He do it, what was His purpose? To humble them. Did He succeed? No, He didn’t really. As far as the generation that perished in the wilderness, they didn’t humble themselves. They complained, they murmured, they rebelled, they blamed God. Now listen to me, when you’re going through a hard time, don’t complain. Don’t murmur. Don’t say, ‘God, I can’t take this. You’re not feeding me right,’ because you’re missing the purpose of God. The purpose of God is to humble you. If you will humble yourself, then God’s purposes will be fulfilled.

I remember the first time that God specifically spoke to my first wife, Lydia, and me, we had had to leave Israel. We came refugees to our own country, my own country, Britain. We were without a home. We had a family of eight girls and they were split up in different homes. And we were miserable. And God spoke prophetically and said, ‘Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.’ I have to admit it took a long while for me to do it, but it’s good advice. When things are going wrong, when you don’t get what you want, when it seems that your prayers are not being answered, what do you do? You humble yourself. ‘God, the fault isn’t Yours. Show me where I’m wrong. Show me what I need to know. Teach me. I want to learn. I want to be obedient. I want to be submissive.’

There’s another Scripture that’s been impressed on me in Job chapter 7 verses 17 and 18. This is an amazing passage of Scripture.

“‘What is man, [it’s addressed to the Lord] what is man, that You should magnify him, That You should set Your heart on him…”

Do you know God has a magnifying glass and He scrutinizes us through His magnifying glass? He doesn’t just look at us the way we are, but He brings everything into magnification, and then says,

“What is man that You should visit him every morning,
And test him every moment?”

Did you know that? Did you know that God visits you every morning? Are you prepared for His visitation? What happened when God visited you this morning? Were you even unaware that God was visiting you? And then it says,

“He tests man every moment.”

We are continually being tested as to whether we’ll be faithful and obedient or rebellious and disobedient. Now you have no options. God doesn’t say, ‘Well, if you’ll permit Me, I’ll test you.’ God tests you, God tests me, God visits me every morning. I try to be ready for His visit. I try to get myself into a frame of mind where whatever He has to say or whatever He wants to change, whatever correction or new direction He wants to give, I’ll be ready to receive it. One thing I’ve seen is that God means exactly what He says. He doesn’t exaggerate. Everything that He says is absolutely correct. A lot of us, I think, read God’s contracts without reading the fine print. Suppose you had an automobile accident in your car. You go to the insurance company claims, and they said, ‘Well, who was driving?’ ‘Well, our daughter was driving.’ ‘How old is she?’ ‘Well she was twenty-four at the time.’ They say, ‘Our conditions state specifically no driver under twenty-five.’ ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ ‘We’re not going to pay your claim.’ ‘You mean just that different of one year?’ ‘That’s right. That’s exactly the way it is.’

And that’s the way it is with God. He means exactly what He says. When He lays down conditions, they’re not approximate, they’re not generalities. He’s absolutely specific as to what He requires. So I suggest to some of you, you need to read the fine print once more, because you’re saying to yourselves, ‘Well, God didn’t deliver.’ He’s saying, ‘You didn’t meet the conditions. You didn’t read the fine print.’

I want to say something too about waiting, which is very closely tied in. I think one of the most humbling things we have to do is wait. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10, Paul says of the Thessalonians,

“…You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven…”

Interesting. What does the Christian life consist of? To serve God. Most of us would accept that. Have you noticed the other part of that—to wait for His Son? You see, I believe that Jesus is coming back for a church that’s waiting. I believe that in the providence of God there will be a period when we will simply be waiting, when it will no longer be serving. We will have done all of that. But having served, we have to wait.

What does waiting do? I’ll suggest two things. First of all, it’s a mark of faith. You’re waiting because you believe God is going to intervene. You picture a group of people on a road. Some are there aimlessly, they’re just standing around, they’re walking up and down. But there’s one man who’s there because it’s a bus stop. And he’s different. He’s there at a specific time and a specific place and he’s looking in a specific direction. He’s waiting for the bus. He has faith. He’s different from all the other people on that road.

The second thing that waiting does, it shows us our dependence on God. And I think here is one of the most important lessons that we have to acknowledge, gladly acknowledge—we’re totally dependent on God. If God doesn’t turn up, the whole thing is a failure. And so waiting is part of Christian discipline. It’s, first of all, an expression of our faith that He will do what He says He will do in His time and we cannot dictate the time. And secondly, it’s acknowledgment of our dependence. ‘God, I can’t do it. If you don’t do it, it won’t happen. I have to wait.’ How long? We don’t know.

I don’t know whether you ever realized, when God submits you to a test He very seldom tells you how long. Have you noticed that? I mean, if you’re to say you’ll hold out for six months, you’ll get what you’re waiting for, but that would not be difficult. But He doesn’t and we don’t know whether it’s going to be six months or six years. And at the end of five and a half months we say, ‘Well, this is no good. I might as well give up.’ And we’re just half a month away from what we were waiting for. You see, the essence of it is what? Dependence on God.

