Hearing God's Voice

I’ve gotten back to reading the books of Samuel again lately (had to start over, since it had been several months), but I feel like it is a spiritual ‘starting’ place for me. When I was a kid, I loved the story of Hannah/Samuel, I felt like I was Samuel amongst an immoral world and had to rely on God to speak to me, I always used those words, “speak Lord, for your servant hears.” In re-reading through the book, I too needed to be reminded not to judge others (again and again, I need to be reminded). For some reason, my mind instantly jumps to judging (I don’t say it out loud most of the time), but I notice my tendency is to do so. In the story, Hannah is so distraught, she is praying silently while her mouth is moving and the religious leader of the day misjudged her. It is so often that I misjudge others, but I notice, so do religious leaders so often – that one may be in obedience to God in what they are saying and doing, who are they to say God didn’t tell them to do so? Church goers so often misjudge us when we are living in obedience to God.

I find that as I am learning to hear the voice of God more, I feel less and less ‘human’ – in that, we are not like others, not even those in the church! Even William noticed the other day that because my countenance has changed more permanently (he used to say that I always looked mad, because my mouth always turns down) to where I look more happy all the time. I had spent so many years miserable by being abused for so long, I had a permanent misery look about me. Now with the past 10 years of being in a more intense, personal relationship with God, it has changed looks.

I find that the more we live in isolation in Coquille (we’ve been set aside for a time to seek God and develop that more solid and intense relationship with Him), the more we look at the ‘world’ as evil, that we cannot be like the world at all, we have to come apart from them to even get close to God. Like in Samuel, the story of Israel wanting to have a king to ‘be like the other nations,’ Samuel had to remind them that they will have to pay a price to be like the other nations, and it isn’t necessarily good. We cannot be like the world to win people over to Christ, it has already been proven over and over, and Israel is our case example – when you live among ‘sinners’ (the world), you become like the world and you are no longer effective. Especially among spiritual leaders (as in Eli’s or Samuel’s sons), become corrupt, leading the people astray by false doctrines, like the prosperity teaching or the emerging church/seeker-friendly church concepts. Just like in the past, they exploit their positions to satisfy their own greed of fame and fortune.

God has sent us a warning to our nation and to our church, for repentance. When we heed God’s warning and change, we can be saved from devastating circumstances, but if we don’t make a change and God comes to us again, this time not as a warning, but speaking of impending judgment, he may put it off for a time for those ‘righteous’ ones who pray on a group’s or nation’s behalf, but judgment will still come – just like in our country. We were warned, the impending judgment has been announced, it will happen, it has just been put off for a time – a new Cyrus (Trump) has been placed in power for a short time, before evil will again take over. We have a short window of time, then all hell will come against us all. We have a short time to preach repentance, restoration, revival – it will happen – the greatest revival of all time, just as surely as the powers of hell will throw everything they have at us afterward.

8x8" watercolor in my practice book

Unfortunately, so much corruption has crept into the church over the years, that people have little respect any more for preachers/evangelists/prophets – even leaders within the church and the general populace of the church show contempt for evangelists and prophets especially! That is why we have come to a place within ourselves, by our inner life with Christ that no outward circumstance can disturb. God has been training us up. We live with very little, want for very little, because God gives us everything we need, things that are more important than life on this planet. It’s not that we have become casual with God, in some ways we have, in that we view Jesus as our best friend, we ‘hang out’ with Jesus (listening/reading/conversation), but that God the father, we show respect, ‘fear’, awe, reverence, being totally obedient – that is what our training has become – learning to hear God and obey without question, knowing that we have heard God, that there is no mistake, for we know His voice. There is no formula or secret of victory by repeating texts or re-using former methods, but listening for a fresh Word, always in communion. That we value God’s voice, that we spend time with Him – for what we value, we make time for. There is no excuse, if we value God and His role in our life.

We were listening to another sermon by Robert Morris today. He spoke of how to hear God’s voice and by getting into the habit of meeting God, He will meet you: God comes to a prepared atmosphere (repentant heart), Acts. 12:2, Ex. 19:10, prepare to meet with God: set an appointment at a time is at your best (not just in the morning, because some people like 5 am, etc.), be still and worship, pray and read, listen and write – keep a prayer journal. I’m starting a new prayer journal today. William and I have also been fasting today, will pray together later, but we made a list of various things: finances, where to go next, people, etc. We expect to hear from God, we know He will guide us in everything, everywhere we go, tell us exactly what to do. We try to keep our lives/our heart ready to meet people and minister to them. Like yesterday, William went to the library to get online, and instead of doing that, he spent an hour ministering to this homeless lady (in her 20’s), who needed to hear from God. He thinks that conversation impacted her greatly – only God really knows. We just do our part. Like me, I’ve been thinking about that lady I met in drawing class last week, I think I need to contact her to encourage her in the Lord. I need to respond to these ‘calls’ of the Spirit. I want Him to keep talking to me like this, to keep leading me, but if I ignore His voice, He will stop asking. I don’t want that.

