God Is Speaking – Are We Listening?
Let a sleeping dog 🐕 lie! Of course, unless you have something against sleeping dogs. Apparently some people do, as they say sarcastically about a lounging person, “He lives a dog’s life.” Or, “He is as lazy as a dog.” Or, “You lazy dog you!” Somehow dogs have been labeled with the hazy lazy stigma. And men who lay down on the couch have been stuck with the lazy dog tag. It seems that neither men or dogs can shake the image.
We all need our sleep. In fact, the Bible tells us that sleep is a gift from God! It is in fact a precious gift, and it is true that we cannot really sleep without God’s enabling. Jesus said in John 15:5 that WITHOUT HIM WE CAN DO NOTHING, and that includes
sleep!
Each Christmas we sing a prayer over the baby 🚼 Jesus, “Sleep in heavenly peace.” Not just sleep, but totally undisturbed, unthreatened, peaceful, that is, heavenly sleep. Even though as far as I know, no one sleeps or takes naps in Heaven.
At the same time the only way God can speak to most people is when they are sleeping. Only then are we totally unoccupied and undistracted. Only then can God get our full attention.
Throughout the Bible, God speaks to people in their sleep through dreams. Joseph in the Old Testament is a strong example. God says in Acts 2:17 THAT YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS.”
My dear wife Ruthie has received many revelations from God through dreams.
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Do you remember the youngster in the Bible by the name of SAMUEL? He as a child assisted Eli the High Priest in his priestly duties. Samuel was kind of an Old Testament altar boy 👦 you might say.
Samuel was sleeping 😴 one night 🌙 when God called His name out loud. Right in the middle of the night, God enters Samuel’s sleep chamber and awakens him. Samuel is a youngster at this point. God calls children into His service! A child shall lead them!
Three times God does this, and Samuel in turn goes to the High Priest ELI each time and says, “Did you call my name.” Each time Eli said, “No, it wasn’t me, go back to sleep.” You know how kids are, easily 👻 spooked in the night. It’s alright Samuel, go back to bed, I am right here. It probably was a bad dream. It’s alright!
It happened again and again and again! Thank God for His persistence in our lives! We are slow 🐌 to respond to God’s call. Praise God that He keeps calling our name!
It dawned on Eli after the third time that the Lord was speaking to Samuel, so he said to Samuel, “The next time you hear the voice, respond by saying, ‘SPEAK LORD, THY SERVANT HEARETH.'” The Lord called His name again, and Samuel answered God as Eli told him to.
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Remember now that Samuel is a mere boy at this point. Perhaps the Lord will ease into his young life with something simple and light. Samuel is going to be God’s prophet to be sure, but break him in slow and easy. Think again!
God hits His boy 👦 with a boomer! No ease into it here! God said to Samuel in I Samuel 3:11,
“AND THE LORD SAID UNTO SAMUEL, ‘BEHOLD I WILL DO A THING IN ISRAEL AT WHICH BOTH THE EARS OF THOSE WHO HEAR IT SHALL TINGLE.”
God did NOTJINGLE, HE SAID TINGLE! God did not say TICKLE, HE SAID TINGLE! The Lord did not say that what He was about to do would cause the ears of the people TO TICKLE! He said TINGLING EARS.
The Hebrew means what we mean when we say that it SENT SHIVERS UP AND DOWN MY SPINE. Or again, it means what we mean when we say it SET MY TEETH ON EDGE! It means what we mean when we say IT GAVE ME GOOSE BUMPS! It means what we mean when we say IT TOOK MY BREATH AWAY! TINGLE IS A GASP WORD, A STRONG NEGATIVE EMOTIONAL UPHEAVEL!
What God was talking about of all things was the family of ELI the High Priest, and in particular his son’s HOPHNI and PHINEAS. They were the BAD BOYS of Israel, the BLUES BROTHERS of their culture. A couple of ROWDY ROGUES, though they served as assistants to their Dad in the priesthood, and we’re in the priestly line. They were imposters of the first order.
What about them? We’ll for starters, they ate the best meats of the sacrifices dedicated to God and ordered by God. And, if that isn’t bad enough, they had sex with women at the entrance to the temple. Sounds more like a mafia family than a priestly family.
Their dad Eli the High Priest, did nothing about it. He was warned by God, but it fell on deaf ears. A typical doting parent, who chose to look the other way. I can hear Eli’s brain talking, “Hey, boys will be boys, and I am sure the reports are exaggerated. My boys would never do such a thing.” Blah d blah d blah. Eli’s last name was Milquetoast, as his son’s turned Israel into Mardi Gras at the door of the church.
