Let's start this morning by opening
the hardback hymnal to hymn 158, and we'll stand together and
sing this. Look at me now, look at me now,
don't let me turn When we strive to rise, over
the fog, we'll try to see without the ocean eyes I wish I could be there when
you are missing The Lord is come, and hath begun,
And all the heav'nly host Shall call the Savior's come, And that shall be Good morning. That hymn is the believer's experience
with his own sin. And our hope this morning is
that the Lord will do what we just asked him to do. send his
Holy Spirit in power. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we know that what we do here is worse than vanity,
lest you send your Spirit in power, lest you open the eyes
of our understanding, lest you open our hearts, reveal to us
the glory of Christ and enable us, by your grace, to rest our
hope in him. Lord, you said that if we be
an evil, know how to give good gifts under our children, how
much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask him? And so, Lord, we ask you that
for Christ's sake, and for the salvation of our souls that you'd
be pleased this morning to bless your word, send your spirit and
power. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. I'd like to read a couple of
verses, five verses to be exact from John chapter 10 to introduce
this message. Our text will be found in 1 Samuel
chapter three, but by way of introduction, there's a few verses
here in John chapter 10 that I'd like for us to read. Our
Lord is speaking to us about hearing the voice of God, hearing
the voice of God. And he says, in John chapter
10, beginning at verse two, but he that entereth in by the
door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth and
the sheep hear his voice and he calleth his own sheep by name
and leadeth them out." Now the sheepfold here being referred
to is that of all of humanity and different shepherds would
keep their sheep together in a large pen at night to protect
them from the predators. And each shepherd would come
and call his particular sheep out by name and only those sheep
that belonged to that shepherd would come out. The rest of them
would stay. And so that's the analogy that
the Lord is using. God's sheep are amongst the others
of this world. And yet when he speaks, they
come out. In verse four, and when he put
forth his own sheep, he goeth before them and the sheep follow
him for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him. For they know not the voice of
strangers. And then if you'll skip down
to verse 16. Another sheep I have which are not of this fold, them
also I must bring. And when the Lord says he must
do something, you can be sure that it's gonna be done. He said,
I have other sheep. Speaking of, this is a reference
to you and me, to our generation. I have sheep that are not of
this fold, that are not of natural Israel. And them also I must
bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one
fold and one shepherd. Now look with me to verse 27. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them and they follow me. Those are glorious, powerful
words spoken by our Lord as to the effectual work of his spirit
when he speaks in power to the hearts of his people. Now this
voice is not an audible voice. Somebody says to me, I'm hearing
voices. I don't doubt that, but you can
be sure of one thing, that those voices that you're hearing are
not the voice of God. The voice of God is a still small
voice. The voice of God speaks first
conviction. The Lord said that he will convict
us of our sin because we believe not on him. Second, he speaks
of Christ, of their righteousness because I go to be with my Father
in heaven. And so we have our righteousness
only in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then of hope and peace and
joy. when he shows us that the prince
of this world has been judged, the battle's been won, the enemy
has been conquered, sin has been put away. This is the voice of
God when he speaks to the hearts of his children. He shows them
the conviction of sin, revealing to them who they are, He reveals
to them the truth about Christ, and he gives them peace and hope
in Christ. Now, if you will, turn with me
to our text in 1 Samuel 3. Verse 1. And the child Samuel ministered
unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was
precious in those days. There was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time
when Eli was laid down in his place and his eyes began to wax
dim that he could not see. And ere the lamp of God went
out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and
Samuel was laid down to sleep." Here's the problem. The lamp of God has gone out. The word of the Lord was precious
in those days, for there was no open vision. God wasn't speaking. God wasn't revealing himself.
And the one man who served as priest, now his eyes are growing
dim and he's not able to see. The Lord's going to raise up
a prophet by the name of Samuel and he's gonna speak to him.
But in this story, Samuel thinks that Eli is speaking to him.
