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[0:00] Thank you for tuning into this message by David Entry. Every true revival is a product of the strong preaching of God's word.! May you receive a word from this message that will spark a revival in you.

[0:14] ! He did not yet know the Lord.

[0:32] Nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him. So the Lord called Samuel again for the third time. And he got up and went to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me.

[0:47] Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. And Eli said unto Samuel, Go lie down, it shall be, if he calls you, that ye shall say, speak, Lord.

[0:59] For your servant is listening. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Then the Lord came and stood and called as at the other times.

[1:10] Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, speak, for your servant is listening. Then the Lord said to Samuel, verse 11, Then the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I am going to do a thing in Israel.

[1:25] And both ears of everyone who hears about it will ring. Here ends the reading of God's word. Amen. I want to attempt to speak on hearing the voice of God.

[1:42] Your heart for God is your greatest advantage in life. A hunger for God is the pathway to Godly destiny. When you are hungry for God, you've stepped into a pathway.

[1:56] A hunger for God is the pathway to glorious, Godly destiny. May I add this? That the voice of God is your greatest asset in life.

[2:12] The voice of God. The voice of God is your greatest asset in life.

[2:24] Greatest asset. The voice of God. The voice of God. There's something theologians call dispensation.

[2:36] Let's all say dispensation. Dispensation. Dispensation is how God deals with human beings at a particular time over a particular period.

[2:49] I will explain it. The way and manner in which God deals with human beings. There was the dispensation of the patriarchs.

[3:02] Patriarch is simply a family head. A family head. So Abraham was a patriarch.

[3:14] Isaac was a patriarch. Jacob was a patriarch. So the founding fathers or family heads who have become very instrumental in the entire clan, the family that grows.

[3:30] So patriarchs. And there was the dispensation of the patriarchs where God comes to the patriarch and speaks to the patriarch like Noah. God didn't go to Noah's wife.

[3:42] Neither did he go to any of Noah's sons to tell him, go to your dad and then tell him to move everybody in today. God came to Noah. God came to Noah and then Noah obeyed.

[3:53] So Noah was a patriarch. David is also a patriarch. In fact, I think in the book of Acts, one of the places, David was a patriarch. So he was a patriarch.

[4:04] So it's not like a strange word. You know, so the patriarchal dispensation where God will speak to Abraham. And then once he speaks to Abraham, it applies.

[4:15] Is that Acts chapter 2? Yeah. Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you about the patriarch, David. Okay. So it's a biblical word. All right. So David was a patriarch.

[4:26] Abraham was a patriarch. Where in those days, God will speak to a patriarch. And then what he says to the patriarch is what he's operating with. So if you don't fall within the family of the patriarch, God doesn't know you.

[4:42] It's like, that's why everybody perished apart from Noah and his household. Everybody didn't matter apart from Abraham and his seed. Okay. So it was the dispensation of the patriarchs.

[4:56] And then we also have the dispensation of Israel, where God dealt with Israel as a whole, like a people, as you might call it a race or a group of people.

[5:09] So he said Israel is a family and it became like a nation. So God, it's God and Israel. All others outside of Israel were no important.

[5:19] So how was God dealing with Israel? By giving them the law. At that time, when God was dealing with Israel, what was most important is the priesthood, the law, and the tabernacle.

[5:34] And the tabernacle, it has a direct relation with the Sabbath day. So the priesthood was so important. The tabernacle was so important. And then the Sabbath. But it all falls under the law.

[5:46] So it's called the dispensation of law. Okay. So God was just dealing with them based on what he has told them. Do this. Don't do that. Do this. So God dealt with Israel.

[5:57] Anyone, God has not given them the law. It didn't matter. That's why Peter said, no, I've never eaten anything unclean. That guy was a serious clean Jew. Even before Jesus called him.

[6:08] So dispensation of the law, where he dealt with a group of people. First of all, it was the patriarch, family head. Then a whole group of people, he dealt with them. Then after that, we have the dispensation of grace, where he deals with everybody on an individual basis.

[6:27] And that's the church age. So now watch this. So during the dispensation of the patriarchs, God had a particular way of dealing with the patriarchs. You can't expect him to be dealing with us like that.

[6:38] So the way he was relating to them changed based on the dispensation. That's what dispensation means. So you can't say in the Deuteronomy, he said, don't shave the size of your head.

[6:51] So you are going to enforce it in the New Testament. It doesn't apply. So now, we are not under the law. Now somebody may say, okay, if you are not under the law, thou shalt not fornicate.