EAR TINGLING TIME! The next thing we hear is that the SLIME BALL BOYS were slaughtered by the Philistines along with innumerable others. And their Dad Eli, at the report of the Philistines’ theft of the Ark of the Covenant, fell over backwards, broke his neck and died. Are your 👂 ears twitching yet? You can’t make up stuff like this!
Samuel learned early on that when you are dealing with God’s prophetic utterances, you are not dealing with mere predictions. There is no guess work involved. Prophets are not mere prognosticators. God’s prophetic words have nothing to do with odds makers! NO! Rather when God speaks a prophetic word to or through His prophets, IT IS A DONE DEAL!!! For God to speak it is for God to do it.
Samuel will never forget the first lesson he learned in God’s school of prophecy. Experience is the best teacher.
Is anybody listening? Each day we hear and see things that make the ELI BROTHERS look like child’s play. And with Samuel, we roll over and go to sleep 😴 night after night. Much more on that later!
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It is significant that the first time God called to Samuel in the middle of the night 🌙, he went to Eli and asked whether he was the one who called him? You know what phone calls mean in the middle of the night! Generally it means trouble! I am sure that Samuel thought the same thing.
Eli the High Priest told the youngster that He did not call Samuel’s name. Surely that must have alerted Samuel to the fact that somebody else had called out to him. He didn’t get the message, for it happened two more times, and each time he goes back to Eli and again and again it’s a dead end street.
The fact is:
“SAMUEL DID NOT KNOW THE VOICE OF GOD. ”
Hear that! We read something very important in I Samuel 3:7,
“FOR SAMUEL DID NOT YET KNOW THE LORD, AND THE WORD OF THE LORD WAS NOT YET REVEALED TO HIM.”
Wow! I can relate very personally to this! The urgency and glory of my own salvation, and the urgency of sharing Jesus with mankind hit me one night simultaneously. I wept in awe and irrepressible joy 😂! I was saved and I wanted everyone to be saved too. It was overwhelming!
Samuel’s call to God, and to the prophetic urgency of God’s word, came to him in one loud cannon blast. And the next thing he knew was that the priesthood was gone, dead, no more. (I Samuel 4)
It must have felt to Samuel that he himself had been shot out of a cannon. An awfully lot for a young heart and mind to process!
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It should be noted that we read in I Samuel 3:1,
“AND THE WORD OF GOD WAS RARE IN THOSE DAYS, AND THEIR WAS NO OPEN VISION.”
That tells us that God was speaking to the people of that day seldomly and rarely! Not because He lost His communication skills, but because they didn’t listen! You know how frustrating it is to talk to someone who you can easily determine is not listening to you! God didn’t give them visions at all either, because they probably would have written them off to migraines or too much Palestinian pizza 🍕.
So God chose to speak to a boy, Samuel, and once He got connected to the lad, He unloaded on him some very ominous stuff. Youngsters tend to tell it like it is, and believe it just as it is stated. Adults are far less objective because that are much more mentally stuck in their subjective ruts.
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God is speaking! Do we recognize His voice? I am afraid 😨 that there are very few listeners and recognizers today. I would that I could say othrrwise.
I know that America is not listening to God. Americans in their secular godless humanism, sometimes with a glaze of religion, wouldn’t recognize the voice of God even if He shouted in their ear 👂 with a megaphone! They are on totally different wave links, and the Voice of God doesn’t even vibrate on their eardrums.
Exactly like the Psalmist says in Psalm 115:6,
“THEY HAVE EARS👂BUT DO NOT HEAR.”
God is speaking, but are we recognizing His voice? Much of the modern ⛪ church is also tuning out the Voice of God! Their ears have never TINGLED, for every Sunday they get TICKLED.
Seminaries are often silent chambers of the deaf and dumb! They do hear 👂 the voices of liberal theologians who themselves have never heard God once.
As the prophet Amos says in Amos 8:11,
“THERE SHALL BE A FAMINE IN THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF THE LORD.”
Did you hear that? A FAMINE is when people are STARVING TO DEATH! This AMOS famine is not in the Voice of God, but in the hearing 👂 of it. The SPIRITUAL AND MORAL STARVATION is caused by the DEAF EARS OF MEN, and not by the Voice of God.
If you will:
“PEOPLE TODAY WANT THEIR EARS TICKLED AND NOT TINGLED.”
If you will,
“NOT THAT THE PLATE DOESN’T HAVE FOOD, BUT THAT THE STOMACH HAS NO APPETITE.”
