Hearing God Through The Bible

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. We're so glad you're joining us today. Pastor Robert is in a series titled Frequency and we're learning so much about how God wants to speak to us every single day. Well, I'm your host, Patrick, and I'm here with my co-host, Jenae.

Hello, everybody. Well, this series has been so great and Pastor Robert has talked about how God is always speaking, but it's up to us whether or not we want to take the time to tune into his voice. Today's message is about hearing God through the Bible. We know the Bible is one of the main ways to hear God's voice, but I love how simply and clearly Pastor Robert explains it to us.

He really does. So let's get right to it and hear how God's Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And how does God speak? And I'm going to even talk to you about practical ways to hear God. So what I'm sharing with you today comes from chapter three of the book and it's called Go to the Bible. If you want to hear God, the best way to hear God is to get to know the Word of God, to get to know his Word, to go to the Bible and to learn to do this on a regular basis. 119 verse 105 says, your word is a lamp to my feet.

Now, I want you to think about this because I know you know the verse, but think about what it's actually saying. It's a lamp to my feet and it's a light to my path. Okay, it's a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Basically, your word is how I know when to take the next step and where to take the next step.

It's through God's Word. So let me take a little poll here in the studio audience. How many of you at some point in your life have gotten up at night to either go to the bathroom or the kitchen? You didn't want to turn the light on, you know, maybe your spouse was sleeping or something, and you stubbed your toe in the dark.

Can I see your hands? Okay, that's 100%. That is kind of like the death rate. Okay, so we've all done it, right? And obvious. Why did we do it? Because it's dark. We couldn't see.

Okay. Is it possible that we stumble spiritually because we're not turning the light on? We get up that day and we're busy, and so we don't turn the lamp on, and we just go right to work. And we say something that we shouldn't have said, and we know that.

Or we do something we shouldn't have done. So I want to talk to you about hearing God through the Bible. And Psalm 119 says, a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

So we're going to talk. Those are our two points today, just two points in this message. A lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So point number one today is a lamp to my feet. Now, in Luke 11, Jesus is talking. And I want you to think about lamp and light, those two words, because we just read those two words in Psalm 119.

Lamp and light. Watch how many times Jesus uses this. And remember, it says your word. So every time it says lamp or light, it's talking about God's word.

You see? His word is a lamp and a light. So watch Luke 11, verses 33 through 36. No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, in other words, you're reading the word, your whole body is full of light, God's word. But when your eye is bad, when you're not reading God's word, your body's full of darkness. Therefore, take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.

If then your whole body is full of light, full of God's word, having no part dark, then the whole body will be full of light as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light. Now, there's something that you have to know about the way I think about the Bible, and I'm going to say it in kind of a humorous way, but the same dude wrote the whole book. Now, I'm not saying that in a demeaning way toward God.

I'm just trying to get us to understand. I understand 40 men penned this book, but the same dude wrote the whole book. God wrote it. God's the author. I asked before how many authors of the Bible, and people say, you know, 39 or 40, depending on whether you believe Paul wrote Hebrews or not. No, just one author, 40 writers, but just one author. And it's the most amazing book over 1,500 years, 40 different men, and it is cohesive and no errors.

It's just amazing. So here's what I'm saying. If the word of God means lamp and light in Psalm 119, what do you think it means in Luke 11? See, lamp and light is referring to God's word. And here's what he says. If your eye is full of light, then your whole body is full of light.

Please hear me. It matters what you see. It matters what you look at. Think about how much darkness we see just watching the news. Think about how much darkness we see watching a movie or reading things on the Internet. It's just full of darkness, and yet we spend hours many times doing that and just a few minutes doing this. Our eye is taking in all this darkness, and then just a few minutes, or sometimes not at all, takes in light. I was talking with a man one time, helping him through the issue of lust, and he said, Pastor, you just don't understand the images that I've seen, you know, the things I've been involved with and then the pornography and the things like this.

