March 21st, 1999
The Voice of the Spirit Part I
“You Can Hear Better With Your Belly Than Your Ears.”
Deut 8:3 "So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
To build a relationship with God, we must hear His voice.
God is speaking 24 hours a day.
His proceeding word is always available.
“God does not speak intermittently, we hear intermittently” – Steve Sampson
The church has become de-sensitized to the voice of the Spirit.
Heb 5:11 of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Paul begins making comparisons of Jesus and Melchezidek.
He then digresses to complain of the low attainments of these Palestinian Christians.
Hard for me to state intelligibly to you, owing to your dullness about spiritual things.
So, instead of saying many things, he writes in comparatively few words.
Many in the church today have become dull of hearing.
The Spirit is unable to explain much
Hearing by your spirit man, not your natural man.
Rom 10:17 “Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.” Word = rhema (spoken, revealed by the Holy Spirit, not a physical transaction)
We are triune beings.
We are spirit beings, we have a soul, we live in a body.
1Thes 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our body is world conscience.
It is corruptible and likened to machinery.
It is the five senses.
It operates in the physical realm.
Our soul is self-conscience.
It is our mind, our emotions and our will.
It operates in the intellectual realm.
Our spirit is God conscience.
It is the human spirit that communicates with God.
It operates in the spiritual realm. This is where God communicates to us.
Heavenly communication happens in the spirit realm.
Anything that God speaks to you, is not a product of your reasoning or thought processes!
1 Cor 14:14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
Your spirit man resides deep within you.
John 7:37-38 37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
** Notice Jesus didn’t say out of your head will flow rivers of living waters.**
Your spirit is not in your head it is in your heart or your core.
It is not made up of physical matter.
It is of the unseen, not the seen.
Consider these two scriptures;
Prov 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly. (KJV)
(belly – hollow, core, bosom, womb)
John 7:38 …out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Prov 20:27 The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the innermost parts of his being. (NAS)
Prov 20:27 The lamp of the LORD searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being. (NIV)
Prov 20:27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart. (NKJ)
Prov 20:27 The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all his innermost parts. (RSV)
Prov 20:27 A man’s conscience is the Lord’s searchlight exposing his hidden motives. (TLB)
The Communication of The Holy Spirit
1) The witness of the Holy Spirit.
Rom 8:16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
A witness is a ‘knowing’ or a ‘spirit connection’ that God is confirming an answer.
It is like a light bulb turned in our spirit man.
Can be descried as a tremendous lightness or flooding peace.
There is such a thing as a positive and negative witness.
Instead of feeling lightness or peace you sense a sudden heaviness or deadness in your spirit man.
Some describe this as sinking or evaporating feeling concerning what they are hearing.
It is not a feeling, it is a knowing in your spirit.
Before the Holy Spirit lived in his people God used a similar method to indicate a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to His people.
Exod 28:30 "And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be over Aaron’s heart when he goes in before the LORD. So Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel over his heart before the LORD continually.
The Urim and Thummim
These were used as oracles from God to put before Yahweh. This way the priest could get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ witness from God.
When Moses concecrated Aaron to the priesthood, he put the Urim and Thummim in the breastplate.
Urim means light (used for divine guidance)
Thummim means truth (symbol of truth and integrity)
As they inquired of the Lord if they should go ahead in a particular matter, the Urim would glow indicating a yes.
We have the Urim in our breastplate today, it is our human spirit.
I Jn 5:6 …And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.
2) The revelation of the Holy Spirit
The word of the Lord is simple but it’s ramifications are profound.
The revelation of the Holy Spirit is simply knowing the thoughts of God.
Amos 4:13 For behold, he who forms mountains, and creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, and makes the morning darkness, who treads the high places of the earth-- the LORD God of hosts is His name.
Micah 4:12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD, nor do they understand His counsel; for He will gather them like sheaves to the threshing floor.
Ps 139:17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
We can know the thoughts of God.
The Holy Spirit will speak with us this way.
We must fast from our own thoughts
John 5:30 ”I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.
God’s thoughts are higher but attainable
Isa 55:8-9 8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. 9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
He speaks simply but the revelation to our inner man is profound. The Revelation Factor
3) The voice of the Holy Spirit
God speaks to us with his voice.
Acts 10:19 While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Behold, three men are seeking you.
1 Sam 3:10 Now the LORD came and stood and called as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel answered, "Speak, for Your servant hears."
Acts 13:2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, "Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."
The Holy Spirit will speak to us in our spirits.
Why doesn’t he use a loud, audible voice?
God will give us divine strategies in detail.
4) The voice of the human spirit
Rom 9:1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,
Our inner man has a voice – it is the conscience.
This is how are spirit communicates to our soul.
When we listen to our spirit, then God has dominion is our life.
We are yielded to Him.
We find His perfect will for our lives.
This is why we must train our spirits to hear the Spirit of God. To be sensitive to the voice of the Lord.
Jesus said “He would send the Holy Spirit and He would lead us into all truth.”
The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth.
So many Christians are worried that they are doing the “right thing.”
If we are correctly hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit, we are doing the “right thing”, lest we be in rebellion.
God is imparting strategies to increase the Kingdom of heaven and our personal lives.