Or:
“EVERYONE WANTS THE SWEETNESS OF DESSERT, BUT NOT THE SUBSTANCE OF MEAT AND VEGETABLES.”
EXAMPLE
John the Baptist was an EAR TINGLER, but was not an EAR TICKLER! The leather girdled and hairy coated preacher in the wilderness preached the baptism of repentance and the turning away from sin to the righteousness of God. He preached folks head first into the Jordan River!
King Herod was living in adultery with Herodious his brother’s wife. She hated John Baptist, for he was calling them out of their sin to God. John could preach you to death to bring you to new life. He was a fire cracker, and pulled no punches! When He preached you would hear not man but God!
HEROD one day was feasting on the universal carnal trinity – WINE WOMEN SONG. GORGE GUZZLE GIRLS! No matter how you say it, it has been the same unholy trinity throughout the ages.You can find that trinity in every 🍸barroom across America.
There he is, BULGING BELCHING BURNING with lust. Now SALOME his stepdaughter is doing a BUMP AND GRIND DANCE by request, as Herod chugalugs even more. Ole Herod told his sexpot of a stepdaughter, that he would give her anything if she did the hoochy cooch!
AS she cooched, Herod IMBIBED more and more, and was now INFLAMED. Set on fire by Hell,
“HE WAS NOT FIT TO HEAR JOHN THE BAPTIST’S WORD OF REPENTANCE, BUT ONLY FIT TO CUT OFF JOHN THE BAPTIST’S HEAD.” (Salome’s request)
The point:
“SENSUAL HUNGER IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH SPIRITUAL HUNGER.”
Fact:
“WHERE THERE IS A FLESHLY GLUT, THERE WILL BE A SPIRITUAL FAMINE.”
When the body is feasted, foamed, and fired, the soul is in no condition to hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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WHAT IS GOD SAYING TODAY?
We must get the picture! The Roman Catholic Priesthood is today defined by sexual predators and molestors of children. The confession booth should have the laity as the confessees, and the Priests as the confessors. It happens again and again, and somehow it slips out of view for a time only to be re-exposed. Children today are not only endangered by sex traffickers on the southern borders, but by priestly predators around the world.
The Priesthood in Samuel’s day was being run by HOOLIGANS, CAROUSERS, AND WOMANIZERS. They robbed the holy sacrifices, and
lay with women who had come to worship. No doubt convincing them that this was part of their service to God. Holy intercourse! Sacred sex! Priestly privilege!
Eli the High Priest was a low down enabler of his rowdy sons! He told Samuel to do what he himself refused to do – listen to God. The WORD of God was rare in those days because people refused to hear it. The laity in general reflects the clergy.
The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 50:5,
“THE LORD GOD HATH OPENED MY EAR, AND I WAS NOT REBELLIOUS,
NEITHER TURNED AWAY BACK.”
And where we read that God opened his ear, the Hebrew literally means:
“THE LORD HATH DUG OUT MY EAR.”
Like digging the dirt out of a hole, my ear was all plugged up, and God had to dig out the gunk. Only then can we hear God’s voice. Hearing God takes an act of God.
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And so God speaks with an ear tingling word of judgment. The one that He spoke it to was a youngster – Samuel. Much like GOD turned to young Joseph and young David to accomplish His purposes. If anybody started the youth movement, it was God!
IT WAS A WORD OF HARROWING JUDGMENT!
AMERICA today has become the stronghold of Satan, populated and governed by anti-God fanatics and incorrigible sinners. Nothing is safe anymore and everything is being polluted. Whether it is gender, marriage, womb, or post-womb, all are being defiled and murdered by godless forces in the government, the courts, the schools, the clinics, and the churches!
This is NATIONAL SIN, and God is sending NATIONAL JUDGMENT! America is being BURNED – DROWNED – BLOWN APART from border to border. It will continue and intensify until America hears 👂the voice of God, turns from her sins, and walks with God and His Son Jesus Christ!
Eli could not hear God’s voice! Hophni and Phineas could not hear God’s voice! Israel could not hear God’s voice! Sin ran rampant, and thousands died! Read the ear tingling account in I Samuel 4.
When a nation can no longer hear God, it is in dire peril. Believe it or not, King 👑 Pharoah of Egypt came close to hearing from God. This heathen, hard hearted, cement headed dictator actually in one fleeting moment said these words in Exodus 9:27,
“IN THIS I HAVE SINNED, THE LORD IS RIGHTEOUS, BUT I AND MY PEOPLE ARE WICKED.”
It didn’t last, as he returned to the path of destruction! When I read about the ten plagues, my eyes still burn, and my ears still tingle. AMEN
