KNOWING THE VOICE OF THE LORD

“The sheep follow Him, for they know His voice” (John 10:4, ESV). A couple of verses later it says, “This figure of speech Jesus used with them [the disciples], but they did not understand what He was saying to them” (10:6 ).

Not much has changed in two thousand years. One of the more frequently asked questions by born-again Christians, both young and old in years and in the faith, is, “How can I know when the Lord is speaking to me?”

Let me share a couple of stories and insights that I hope will take some of the mystery out of “knowing the voice of the Lord.”

An autistic boy in Bangkok, Thailand, was in his first day at a special needs school. For some reason he started crying and crawled out a window. The classroom was on the third floor, so he ended up sitting just outside the room on a window ledge. His teacher and others from the school were not successful in getting him to come back inside and so the fire department was summoned.

As the firemen tried to get the boy to come inside, one of them overheard the boy’s mother say that he liked comic book superheroes. The fireman had an idea and rushed back to the firehouse. Donning a Spiderman costume that he wore at school assemblies to liven up fire safety presentations, he returned to the school. This time the fireman, dressed in a superhero costume, beckoned and the little boy eagerly went to Spiderman!

The little boy would not go to strangers but when he saw Spiderman, he felt safe because this was someone he could trust.

A second story is about a minister and his wife visiting the famous biblical sites in Israel. They came upon several shepherds and their flocks and watched as the shepherds put all the sheep together in the same enclosure for the night. The visitors wondered how they would separate the sheep the next day.

The minister got up early the next morning to watch the procedure. The first shepherd went to the enclosure and began to sing and speak to his sheep. One by one, his sheep filed out to follow him. The same thing happened with the other two flocks.

 

The minister asked one of the shepherds “Does this always happen with the sheep? Do they always recognize their shepherd’s voice?” The shepherd replied that the only time it doesn’t happen is when a sheep is sickly and then it doesn’t respond correctly to any instructions the shepherd gives.

How do we get to the place of knowing and responding to His voice? Jesus answered this when He said, “My sheep know My voice.”

Let’s get one thing out of the way. Many Christians don’t hear or recognize the voice of the Lord because they are sickly, and I don’t mean physically sick. I mean they have allowed sinful things to muddy up their ability to hear. Willfully holding sin in our life breaks our communication lines with Him (see Psalm 66:18).

How did the disciples get to know His voice? For over three years they were with Him daily. They lived with Him, ate with Him, observed Him as He ministered. For all this time Jesus was the disciples’ mentor as they talked with Him and they listened as He patiently answered their questions. He daily taught them about the kingdom of God.

But the recognition took time and did not happen quickly, which is a major struggle for our “instant everything” age. You are not going to hurry God’s process, no matter how many cute formulas you quote. It isn’t going to happen that way! It’s going to take time!

But it will happen:

• As we talk with Him and He with us on a daily/regular basis. This is prayer . . . talking with Him!
• As we spend time in His Word, we will find that we begin to differentiate between His voice and the other voices calling for our attention. His voice will carry with it a reassuring familiarity that resonates with trust and peace. Most of His voice we will ever hear will be communicated through the written Word, and every voice that we think is His will always be in total harmony with the Bible.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20, ESV).This passage was written to believers who had grown cold in their relationship with Him; it was written to the church at Laodicea that had strayed from their relationship with the Lord. The verse goes on to detail the desire of the Lord to have intimate fellowship with them. The word “eat” means to have intimate communication . . . heart to heart. In this proximity we will hear His voice and learn to recognize it . . . this is the communication of a married couple.

“My sheep know my voice.” Perhaps this verse would be better rendered, “My sheep get to know My voice.”