And I said to him, I actually do understand that because I have a bad past in that area as well. But you need to understand that you've taken darkness in through your eyes. You need to now take in light through your eyes. And if you'll spend time reading God's word, meditating on God's word, listening to God's word, even in your car, you'll be amazed how much light you'll have.

All right, listen to this. When God's talking about the tabernacle, in Exodus 25, verse 37, he says, You shall make seven lamps for it, and you shall arrange the lamps, they shall arrange its lamps so that they give light in front of it. Okay, all these details about the tabernacle, why did God give all these details?

I think it's simple, because they represent something to us. So he's saying, I want to give light. Think about this.

We talked about stubbing your toe in the dark. What do you do when you're driving at night? Turn your lights on. And which lights are the most important? Your taillights or your headlights?

See where you're going. So he said in the tabernacle, I want you to have lamps and I want you to arrange these lamps so they shine in front. Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.

If you need to know which way to go and you want to hear a word from God, this is the best way to hear God, is to go to his word. Exodus 27, verse 20, And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil, obviously that's the Holy Spirit, of pressed olives for the light. Pressed, I think, refers to the pressing circumstance in our life, allowing the Holy Spirit to press his pure oil in us, to cause the lamp, watch this, to burn continually. I just want you to know something. This is burning continually.

Never stops, never goes out. Anytime you need a word from God, you can go to the Bible. Psalm 18, verse 28, You will light my lamp.

The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. Proverbs 6 23, For the commandment is a lamp and the law is a light. This is just all through scripture.

Reproofs of instruction are the way of life. And then again, take the New Testament. Jesus tells in Luke 15, very famous story, most of us know it, the prodigal son. Prodigal refers to the way he was living. Prodigal means wasteful.

So he was wasting his life. But in that passage, there are three things that are lost. There's a lost son who comes back home, but there's also lost sheep and the shepherd goes to get that sheep and there's a lost coin. When it talks about the lost coin, listen to what it says. Luke 15, verse 8, Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, and a coin would represent something valuable, a son is valuable to a father, a sheep is valuable to a shepherd. So if she loses one coin, what woman does not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? So what do you do when you lose something? You light the lamp.

You go to God's word. So let me just ask you some, let me personalize this, some questions here. Have you ever lost something? Have you ever lost a friendship? Have you ever lost a relationship? Maybe you've lost a marriage. Have you ever lost an area of your health? Have you ever lost some finances?

You see what I'm saying? So what do you do when you lose something? Light a lamp. What's God saying to you? Open the Bible. I'm telling you, God can speak to you through this very clearly.

Here's the second thing, point two, a light to my path. God's word is a light to my path. John chapter one, verses six and nine says, through nine says, there was a man sitting from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light, Jesus, that all through him might believe. He was not, now let's talk about John the Baptist, he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.

That was the true light, that's something about Jesus, which gives light to every man coming to the world. And we know he's the word. The Bible says that Jesus is the word of God. First John chapter one, verses five through seven, this is the message which we've heard from him and declared to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, we could say stay in the word. If we stay in the word as he is the light, the word, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. And John 3 20 says, everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. Now, here's the problem. The word is light.

It's what we need. But sometimes when we're in darkness in an area of our life, we actually don't go to the light because we're kind of afraid that the light's going to expose us. Well, it's good when the light exposes darkness.

The first thing you need to do when you're struggling with an area of your life, when you're in darkness is go to the light, go to the word, read the word. Think about this. If you walk in a room and you flip that switch and the light comes on, the darkness is dispelled immediately. There's no struggle, right, with light and dark. There's no, it doesn't take a while, you know, unless you have some new fangled light bulb. It just happens immediately if the bulb's working correctly, right?

Immediately. When light comes on, darkness is gone. Can you imagine that you've got this darkness in your heart and you don't want anyone to know about it? But if you just open up God's word, what happens to that darkness when God speaks and that light comes in? I wrote something down in the front of my Bible when I got saved. So I have a Bible at home. That's my first Bible.