And And it was the Lord that was calling him. And so, in our day, as the prophet Amos
said, it's like every generation. And just like this generation,
the word of the Lord is precious. It's rare. It's hard to be found. There are very few open visions
given and the lamp is dim. Amos put it like this, he said,
there's a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread and water,
but a famine of hearing the word of God. That's the famine. We live in a world and among
a people who are not able to hear the voice of God. My hope is that the Lord will
speak to us. And we know that the hearing
ear and the seeing eye are both from the Lord. And so this is
our hope that God will raise up a prophet and that he will
reveal Christ to our hearts and that he will speak to us Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the Word of God. And so if God doesn't speak,
there's no faith. If there's no faith, there's
no salvation. We are completely dependent upon God to speak to
us if we have any hope of being saved. And left to ourselves,
left to ourselves, the lamp has gone out. Left to ourselves,
there's no open vision. Left to ourselves, we will We
will starve in a land of famine. How impossible it is for us to
watch a commercial on TV that shows emaciated children in Sudan
or in Ethiopia and not have our hearts go out to them and want
to do something to help them. If we could see with spiritual
eyes the condition of this world, we would see that men, spiritually
speaking, though in America we have plenty to eat, spiritually
speaking, we are an emaciated people. May God give us eyes
to see the true spiritual condition of the land in which we live.
and ask the Lord, Lord speak to me, Lord feed me, feed me
with the bread of life. I'll die like all other men. Later on in this chapter, Eli's
sons, Hophni and Phinehas, take the Ark of God into battle thinking
that that's going to somehow deliver them from the Philistines. The Philistines end up taking
the Ark of God. Hophni and Phinehas end up dying
in that battle. And when Hophni's wife, hears
that her husband has been killed and the Ark of God has been taken,
she at that time gives birth to a child. And she dies in childbirth. And just before she dies, she
names her child Ichabod. Ichabod, out of grief. She names
her child Ichabod. Now Ichabod translated means
the glory of the Lord has departed. That's my greatest fear, that
the glory of the Lord would depart, that we would be left to ourselves
just like the rest of the world. And the promise that we have
is that he will come to the sheep pen He will call out his sheep
by name. They will hear his voice and
they will follow after him. A stranger they will not follow.
There's our hope. The effectual, irresistible voice
of God that calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Notice in our text in verse two,
and it came to pass, And it came to pass. The Lord tells us in the fullness
of time, it came to pass. It came to pass in the fullness
of time that God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them who were cursed by the law. In the midst
of all the darkness, in the midst of the silence of the voice of
God, in the midst of death and depravity, in the fullness of
time, God is pleased to speak. And how we hope and trust that
we will live in the fullness of time and that the Lord will
be pleased by his spirit and by his word, and according to
his grace, speak to us lest we die. Notice in verse four that the
Lord called Samuel. God's speaking now. Young Samuel
left in the temple to serve Eli. And the Lord calls him. The Lord
speaks to Samuel. And verse five, and he ran unto
Eli and said, here am I, for thou callest me. And he said,
I called not, lie down. And he went and lay down. And
the Lord called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel rose and went to Eli
and said, here am I, thou didst call me. And he answered, I called
not my son, lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the
Lord, neither was the word of the Lord revealed unto him. What we have a picture of here
is grace before grace. God's elect have always belonged
to him. They've always been his. He says,
I've loved you with an everlasting love. He chose a particular people
in the covenant of grace before time ever began. And those people
have always belonged to him. And so even before Samuel heard
effectually the voice of God, God is working in his heart. Samuel's confused, he thinks
it's Eli that's speaking to him, but in fact it's the voice of
God that's speaking. The believer can look back at
his life before the Lord spoke to him and before he knew the
Lord and see at least glimpses of the hand of God at work in
his life. But here's the truth, we see
but just the tip of the iceberg, for we know that everything that
happened in our lives prior to coming to know the Lord was all
ordained of God to bring us to that place to know him. Everything. I think of Moses. Moses spent
40 years in Egypt. under the tutelage of Pharaoh
and his, and his, uh, teachers. And, uh, and then the next 40
years he spent on the scripture says on the backside of the desert,
uh, feeding Jethro sheep. And, uh, and it wasn't until
Moses was 80 years old that God spoke from that burning bush
and revealed himself to Moses. But those 40 years in Egypt and
those 40 years on the backside of the desert were all necessary
for the life of Moses to prepare him to hear the word of God and
to be the man that God had called him out to be. Think of Saul
of Tarsus, Saul of Tarsus, trained by Gamaliel, a Pharisee, probably
a member of the Sanhedrin, a Jew, a persecutor of the church. And all that Saul of Tarsus went
through was all purposed and ordained of God in order to bring
him to that place on the road to Damascus where the light of
God shined from heaven and the voice of God spoke. And Saul
was knocked off his high horse and put in the dirt to cry out,
Lord, what would you have me to do? Child of God, same thing's true
for each of us. However difficult, however painful,
whatever disappointments, whatever heartaches, whatever good or
bad that has happened has all been ordained of God to bring
us to the place to where we can hear the voice of God. And the
Lord knows each of us. He knows each of us, oh, so intimately. I mentioned Wednesday night that
each of us are three individual people. We are the person we
see ourselves to be. We are the person that others
see us to be, and we are the person that God sees us to be.