[7:03] It's under the law. We have the moral law. We have the ceremonial law. And then we have the civil law. So we have these laws.

[7:14] And the laws were not only 10. There were 613 laws. And Jesus now made it about 1,000 to. Jesus increased it.

[7:24] So if you want to obey law, work with law. But we are not bound by the ceremonial laws. How we should worship, how we should kneel, what we should wear in worship.

[7:35] We are not bound by that. Because that was for Israel. Okay. Under the law. That's why Peter didn't want to have fellowship with the Gentiles. Because it was still under the law.

[7:46] But he didn't know that dispensation had changed. So the dispensation, you know, I talked on dispensational transition. There was a transition. You know, sometimes transitions can be tricky.

[7:59] Because many accidents happen during transition. Car accident. So transitions can be tricky. So Peter, them were in a transitional season.

[8:10] But they didn't even know. They were still stuck in the old ways. But God had changed. That is why those who are still waiting for the Messiah, they are late. Can you imagine 2,000 years ago, the Messiah came.

[8:24] There are some Jews who are still waiting for the Messiah. So we have all these dispensations. So the uniqueness of a dispensation is the way God relates and deals with man, interacts with man.

[8:40] The system under which God interacts with man, or through which God interacts with man, changes with dispensations. In the Old Testament, if you try to use grace as dispensation, you might even die.

[8:54] Like someone tried to save the ark and died. It was not under grace. Then Jesus came during the transition. He said, Moses said we should stone him. He said, any of you will have sinned, stone him. Because he was operating with grace.

[9:07] That's very important. So we are under grace. That's why people can do a lot of things and seem to be getting away with it. So now, why did I tell you all this?

[9:18] Yet, in all these dispensations, even though the way God dealt with man, or God interacted with man, changes, one thing is constant.

[9:31] The voice of God. In every dispensation, there will be the voice of God that was reaching to people. So in every dispensation, the voice of God was a common denominator.

[9:45] In the dispensation of the patriarch, it was the voice of God that was common. In the dispensation of the law, the voice of God was common. And in the dispensation of grace, the voice of God was still common.

[9:56] And so, when you read John chapter 10, verse 3, 4, 16, 27. John chapter 10, verse 3, it says that, To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice.

[10:12] And he calls his own sheep by name and lead them out. Look at the next verse. Verse 4. Verse 4, please. Verse 4, I mean.

[10:23] Verse 4 says that, and when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him. Why? They know his voice. Now, that statement is very unique.

[10:37] The only reason why the sheep follow him is because they know his voice. Verse 16, and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they will hear.

[10:53] See the common factor? They will hear. I will bring them, and they will hear my voice. They will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd, because it's one voice.

[11:07] Now, the last text. This one is stronger. Verse 27. Verse 27 says that. Let's all read it. Let's go. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

[11:18] Two things that the sheep do. The sheep hear what? His voice. And who do they follow?

[11:29] The one whose voice they heard. Now, what am I showing this scripture? It starts to imply that automatically, the sheep gets to know his owner's voice.

[11:45] How many of you know that everybody's voice is different? Scientifically. You know, in certain vaults, in banks, before you can even open the combination, you need to speak somewhere.

[12:01] Voice activated. And any other voice, if it's just your voice, any other voice will know. You say hello. You say, even if your voice is crooked or you are not feeling, the thing knows.

[12:12] Your voice is very unique. Everybody. It's very interesting. Besides having a unique DNA, besides having a unique fingerprint, and besides having unique iris, you also have a unique voice.

[12:27] That's very unique to you. When you speak, it makes a certain sound. And that is one of the things that children, when a child is born, they try to make sure the hearing is okay.

[12:39] First of all, the child must cry. The next thing, you have to check the hearing before the sight. Because a child can easily know the voice of the parent.

[12:51] You don't have to teach a child. That's your mother's voice. They know it. It's inherent. Jesus is saying, when you are born again, it comes to being born again.

[13:03] It's inherent. Your heart is like a vault. The only voice that makes your heart open properly to the treasury of God is the voice of Christ.

[13:17] Unfortunately, some of us have embraced voices. That's why your problems have been like that. Many problems in our lives is because of the voice we heard and followed. It's one thing hearing God's voice.

[13:30] It's another thing obeying God's voice. Because Adam and Eve, they knew God's voice. They heard his voice. But they obeyed the serpents. So, once you are born again, you have a unique access to the voice of God.