We’ve been reading Ps. 33 and Ps. 133 lately. Good stuff. Also, I’ve heard this from some of the sermons we’ve been listening to lately, the phrase from Ecclesiastes “There is nothing new under the sun” – that is so true! We don’t know what civilizations were like prior to the flood, but archaeological evidence has proven (which are hidden by evolutionists) that civilizations was quite advanced – metal objects have been found and hieroglyphics have been found of airplanes, helicopters, space ships, etc. Man was interbreeding with fallen angels and creating the Nephillium (giants), that had brain capacity that is far greater than we can even imagine, and sin was so rampant that only 8 were saved. After the flood, lives were shorter, the entire world was different (weather), man got dumber as time went on. Yet, we still come to the brink of destruction, dumber than ever, world full of evil – here we are at the verge of the end of it all (book of Revelations), the dumbest of the lot, yet God is still using us to see that souls get saved! What a God we have!

8x8" watercolor another practice piece

 

We’ve been listening to preaching by Perry Stone lately – awesome stuff! We heard a short, simple one the other night on “Hearing God’s Voice” – our biggest thing when working with others is getting them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and to hear God’s voice. People seem to reject this more than anything else. His simple message was to: 1) listen to them first to see how much of God they have experienced (if only 1-2 x in the past 10 years, then they need the Holy Spirit!!) 2) find out where they are spiritually – are they church goers with only some experience of God, too busy with life, or do they have a rich experience and enjoy God’s presence. I need to keep this in mind more when working with others – I tend to get too caught up in listening/correcting people’s doctrine rather than keeping it simple like this.

Another sermon we heard last night was really great “7 Spirits of the 7 headed dragon” out of Rev. and comparing them to the USA (I need to listen to this sermon again, I think I only got 6 of the 7 down):

• Spirit of Egypt which is the Spirit of Bondage (first world empire) leader who acts like a dictator, doesn’t listen to anyone (Pharaoh), persecutes the people of God. USA has Egyptian emblems/symbolism in several key areas, Pharaoh made the people work (slaves) as does the USA, over-regulating everything to such an extent that it makes it impossible for anyone to get out of slavery, male children killed (abortion), appointed task masters and in the USA tax collector/collection is 10x larger than in the bible, etc.
• Spirit of Assyria which is the Spirit of Division, Judah/Benjamin split from the 10 tribes where Judah/Ben remained more faithful to God and didn’t have to remain in bondage as much as the other tribes. USA has south vs north/republicans vs democrats and especially now, the division being propagated in large amounts.
• Spirit of Babylon which is the Spirit of Compromise, attack spiritual values of God’s people (like Daniel), got them to worship their idols/gods (book of Daniel – the 3 young people), you can’t pray (prayer taken out of school), in education – attacks us who we are, what we believe …, brain wash the younger generation, tries to make us (the church) compromise to fit their values
• Spirit of Greece which is the Spirit of Philosophy , humanism, atheism
• Spirit of Medea/Persia which is the Spirit of the Anti-Christ, Esther had to deal with Haman and his 10 sons which represent Haman – anti-christ and 10 sons represent 10 kingdoms in this new world order coming, Esther represents the Body of Christ, the true Church, the people have this spirit of “my way”, like the Word says that they think that whatever they want or think or want to do is fine regardless of the consequences, and in fact, want consequences eliminated. God’s people have to fight back.
• Spirit of prophecy ?? (I didn't catch it all in my notes)
• Spirit of Rome which is the Spirit of Tolerance, greatest military empire, had a senate, similar form of government as USA, emblem was the Eagle, very liberal, they were tolerant of everything EXCEPT Christians – notice today they (the liberals) are tolerant of everything else and they call US intolerant! Christians disrupted the status quo: Kept Sunday (took away a work day), would not call the emperor God (which started the persecutions), Christians fought against/shut down temples of idols (which then lost $$), were empire builders for self vs Christians who die to self to help empires, limitations – attack us, but try to hide it or try to secretly get rid of us (Acts 16:37), etc.

More on the Spirit of Babylon: 2 Tim. 3:1, Matt 8:28, Rev. 12:12, Rev. 6:16, 2 Thes. 2:7, Rev. 11:18, Rev. 9:14, Greek meaning of the words ‘perilous’ which also means ‘fierce’, ‘wrath’ which is massive anger. Satan is given only a short time in these last days and he knows it, his anger against God’s people is severe and God’s anger is just and leads to judgment. In the USA today, the anger (from Satan) of the people is disturbing the peace, causing division vs Christians as peace-loving people have finally rose to anger (justified) to take back this country. The Church has no spiritual impact on the culture any longer, more divided now more than ever on every level, the fear of offending others vs radical conversions – in other words, fellowships are almost ineffective because everyone is so afraid of offending others, they water down the gospel.

The Tower of Babel represents the one world government, which is exactly what they are trying to do, ISIS is the center of the original Babylon area – their tactic (to the USA) was to get on the inside (Obama – an Islamic plant) and our walls were breached (like the walls of Jerusalem were breached by Babylon, in fact, the same date on the Jewish calendar was the same date when our second breach came: that of, in June 2016, of the gay marriage stuff). Our hedge came down 9/11 and everything can now break in and pillage, which has happened since. USA (like Babylon with Jerusalem) seizes the wealth of God’s people and given to the wicked (1 example: Hollywood and music industry making ‘Christian’ movies but atheists make them and change history and theology, thus tricking the Christians to spend $$ on their movies while at the same time because of the change of theology and history, non-chiristians believe what Hollywood says. Then they destroy all evidence of the Hebrew God (changing history) as seen over and over with education, censorship (internet, etc.), closing libraries, controlling ‘content’, brainwashing the young, etc. Our leaders (like Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon was blinded) are blind and are leading others down this blind alley into destruction.

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