And the only thing that really matters is what God sees. Paul
said, I don't worry about other men judging me, and I don't even
judge myself. It is the Lord that stands as
my judge. And so God knows us. He knows us so perfectly. And all these things were necessary. This is what's happening. This
is the picture here of Samuel. It's grace before grace. It's all preparation for knowing
God. Samuel did not yet know God,
and so the voice of God that was speaking, he thought it was
nothing more than the voice of a man. Isn't that so true? We don't really see the hand
of God in anything until we know him. And then we are able to
realize this is the Lord, it's the Lord. Look at verse 8, and the Lord
called Samuel again the third time and he rose and went to
Eli and said, here am I for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived
that the Lord had called the child. Therefore, Eli said unto
Samuel, go lie down and it shall be If he call thee, that thou
shalt say, speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. Now, perhaps
you've heard of the Shema. The Shema is probably the most
well-known passage of scripture among the Jewish people. It is
found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and in verse 4 where the Lord
said, the Lord thy God, oh it begins with hear, hear O Israel
for the Lord thy God is one God. Hear, that word hear in the Hebrew
language is the word Shema. And it's not just, you know,
I'm going to listen with curiosity, I'm going to see what God says
and then I'll evaluate what I think of it. No, it is coming before
the Lord saying, Lord, whatever it is you have to say, whatever
it is you have to say, please speak to me. That's what the word Shema means
and that's what Eli tells Samuel, if you hear the Lord speak to
you again, say to him, speak Lord for thy servant Shema, thy
servant is hearing you, thy servant is listening, whatever it is,
whatever it is. You know, that's how we ought
to come before the Lord all the time. We ought to come to this place
that way. Lord, whatever it is you have to say. And faith just
wants to know what God says, doesn't it? That's all it wants
to know. All you have to say to a child
of God is, thus saith the Lord. And they bow and rejoice in the
voice of God. And so this is now Listen to
what the Lord said in John chapter 5 verse 25, I say unto you the
hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice
of God and they that hear shall live. The dead, the spiritually
dead, Those who have no capacity in and of themselves. When the
Lord spoke to Lazarus, Lazarus had been dead four days. He was
rotting in the tomb. Did the Lord say, you know, Lazarus,
if you can hear me? No, he said, Lazarus, come forth. I say unto you, The hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of God, and they
that hear shall live. So here's the picture. We see Israel in their fallen
state. We're reminded of our helpless
estate. We see that the lamp of God has
gone out. We see that there's no open vision
in the day, that the eyes of the one priest, Eli, have grown
dim, and now God is calling. God is speaking. And Samuel thinks
it's nothing but the voice of a man, when all along it was
the voice of God. I can see Samuel going before
Eli and saying, now you called me? What is it? He wants to know,
what is it that you want me to do? But when he realizes that
it's the Lord speaking, he says, thy servant heareth thee. Lord, whatever it is, whatever
it is you have to say. Revelation chapter two, verse
seven. He that hath an ear, and this is quoted many times in
the book of Revelation, he that hath an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit saith unto the churches. Oh, Lord, give me an ear to hear.
Lord, open my ears to hear the voice of God. To him that overcometh,
I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst
of paradise. That tree of life is Christ,
and when God speaks, He speaks of Christ and he reveals Christ
in his glory and he causes us to come and to follow him. We read that in John chapter
10 when the Lord comes to the sheepfold and he calls his sheep
by name and they follow him. They know his voice. Samuel thought that it was the
voice of man, but all along, It was the voice of God. How do I know if I'm just hearing
the voice of a man or if I've heard the voice of God? Well, I have several examples
from Scripture to give you. We won't look up all of these,
but you'll remember these stories. In Luke chapter 10, the scripture
says there was a certain lawyer, a man who was depending upon
his law keeping for the hope of his salvation, who came before
the Lord and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said, you know the
law. You want something to do to inherit
eternal life? Keep the law. And what is the
law? To love the Lord your God with
all of your mind and all of your heart and all of your soul. That's
the first four commandments of the law of God. And the next
six commandments is love your neighbor as yourself. And this
lawyer, the scripture says, to justify himself, asks the Lord,
who is my neighbor? In other words, surely I'm not
expected to love everybody. Surely you can tell me, you know,
who particularly I'm obligated to love. Here's the message here. He was speaking to God but he
thought that the Lord Jesus Christ was just another Jew. He thought
that he was just a man and they didn't believe that he was God.
