14 Your Voice or His?

As leaders, I believe that often we're way too quick to give advice. And we're way too quick to point sin out. And we're way too quick to speak and give our perspective. And ultimately, to be honest, as wise as we think we are and as knowledgeable as we think we are, and as brilliant as we think we are, our advice really counts for very little.

We should not be training people to hear our voice; we should be training people to hear the voice of the Lord. Now, of course, the Lord speaks through His leaders. In the time of Judges, everybody did what they decided in their own heart. That way lies chaos. So, we do train people to listen to godly authority. But not because of who we are, but because ultimately we're pointing people to Jesus.

Often people come to me when they've got a decision to make. And they say, "I'm in this situation, what must I do?" And my favorite answer is, "I don't know, what did Jesus say? Go away, pray about it, seek the Lord, because He will speak to you. He promised, 'My sheep hear My voice.' And then when you've gone away and prayed about it and sought the Lord, and you feel like He's spoken to you, come back and then we'll have a conversation."

And so if somebody comes back and says, "Oh yeah, I spoke to the Lord and He told me to divorce my wife," I'll say, "No, I don't think He did. Let's go listen again." But what I'm doing, I'm training people not to rely on me for wisdom, but to go first and seek the Lord and then submit that to leadership. That is a healthy way.

Often people come to us and ask for perspective, and we've no idea ourselves. We are so quick to give our own advice, rather than just stopping and saying, "I don't know. Let me go and speak to God about it."

Train People to Hear the Voice of the Lord

One of my favourite stories is, I think it was David Pawson. There was a lady in his church who said, "David, I've been diagnosed with cancer. Will you pray for me?" And he was about to pray for it. And he said, "Wait a minute. Let me just seek the Lord first about how to pray." He went away. He said, "I will come to your house on Wednesday." And during that time, as he was seeking the Lord, the Lord said, "I'm gonna take her. I'm not gonna heal her."

And he thought, "What do I do?" So, he arrived at her house, knocked on her door. He thought, "How do I tell her that this is my conviction?" She opened the door, and the first thing she said to him is, "Don't worry, David. He told me, too."

And there is a powerful picture of how, as we encourage our people and as we ourselves submit to the voice of the Lord, we can find His will. Rather than wasting our time running around like headless chickens, trying to ask the Lord to conform to our will.

We shouldn't in any way be training people to rely on our voice. Yes, submission is important. But our voice only really carries authority... If you're a community leader, you carry true authority when you're speaking with the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let the Holy Spirit Convict People of Sin

The other thing is sometimes we're too quick to speak. We're too quick to jump in. I remember a few years ago, in one of our services a young couple responded to the gospel message and we were all so excited. Wonderful young couple. Salvations. And we could just see that there was something that God would do on their lives.

At the very next elders meeting, one of the elders said, "Hey, do you know they're living together and they're not married? We have got to speak to them and tell them they can't do this anymore."

And my response was, "Wait. I don't want to compromise on sin. And what they're doing is sin, according to scripture. But let's see if the Lord speaks to them. Let's give them a week or two. Let's not try and convict them quicker than the Holy Spirit. And if after a couple of weeks they haven't responded, let's sit down with them and not tell them, 'You better move out, it's a sin.' At that point we can sit down with them and say, 'Is the Lord saying anything to you? Here's some scriptures to read.' Train them right in the early days to hear the Lord."

Interestingly, that very same week, they approached one of the elders and said, "Hey, we just feel what we're doing is a sin, we can't do it anymore." And they made a plan, they moved out, they got married. God did an amazing thing. They are now on eldership with us. And as elders they're an amazing blessing in the life of the church, as those who can hear the Lord for themselves and for others.

God Speaks Today and Prepares His People for Persecution

And they're now equipping others to respond to the prompting and the guidance primarily of the Holy Spirit. So I want us to understand what this is. Are we truly a people who believe that God speaks today? I remember speaking to a young man and he had a dilemma.

He said, "I don't know which way to go." And I said to him, "well, pray about it." He said, "what if God doesn't speak?" I said, "you're so desperate right now to hear, if He whispers, you'll hear Him." And we've got to have a faith that God will speak.

Sometimes God speaks in silence. Sometimes people want to make a change and they say God isn't speaking. Well, sometimes God not speaking means, carry on what you're doing. If I tell my children to lie in bed and go to sleep, and an hour later they ask, "Should I get up? Let me ask my dad what I should do." No, they don't need to ask. They need to continue doing what they were told to do until I tell them something different. But God speaks and we need to raise a people who truly understand that.

Many of us believe that persecution is on its way to a greater degree. If we do not train people to have faith in the ability of the Lord to speak to them, guide them, and keep them, there is no way they are going to endure under persecution.

If the Lord allows persecution, the first people to be taken out will be the leaders. What will happen to people if they've only been trained to hear the voice and respond to the leaders, and just to obey leaders rather than obey leaders through hearing God?

We need to be equipping our people not just to survive but to thrive. And to be a prophetic people who understand that our God is alive. That He's speaking. And He's speaking to them and He's speaking through them. Let's train people not to follow our voice, but to follow the voice of the Good Shepherd.