It's been rebound several times. It has all sorts of markings in it and you can't really use it much because pages fall out of it, you know. But in the front of it, I wrote down a quote from R.A. Torrey. He used to be a famous preacher and is with the Lord now. And this is the quote, this book will keep me from sin. Sin will keep me from this book. And I just knew if I'm going to overcome sin, another verse in Psalm 119 says, How can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed to your word? And I knew if I was going to get out of the sinful life I'd been in, I had to get into the word. So I want to I want to just briefly tell you how to get a word from God from God's word.

OK. In other words, we're talking about hearing God. God still speaks. But how you can get a word from God, a now word from God, from God's word.

And I want to give you three words that maybe you can remember. Praise, pray, proclaim. Praise, pray, proclaim.

The first thing you do if you want to hear God is begin to praise him. Psalm 100, verse four, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him and bless his name. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, enter his courts with praise.

You want to enter God's presence? Praise him. Start praising him. It also causes the clutter of your mind to go away because you begin to see how big God is. So first thing, praise. And one thing that helps me is to put on worship music. And you can do it on your phone many times or, you know, however you want to do it or a CD or whatever. But just put on some worship music and begin praising God.

It will declutter your mind and focus your mind so that you'll be able to hear him. OK. So number one, praise. Number two, pray. Philippians 4, 6, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So pray. Start praying about what's on your mind, what's on your heart. And I'm going to suggest something to you that maybe you've never done, but I'd like for you to try it as an experiment. OK. Write down your prayers.

Write them down. Just try. You don't have to do it every day. You know, you say, well, I'm not a writer. Just try just a few times. All right. Just say one day a week. I'm going to do it.

Just write down. You could say, I heard this guy teach this God. He said to write my prayers. His name is Robert Morris. Do you know him? I mean, that might be your thought, you know. If you do, you know how he is. You know, whatever. I don't know. Today I'm praying about my son.

I'm very concerned about my son. And you know that. Just write it down. Here's what will happen. You'll begin to write things and the Lord will lead you. You'll begin to write. I know that you love my son even more than I do.

I know that your word says that if we train a child in the way should go, that when he's old, he'll not depart from it. So I'm trusting you today in this area. Just write your prayers. You will be amazed at what you write. So praise, pray, and then proclaim.

Now what do I mean by proclaim? Proclaim God's word over the situation. Read somewhere in the Bible every day. But if you have a specific thing, read something. Try to remember something about what you're praying about and read about that.

For instance, let's just say you're praying about your marriage. A whole bunch of marriages in the Bible. So read about Abraham and Sarah. Read about Ruth and Boaz.

Great love story. Read about Jacob and Rachel. Read about Isaac and Rebekah.

I mean, you've got all these marriages. All those are in the Old Testament. Let me tell you something so you'll understand. The Old Testament has allegorical principles. The New Testament has applicable principles. Now I'm not saying this all the time because obviously there are applicable principles in the Old Testament. But in essence, the Old Testament, you're reading this and there's an allegory there. There's a story that relates to, that you can relate. For instance, Abraham and Sarah.

Let's just take that. So Abraham and Sarah, you can read about Abraham and Sarah in the Old Testament. It's an allegory to us.

Now it happened, true, obviously, but it's a story that we could relate to our story. But in the New Testament, it talks about Abraham and Sarah also. But there's an applicable principle in the New Testament.

So let me say it this way. It says that Sarah called Abraham Lord. You don't need to call your husbands Lord. Debbie calls me Lord, but you don't need to do that. At least I think she does because every time I do something, she'll say Lord. So I think she's just being respectful. So there's the allegory of Sarah calling Abraham Lord. But that's just, it's representing a principle.

The application is very clear in the New Testament. Wives respect your husbands because a husband lives on respect. A husband has to have respect. God wired him that way.

He can't hear you if you don't speak respectably. I'm just letting you know, if you don't know this, ladies, men have to have cheerleaders. They have to. You see at sporting events, they have cheerleaders, right? You see a woman's volleyball game, no cheerleaders on the sideline.