And so he justified himself. Men will justify themselves in
opposition to the word of God when they've only heard from
a man. Now in contrast to that, When Job heard from the Lord,
Job didn't try to justify himself. Job bowed before the Lord and
said, behold, behold, I see something I've never seen before. Behold,
I am vile. Behold, Lord, you are right and
I am wrong. I take sides with God against
myself. I'm not trying to justify myself. Lord, whatever you say is right
and true." So here's some biblical evidences of whether or not we've
heard just from the voice of a man or whether or not we've
heard from God. Another example would be that
of the Pharisee and the publican. The Pharisee justified himself
before God. God, I thank thee that I'm not
like other men. I fast, I tithe, I do all these
things. I'm particularly glad I'm not
like that publican over there. What was he doing? He was justifying
himself. He knew the word of God, but he hadn't heard voice
of God, and so he justified himself before God. And what did the
publican do? He would not so much as even
look up but smote himself upon his breast and said, have mercy
upon me, the sinner, the sinner. Have we heard from the voice
of man or we heard from the voice of God? The second example I
want to give of the difference between hearing the voice of
a man and hearing the voice of God is when you hear just from
the voice of a man, you'll want to compromise what you're hearing. You'll want to find some common
ground. You'll not say, thy servant,
and by the way, that word servant that Samuel used is the word
slave. Lord, I'm a bond slave to you.
I'm sold out. I mean, Lord, I belong to you. Whatever it is, Shema, whatever
it is you have to say, I'm hearing you, Lord, with a desire to know
you. That's when we know that we've
heard the voice of God. when Nehemiah came back from
the Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple and the walls of Jerusalem
and reestablish the worship of God, was a man by the name of
Sanballat who kept writing Nehemiah letters. He wrote him several
letters. And he wanted Nehemiah to come
down from the work that he was doing and meet with him so that
they could find some common ground. And Nehemiah kept sending him
the same answer. He said, I'm about a great work.
He said, I can't come meet with you. And finally, Sam Ballett
said, come down to the plane And that word plain means a level
place of Ono. And let's reason together about
this thing. See, Samballot didn't want the
reestablishment of God's worship. And he was threatened by what
Nehemiah was doing. And he wanted to come down, the
word Ono, by the way, means strength. And so Sam Ballard is saying,
come down to some level ground and let me show you my strength
and we'll find some common ground together, we'll find some compromise. This is how we know. if we've
heard but the voice of a man or if we've heard from God. If someone hears the voice of
a man, all he wants to do is put forth his opinion and find
some common ground where he can compromise. If you've heard the
voice of God, no, it's all in. It's all in, Lord, whatever you
say. Whatever you say is right. Whatever you say is true. When
the Lord said to Levi, also called Matthew, who was at his money-changing
table, the Lord said, Matthew, follow me. And Matthew didn't say, well,
Lord, let me finish my business today and let me work some deals
out with my partner so that I can make sure I've got some sort
of, you know, income from this business. No, the scripture says
immediately he got up and he followed the Lord. He cast caution
to the wind. He turned his back on everything.
He wasn't looking for some common ground or some compromise. He
left it all to follow after Christ. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. You see, here's how we know if we've heard the voice
of God. When Peter, when the Lord came
to Peter, James, and John, who were successful fishermen, the
scripture says that when the Lord said to them, I shall make
you fishers of men, they left their nets. They walked away
from their father, they walked away from a lucrative business,
they left everything and they followed Christ. So here's the
difference. Between hearing but the voice
of a man, Samuel thought that Eli was calling him. All along,
it was God that was calling him. Samuel, those first three times,
said, what do you want? I'm interested. Let me hear what
you have to say. And the third time, he said,
speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth thee. Thy servant come
before thee, Lord, whatever it is you have to say, whatever
it is you have to say, I know it's right. I know it's true.