[13:49] If you are born again, you know. He said, verse 27. He said, my sheep, my sheep hear my voice. So, if you are born again, the voice of God is one thing that you have.

[14:03] So, there's a reason why people don't hear the voice of God. One of the reasons why people don't hear the voice of God is what I call the unbelief.

[14:15] Unbelief. When I say unbelief, I'm not talking about lack of faith. But, they don't believe God speaks anyway. They don't believe God will speak. Like, there are a group of people called the cessationists.

[14:29] Most of them are very good theologians. But, they believe God has stopped speaking to people. Once the Bible was completed, God has stopped speaking. He said, if you want to hear anything, read it here.

[14:42] Pastor, is that not true? Yes, it's true. But, it's not complete. It's called completion of the canon. When the canon was completed, the word of God was completed, everything, anything anybody says God said must have agreement with this and it must be traceable here.

[15:02] You can read the Bible and actually hear God's voice. But, not everybody reading the Bible hears his voice. God makes his voice known to us.

[15:13] The foundational text we read, Samuel, verse 7, 1 Samuel chapter 3, verse 7. Look at the text again. It says, Now, somebody don't know the Lord. Neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed.

[15:25] In other words, another way, the voice of God had not been made available or he was not convinced. He didn't know that this is the... So, God called him and he went somewhere.

[15:37] He thought it was somebody calling him. You know, but the voice of the Lord had not yet been made known to him. And my prayer that through these teachings, God's voice would be made clearer and you will know God's voice.

[15:51] Because if you are born again, you hear his voice. He speaks to you. God is a speaking... I've always been saying this. God is a speaking God. God is a speaking God. So, by nature, God speaks by nature.

[16:06] If you go close to God, the first thing that you know is not what you see. It's what you hear. So, they said they heard the voice of God walking in the garden. Genesis chapter 3. After Adam and Eve sin.

[16:18] I think from verse 8-9. They heard the voice of God walking in the garden. God comes to speak. Alright. So, one of the reasons why people don't hear the voice of God is that they think, Oh, God doesn't really...

[16:32] Will God speak to me? Anybody? God doesn't speak. So, unbelief. Number two. Unsuccessfulness. Unsuccessfulness.

[16:45] Like, there was a time you thought God spoke to you. When you thought God was telling you, that guy is about to propose to you. And then he said, can we meet?

[16:55] So, you are happy. You prayed. He said, let's... I'm traveling to America or Ukraine. When I come back, we can have a meeting. I really want to meet up with you. I really want to. So, you knew that God. And you fasted.

[17:05] And God told you that. This is it. So, you know, sometimes you thought you heard from God. And it turned out to be otherwise. But most of the time, it's very easy to project our wishes on God.

[17:16] Especially when it comes to what you want. So, when you believe God has spoken to you. Especially when it comes to the job you want. How many of you have heard God tell you, that job is yours?

[17:27] That house is yours. When you are going to view it. After you like it so much.

[17:38] You pray, God told you that house. That university, you will gain the admission. You have gotten it already. That husband is going to be yours. That wife. You know, sometimes we are so preoccupied.

[17:50] Sometimes we are so preoccupied with our desires. It can easily come across like God is telling us. And you can be so convinced that it's God. But it's you.

[18:03] You know, Samuel, when God called him. He thought it was Eli. But it was God. He heard the voice of God. But he thought it was Eli. And it's interesting that Eli had to teach him.

[18:18] No, it's not your thoughts. So, there are times he wasn't sure. And then when he was going to appoint a king in Jesse's house. He saw David, that brother.

[18:30] And he said to himself, his thoughts told him to us. But God said no. So, there are times it's your thoughts you think is God. There are times it's God you think is your thoughts. The reason why people don't hear the voice of God is number one is unbelief.

[18:44] Number two, unsuccessfulness. Because they think that they are disappointed in the first time. Or other times they thought it was God. And then number three is undesirable examples.

[18:58] Somebody who is in Christian leadership tries to manipulate you with God told me. God told me five of you to sow a seed of thousands.

[19:10] And then six of you come. And those who are masters will say that no, the one should go back. No, no, no, no. I'd hate only if I want you. You know, that makes you really believe stronger that this guy is very serious.

[19:26] The easiest way of growing somebody in Christ is discipleship. There are times you can believe something from God extremely. Your faith is high and it will happen.