I want to close by reading a familiar passage from Isaiah chapter 40. I believe this is for the people of God in the United States at this time. I believe God is asking us to prepare the way for Him to visit us. I believe God will visit the church in this nation. I don’t say He’ll visit the nation, but I believe He’ll visit the church in the nation, and we don’t know when He will do it. That’s in His sovereignty. But He says you have to get ready, you have to prepare the way and this is the instructions. These are the words that were actually recorded about John the Baptist when he was preparing the way for the coming of Jesus. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 3, 4 and 5.

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill shall be made low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places shall be made smooth;
The glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”

What’s the end of the promise? ‘The glory of the Lord will be revealed.’ All flesh will see it. But what are the steps of preparation? How do we prepare the way of the Lord? We have to remove the barriers in our lives that keep God from being and doing what He wants, and there are four changes that are spoken of. Every valley shall be exalted, lifted up every mountain and hill shall be brought down. So the low things have got to be raised up and the high things have got to be brought down. All our hype and our exaggeration and our boasting and our super-spirituality has got to come down.

I have a relation of friendship with the editor of Charisma Magazine which basically Ruth and I read every month—some of it. I said to him some time ago when we met in Britain, I said, ‘I think the articles in your magazine are good,’ but I said, ‘after I’ve read the advertisements I feel I need a bath!’ I don’t know that you could ever find a more continuous display of self-glorification than is found in those advertisements, and that is basically the keynote of the Charismatic movement—self-glorification, self exaltation, self-promotion—all that has got to come down. God will not make His way through that.

And the low things, the things that people almost really despise today like modesty, and chastity, and self-effacement, and being willing to serve, and just to be in the background—those things have got to be lifted up.

Are there crooked things in your life? How about your dealing with money? Is there crookedness there? How about the way you fill in your income tax return? It’s not difficult to cheat on an income tax return, but it’s crooked, and God says, ‘If you want me to visit you, you’ve got to straighten out that crookedness.’

And the rough places have got to be made smooth. Your egoism, your tendency to react angrily when things don’t go the way you want, when you’re challenged, when somebody disagrees with you—do you have rough places in your life? Argumentativeness, self-justification—‘Well, it’s not my fault, he did the wrong thing. Our church is all right; it’s the other churches that need to be straightened out.’ ‘All that,’ God says, ‘has got to be changed.’

I believe God is in the process of changing. I read just before the service a prophecy that was give by Bob Sutton, I think a week or two ago in which he said to expect trial, tribulation. It’s coming. It’s come to some people. There are a number of ministers that I know that have been through almost incredible tests, but if we don’t pass the tests we won’t be ready to receive the revelation of His glory. The glory of the Lord will be revealed. Do you believe that? I do, because God keeps His word. He’s faithful, but it will be revealed only through those who’ve met His conditions. The mountains have to come down, the valleys have to be exalted, the crooked places have to be made straight, the rough places have to be made smooth. I believe that’s what God is doing. I believe I can say, this is my understanding of God, that He’s working that now. It’s on His agenda for the church in this nation, and you and I are going to have to determine whether we’ll be channels for His glory or whether we’ll be mountains that hold it out. I believe that this is what’s being worked out in the church, in Good News Church, and God will do exactly what He said. When we meet His conditions His glory will be revealed, and where we refuse He will withhold His glory.

I do believe there’s a time of testing coming for the church in this nation. I don’t know exactly what form the testing will take, but God does visit man every morning and test him every moment. And God never uses anything or anyone who’s untested. So, if you want to be used, you have to be tested, and if you pass the test you will be used. Let me say the testing doesn’t end the first five years of your Christian experience. I’ve just completed fifty, as I told you, and I think the tests have been harder this past year than at any time in my previous experience. But by the grace of God, I want to say this carefully, I believe I passed the tests up to this time. That doesn’t mean I’ve arrived, but it means I’m in line for the next test.

I don’t have a plan to finish this message. In a way I don’t want to make it too easy for you. I mean I could say, ‘Now if you really want to pass the tests lift your hand and I’ll pray,’ but I think in a way I’d be fooling you because it takes more than that. It takes a real inner determination that is not arrived at simply in a moment at the end of a meeting, an inner determination. My own attitude is, ‘Lord, I’ve been in this way fifty years, I don’t want to miss what’s coming. I don’t want to drop out now. I don’t want to lose what I’ve worked for. I want to be there at the end.’ So how about you?

So why don’t we just settle for a few moments of silence and I invite you to just shut yourself in with the Lord. In the light of what I’ve been saying, and make your own decision or commitment. Or if you’re not able to make a decision, then ask God, ‘Help me make a decision. Bring me to the place where I can make the right decision.’