I know that your words are words of life and without you speaking,
I will have no life. What a difference. What a difference. I've seen all of these examples
in my own experience in trying to talk to men about the gospel. They will try to find some common
ground between a works gospel and a gospel of God's free grace. They will justify themselves
in telling me what they've done and what, you know, and we would
do the same thing. We have done the same thing. Thirdly, third example is men
just won't believe the word of God. When the Pharisees came
before the Lord and they said to him, if thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly. And the Lord said, I've already
told you and you believe not. I've told you plainly, I've told
you clearly, the problem is not that I haven't spoken, the problem
is you can't hear. You see, the famine that's in
the land is not the famine of God's Word being spoken, it's
the famine of hearing the Word of God, is what Amos said. Thomas When he came back after
not being there, when the Lord had appeared to the other disciples,
and they told Thomas that the Lord had risen and that he had
appeared, Thomas said, all he was hearing was the voice of
men. He was hearing the voice of his disciples. And Thomas said, unless I put
my hand into his side and put my finger into the wounds of
his hand, I will not believe. Then Thomas hears from God. And
Christ appears and the Lord Jesus Christ says to Thomas, Thomas,
come, put your hands, put your finger into my wounds, put your
hand on my side. No evidence that Thomas had to
do that. He didn't do that. Thomas heard
from God and he fell on his face before the Lord and he said,
my Lord and my God. Shema, Lord, I'm hearing you. Lord, your servant is listening. Lord, whatever it is you say,
speak. What a difference. This is the
simple difference between hearing from the voice of a man and hearing
the voice of God. If all you hear is the voice
of a man, there will be no urgency. There'll be no urgency to the
voice of a man. When Paul was preaching the gospel
to Agrippa, He thought he was just listening to some Jewish
man that was telling him a story. And what did Agrippa say? Paul,
almost thou persuadest me to become a Christian. There was
no urgency in Agrippa's heart. And Paul said, oh, I wish that
you would, not almost, but altogether, urgent about your soul as I am. So here's the difference. Samuel thought he was listening
to Eli. And when he heard from God, it was a whole different
story. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. When Paul
went to Berea, and preach the gospel to the Jews in the synagogue
in Berea. The scripture says that the Jews
in Berea were more noble than those in Thessalonica. The ones
in Thessalonica had run him out of town. But those in Berea received
the word of God with a readiness of mind and they searched the
scriptures daily to see if these things were so. So they went
to God's word. Is this God speaking? If this
is God speaking, then we're gonna bow to it. We're gonna bow to
it. And where does God speaks from
his word? On the day of Pentecost, when
Peter spoke, God spoke. And those Jews that listened
to him, 2000 of them at least, were cut to their heart. And they said to Peter, what
must we do? We've crucified the Son of God.
There was an urgency about their salvation. If all you hear is
the voice of a man, then you may be prone to want to debate
intellectually with that man. When Paul went to Athens and
preached to those philosophers on Mars Hill, they listened to
him. And they said, let us hear this
babbler, this storyteller. We'll listen to what you have
to say. And then after they heard him, they said, come again another
time and we'll hear you at another date. Not only was there no urgency,
but they wanted to debate. They want to debate philosophically
and intellectually what Paul was saying, because they could
only hear the voice of a man. But when God speaks, when God
speaks, there's no debate. There's no debate. There's just
a bowing. When you hear the voice of a
man, the woman at the well in John chapter 4 thought that our
Lord was just another Jew. She came to the well in the middle
of the day and The Lord asked her for a drink and she said,
what are you, a Jew, asking me, a Samaritan, for a drink? The Jews have nothing to do with
the Samaritans. And so she thought she was just hearing from the
voice of a man. And what did she want to do? She wanted to
debate doctrine. She said, you know, you Jews
say that we should worship in Jerusalem but the Samaritans
say that here on this mountain in Sychar that
we should worship God. And the Lord said it doesn't
matter where you worship it's how you worship. For they that
worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. And the
Lord said, if you knew who it was that saith unto thee, give
me to drink, you would ask of him and he would give you living
water. And she finally said, she said,
I know that when Messiah come, who is called the Christ, he
will lead us into all truth. He's gonna speak the truth. And
our Lord said to her, I am speaketh unto thee. Now she's hearing the voice of
God. God's been speaking to her all
along just like God was speaking to Samuel all along but she thought
she was just hearing the voice of a man. Now she hears it as
the voice of God and she runs back down into the town and she
says to all these people, Come meet a man who told me everything
I ever did. Is not this the Christ? Is not
this the Christ? And the scripture says that they
came and many of them heard and they believed and they believe
not because of the testimony of the woman, but because they
heard from the Lord themselves. Here's the difference. Here's
the difference. See all these examples in scripture
given to us. of hearing the voice of man versus
hearing the voice of God. How about you? Are you hearing
just the voice of a man? Or are these examples of what
happens when you hear the voice of God your experience? I hope it is. I hope it is. If all you hear is the voice
of a man, You're going to be offended by the gospel. The Pharisees were offended.