[19:37] If we don't disciple you, you will say God has disappointed you. You told the pastor who he says he hears from God. You told him something about your brother.

[19:48] The next moment he uses it as a prophecy. Or he uses it as a prophecy. He says that the Lord told me. The Lord told me. And you've seen it a few times. It can put a distaste in your mouth from hearing from God.

[20:00] Because you realize that this thing is not true. So undesirable examples in leadership can make people not be even interested in hearing from God. And then uncertainty.

[20:13] Uncertainty is number four. Fear of getting it wrong. Fear of getting it wrong makes people afraid. They don't even want to hear anything. Let alone to know it's God or no God.

[20:25] But in the subsequent teachings, I will show you. It's so easy to know what is God and what is no God. Sometimes there will be, it's like, it will be bled. But Rabbi says that the word of God is life.

[20:36] Sharper than any two-edged sword. And it's able to divide between the soul and the spirit. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12. What is you and what is God? The word of God is able to draw a line.

[20:49] The fifth point is unworthiness. You feel the way you've been lying and you've been behaving and you've been doing dodgy stuff. God can't talk to you. I don't think. If God will speak to anybody, certain special people, special seniors, God talk to me.

[21:04] Who am I for God to talk to me? Who am I for God to talk to me? How can God talk to me? I'm bad. I'm not good enough. Or I'm not. I can't quote Bible quotations. I don't know Bible quotations so God can't talk to me.

[21:16] God speaks to everybody who is his son. Who is his child. So if you're a child of God, if you're God's sheep, then Bible says that one of the intrinsic, inherent qualities of a sheep is the ability to hear.

[21:35] You just hear his voice. Because you will know his voice. You will hear his voice. Now when we talk about the voice of God, anytime you read the Bible and you see, especially in the New Testament, you see the word of God.

[21:47] We have, there are two Greek words that were translated word. So John 1, 1, the word, that word is the Greek word logos.

[22:00] L-O-G-O-S. Logos. The logos is the written word. So this is the logos. Right? It's the written word.

[22:12] However, there's another word translated, r-h-e-m-a. R-h-e-m-a. R-h-e-m-a word. We have the logos word, a r-h-e-m-a word.

[22:23] Faith comes by the r-h-e-m-a word. Man must not, in Matthew 4, 4, man must not live by bread alone, but by every word.

[22:33] That word is r-h-e-m-a. R-h-e-m-a. So that is the, sometimes it's called the spoken word, but really it is a personal word.

[22:46] So how many of you have read the Bible before? And as you are reading your Bible, something jumps out from the page. You feel, wow, this thing is reading me or this thing is talking to me. Now, then that is r-h-e-m-a.

[22:57] R-h-e-m-a is a personal, a specific word from God to a person, to a group of people at a specific time. So it came at a specific time.

[23:09] It's not just yesterday. It's always fresh. So the word comes to you, it's like, it's so current. That's very important. The word is so current, you can hear the word of God.

[23:21] You can hear God talk to you. Okay. So we have the r-h-e-m-a word and the logos word. We live by the r-h-e-m-a word, not the logos word.

[23:33] We live by it. So you can be reading your Bible and not hearing from God. When you read your Bible, what you should be looking out for is to hear a voice. You hear God.

[23:44] You will not hear an audible voice. My son, my son, my son. Then they will add echo. Most of you, when you are thinking about the word of God or the voice of God, that's what you have been thinking.

[23:59] But pastor, how is it that I don't hear a voice? My friend said that God told them, but me, God doesn't speak to me. Why is he not speaking to me? Because you have been expecting to hear, Samuel, Samuel, Samuel.

[24:22] So you can imagine how those stories can condition you away from what is reality. So that's the problem of my book of Bible stories.

[24:34] When you know the story so much, it has a way of conditioning you that you actually miss the message. And when you be watching Christian stories or biblical stories, it's nice.

[24:48] But some of it can mislead you in the future. Because that forms your worldview of that particular narrative in the scripture so much so that every time you read it, you only hear what you've watched.

[25:03] But there's something stronger and something even a finer detail that you keep missing from the text. All right. So the rhema word is a word. Now, God speaks to us by his spirit.

[25:15] Romans chapter 8, verse 16. It says that the spirit of God, the spirit himself bears. It says that for the spirit himself bears witness where? With our spirit.

[25:26] Okay. Okay. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God. So the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God.