Go Sally, go. Women don't need that. They need love. See, husbands love your wives. They need unconditional love and acceptance. Men need respect. So God's given you the key to a person's heart. You follow me?

All right. So if you're having difficulty in your marriage, read about marriage in the Bible. And I'm telling you, God can speak to you. Read something specific.

Finances, health, you know, there are all these scriptures about health in the Bible. So, OK. So my daughter, when she was trying to figure out where to go to college, I said, what about ORU? And I said, I'm going up to Tulsa to speak.

And why don't we go toward the campus and you go with me? She said, great. I said, well, let me call at that time. Dr. Rutland was the president, Mark Rutland. I said, let me call Dr. Rutland and see if he could meet with us for a little while.

Well, he said he could. So we went toward the campus and then we met with Mark for a while. And Mark talked to Debbie and me for a little while. And then he turned to my daughter, Elaine, and he started talking to her. And it was like this clear, you know, voice of, well, what's God called you to do? Well, how are you going to prepare for that?

You know, what are your plans? You know, and he was speaking very clearly to her. And so when we left, she said that. She said it was so clear when he spoke to me.

She said, I think I'm going to go there. I said, well, hold on, sugar. I said, you need a word from God.

You know what she said? I thought you were going to do that for me. I said, you need to get a word. I thought you were going to get a word from me. So I said, no, sugar, you need a word from God because you'll get up there.

You'll have three papers due and a test and your roommate wants to party all night or something. And you need a word from God. So I told her how to get a word from God like this. So she got away. She turned on worship music. She started writing her prayers. Now listen to what she wrote. She said, I feel like that Tulsa, that ORU now is an open door.

I think God has opened a door to me there. And she said, and I feel like Dr. Rutland spoke and his voice was clear. And she thought about First Corinthians says, if you speak, you need to make a clear sound like a trumpet. So she said, I feel like his voice was like a trumpet. Then she wrote, I feel like if I come down to Tulsa.

Well, let me tell you a little funny story about that. She said, I might come down to Tulsa. Well, we live in Dallas. I said, sugar, just so you know, Tulsa's up. OK, it's not down. So don't say I'm going to come down to Tulsa. You have to say I'm going to come up to Tulsa.

OK. So she she wrote down in her little journal, but she scratched out down and put up, come up. And then she wrote, but my question, God, is what's going to happen next?

What's what's after that? And then she all of a sudden just wrote, I'm going to give you, like God speaking to her, a revelation that on the fourth, she was supposed to be there on January 4th, that on the fourth will be the first of many new things for you. She just wrote that. I'm going to give you a revelation that on the fourth will be the first of many new things for you. And she looked down and she thought, I told her, God's going to speak to you through his word. And she saw Revelation four one. So she opened her Bible.

Listen, what Revelation four one says. After these things, I looked and behold, there was a door standing open. She'd written out open door.

And the first voice I heard was like a trumpet speaking to me. She'd written that down. Then listen to this saying, come up here. But remember, then she said, but what's going to happen next? Come up here and I will show you the things which will take place after this. Not a word from God. She knew it.

By the way, her husband that we talked about a while ago is an ORU graduate. And I want to ask you to just close your eyes just for a minute. Would you just pray a prayer in your heart? And those of you watching at home also, Lord, please speak to me through your word.

Just ask him, speak to me through your word. Now we're going to have to read his word for this prayer to be answered. So, Lord, please speak to me through your word in Jesus name. The steps to praise, pray and proclaim are so simple and easy to follow as we seek God's voice for our lives. And the story at the end made it even more imperative to me that I not wait for someone else to get a word from God for me, but that I continually seek him for myself. We have full access to the Lord of heaven and earth.

So what is he saying to you right now? We encourage you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today and really listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. To get a copy of this message or any of the messages in this frequency series, visit PastorRobert.com or call 833-933-word. That's PastorRobert.com or 833-933-word. You can also follow Pastor Robert on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Next time, Pastor Robert will be sharing about hearing God's voice through worship. You won't want to miss it. Thanks for listening and have a great day.