The disciples came to the Pharisees and said, Lord, you've offended
the Pharisees. And the Lord said, leave them
alone. They're blind guides leading the blind. They're all going
to fall in the ditch. Just leave them alone. Don't worry about
it. They're going to be offended. And then the Lord said to the Pharisees
in John chapter 9, he said, for judgment I came into the world
for judgment I came into the world that they which see might
see not and they which are blind might be made to see. And the
Pharisees knew he was talking about them. And so the Pharisees
said to him, are you saying that we're blind? We're the children
of Abraham. We've been studying the Bible
all our lives. Are you suggesting that we're
blind? And the Lord said to them, if you were blind, your sins
will be forgiven you, but because you say that you can see, therefore
your sins remain. So here's the difference. Oh,
when God opens blind eyes, you can't offend. You can't offend
one of God's sheep when God speaks. You know, the example of that
one, the Syrophoenician woman, She was a Gentile and she came
pleading with the Lord for mercy. And the Lord began by ignoring
her. He ignored her and she persisted. And and the disciples then said,
Lord, send her away. She's just embarrassing. And
she's she's just put her center away. And then finally, the Lord
said, I came not. but for the lost sheep of Israel. And he said the bread's not for
the dogs. He called her a dog. So he ignores
her. The disciples want to get rid
of her. Then he calls her a dog and says that he didn't come
for her. He came for the lost sheep of Israel. Well, it turned
out she was the lost sheep of Israel. How do we know that?
Because she said, truth, Lord. Truth, Lord. What you said about
me is true. I'm a dog. but the dogs eat the
crumbs that fall from the master's table." Now here's an example
of one who cannot be offended in contrast to those who are
offended. If God speaks effectually to
your heart regardless of what he says to you, you will not
be offended, you'll not be offended. And let me say this too, that
God's not You know, he's not out there trying to get men to
hear his voice. He's not looking for a following. He's not, you
know, he's not heralding for all men to believe. He's speaking
effectually to his sheep. We saw that at the beginning
of this message in John chapter 10. I call them by name, but
I wanted us to see this morning the evidence from scripture,
the difference between hearing the voice of God versus hearing
the voice of man. David, in the guilt and shame
of having Uriah killed and taking his wife Bathsheba, was confronted
by Nathan. And he thought he was just hearing
from a man. And Nathan came to him and told
him a story about a man who had stole his neighbor's sheep. And
David was enraged. And he said, he said, you know,
the man's to be punished. He's to pay back fivefold. And, and, and Nathan looked at
him and Nathan said, oh, David, thou art the man. Now David hears
the voice of God. Now David hears the voice of
God and David said, what's the evidence that David heard the
voice of God? David said, I have sinned against the Lord. For
a year, David was trying to cover up his sin. And now God has spoken
and he comes clean. I've sinned against the Lord.
And then he hears those glorious words from Nathan. Yes, you have.
And God has put away your sin. He's put away your sin. There's
your hope. The disciples on the road to
Emmaus in Luke chapter 24 thought they were just talking to another
man. The Lord's begins to speak to them and the disciples This
was after the crucifixion and after the resurrection. The Lord's
walking with them, but their eyes are holding so they cannot
see that it's the Lord. He hasn't opened their eyes yet.
And he's conversing with them. And he asked them, why are you
so sad? And they said to him, are you
a stranger in Jerusalem? Have you not heard what's happened?
The one who we thought was the prophet, we thought he was the
Messiah, we thought he was the Savior of Israel, has been crucified. And the Lord begins to speak
to them. And then he gets to their house and the scripture
says, in the breaking of bread, their eyes were opened. And that's what we're doing right
now, breaking the bread of life in hopes that our eyes will be
opened and we'll see Christ for who he is. And we'll hear his
voice. And what did they say after the
Lord disappeared right after that? They said, Oh, did not
our hearts burn within us as he spake with us along the way?
The Lord was showing them grace before grace. But when he opened
his or their eyes, they saw Christ for who he was and they bowed
to everything that he said, everything he said. There is an eternal difference. of life and death between hearing
but the voice of a man and hearing the voice of God. May God give
us ears to hear.