[25:41] The New Testament believer, where does God speak to you from? Your spirit. There are times he will speak to you through dreams. He can speak to you through trance.

[25:51] Like what happened to Peter? Peter, in Acts chapter 10, in Acts chapter 11, he can speak through visions. Like today's reading, Peter was so used to visions. Even when he was experiencing something, he thought this is not unbelievable.

[26:05] This is unbelievable. It's not real. He thought it was a vision. But it was a reality. Okay. So there are different ways God can speak to us in the New Testament. But the regular way he speaks to every one of us is through witness of the spirit in your inner man.

[26:22] So the more you develop your inner man, the easier it is to discern the voice of God. There's a difference between hearing the voice of God and discerning the voice of God.

[26:36] So Eli discerned that God is calling the boy. But he didn't know. He was hearing something he could interpret. So let me add these last three points so we can draw the curtain on it.

[26:49] Is somebody learning something? Three distinctive features of hearing God's voice. Number one, the voice of God is personal.

[27:04] So when God is speaking to you, it's you he's speaking to. It's very personal. Every voice is very individual and unique.

[27:16] In the same way, when God is speaking to you, he said, my sheep know my voice. It's God's voice. And it will be personal to you. You will know that now.

[27:26] And this is that's why sometimes I'm making a talk. I said that when God is speaking to you, you know, he's speaking to you. Because the voice of God is very personal. You he will.

[27:37] God will speak to you and miss. When he's speaking to you, you know, he's speaking to you. And his voice is also very personal. You can tell. No, this this thing is not ordinary.

[27:48] And number two, the distinctive feature of God's voice is intangible. This is very important. Intangible. Intangible.

[28:00] What do I mean by? In the Old Testament, there's a way they have to do things. You have to wear a certain thing. You have to face here. You have to do this. So human beings, actually, we like tangible stuff.

[28:13] That's why some people, if you don't anoint them, they feel. And then if their faith even goes higher, if you put the anointing in the horn. And their faith escalates far higher if their horn is bigger and longer.

[28:31] The voice of God is intangible. You can't always say that anytime you hear, God is about to talk. So look out for, it doesn't work like that.

[28:45] It's not tangible. The voice of God is intangible. So you can't pin it to a particular physical tangible event or something.

[28:57] That every time you tell people, you make it a doctrine. Every time you hear, that means God is about to talk. No, Satan will do that. So it's not tangible.

[29:07] That's very important. These are distinctive characteristics of voice. Number one is personal. Number one is intangible. And number three is present. It's present. Those who say God have stopped speaking.

[29:19] In Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7, it says that, Wherefore, as the Holy Spirit said, Give us a different translation here.

[29:29] As the Spirit said, Matthew 4 verse 4, Man must not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds, not proceeded.

[29:46] It's present continues. God is a speaking God. He didn't speak once and for all. He still speaks. We live by the word He speaks.

[29:59] He who has an ear, Revelation chapter 2 verse 7, chapter 2 verse 19, chapter 2 verse 17, chapter 3 verse 11, chapter 3 verse 6, chapter 3 verse 20, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says.

[30:16] Not said. Says. So those who say God has finished talking, I think they are wrong. Because He says, He says, He's a God who speaks.

[30:28] The Lord who spoke in times past to our fathers, in this end, has spoken. So, the word of God is present. God's voice is present.

[30:40] So, it's not just what He said yesterday. What He's saying to you. But there are times God stops talking to you because if you've not been hearing from God, that means that you have to check what you did with what He told you the last time.

[30:57] Because if you don't remember the last time you heard from God, check what you did with what He told you the last time. You understand that? Because God speaks. After He speaks, He will speak again and we speak again.

[31:09] God is a speaking God. Praise God. So, three distinctive features of God's voice. Number one, personal. Number two, number three, His presence.

[31:21] He speaks. He's speaking. And is it possible that God is speaking to somebody? Yes. Is it possible after church, God will speak to you? Yes. Is it possible when you get home, by the time you get home, He will speak to you?

[31:31] Yes. Is it possible tomorrow we speak? Yes. Because He's present. God speaks in the present. Amen. Did you receive something? Let's put our hands together for the Lord.

[31:45] Thank you for listening to this message by David Entry. We pray you have been revived to all God. You can connect with David Entry on all relevant social media platforms including Instagram and LinkedIn.

[31:57]  You can also hear more messages from David Entry on all relevant streaming platforms and the Carish Church app. Don't forget to like and share the message. Be blessed.