-- © Transforming Life Prophetic Ministry -- 1999 --
-- Do Not Reprint without written permission from John Webster, <prophetjpw@aol.com> --

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Author: John Webster
Transcriber: Lucy Deliganis
Editors: Paul Cummins, Teresa Seputis

Prophetic Training 201 -- Week 5 Teaching

The Lifestyle of Listening - Part II

We are continuing our discussion on the lifestyle of listening, part II. This is our fifth lesson on Hearing God's Voice Now. In Part I, we talked about listening to God in our personal life. We talked about such things as intimacy, parenting, marriage, encouragement, direction, emotional hurts and wounds. Now we want to talk about what God might speak to us in other areas of our life.

We want to start off talking about how the Lord may want to talk to us about our ministry life. The Lord wants to talk to us about how He wants to use us, and what our purpose is in Him, our roles and gifting in the kingdom of God. Therefore, I'm not just talking to those of you that are called to full time ministry or those just called to a pulpit ministry. I'm talking to each one of you because every one of you has a ministry. Isn't that right? We're going to talk about various aspects of hearing the voice of God in a ministry context. That is to say in a context of hearing God's voice in order to minister to others.

The Gift of Prophecy

The first thing I would like to talk about is hearing God's voice and the gift of prophecy, or really any of the gifts of the Spirit, but specifically the gift of prophecy. After all, prophecy is a gift from God and we have to learn to hear from God before we can speak it. So we want to hear God's voice first and speak second. Many times when somebody is learning to prophecy, you may have seen this. Perhaps during a worship service in the church and as worship is going on, perhaps there is a little bit of a lull between choruses. That is an opportune time to prophesy. Someone gets up and begins to prophesy. As they do that and they speak forth the message they feel God is laying on their heart, they begin to prophesy and then they fall silent. They know they are not quite finished, and you know they are not quite finished either. They seem to have gotten a blockage, therefore, they are quiet for a few moments. Probably in their heart, they are saying, "God, get me out of this one. I stood up, and I was faithful." Then, they start to prophesy again. Then they go quiet again, and start up after a few moments. It's like somebody learning to drive a stick-shift in an automobile. Sometimes that is what it is like when somebody is learning to prophesy and they are just a beginner. The gift of prophecy is like they go, and then they stop, and then they go. I thought I would address that in the event that some of you have faced that. Maybe you have a fear of getting up and prophesying and finding yourself in the middle of a word and you go blank.

Let me explain why that happens. Oftentimes what happens is as a person is worshipping the Lord, God will drop something in a person's heart. It is certainly not the whole message He is going to speak through them. It is probably just the beginning of the message. They stand up in faith, wanting to be pleasing to the Lord, and they begin to say what God has put in their heart. When they say that and get to the end of that and are expecting more to come and nothing more comes. Then they kind of go quiet and suddenly more comes.

What is happening is that they are trying to learn how to listen and speak at the same time. You see when we first learn we are sitting in our seat hearing from the Lord and as we stand up to prophecy, we have stopped listening and started speaking. A person who is new at this does not know how to do these functions simultaneously. So they speak, and then what they have to say is finished, and then they go quiet. We are all in an awkward moment while they are listening. Then when they have listened, they begin to speak again. That is why you have that jerky stop-start type of action.

What the Lord wants to do is get us to the place that we can easily speak or prophesy as we are listening simultaneously. So as we are prophesying the first part, we are hearing the second part. As we are prophesying the second part, we are hearing the third part. Until finally, it is just a flow. It just flows right out of you without that start-stop jerky type of experience. When you are hearing the voice of the Lord with regard to prophesying, learn to listen as you are speaking.

You may also find in the gift of prophesy that God might put three, four, or five things in your heart before you begin. You might be aware that there are several different elements to this prophetic message. As you get up and yield yourself to the Lord, and you don't prophesy what you think you are going to prophesy, the prophesy kind of takes a different direction. In your mind, you are thinking about the two or three points over there that you thought you were going to talk about. I want to give you a word of encouragement that many times when God drops a word in your heart, that those first few points may have been given to you by God as a frame of reference. We talked about this in our last teaching. It is like the stage, or backdrop. It just gives us a point of reference about what God wants to talk about.. But as the prophecy goes forth, He ends up talking about whatever He wants to talk about, and we end up sitting down. We think, "Man, I was going to talk about this, but I ended up prophesying something else, and I feel like I didn't end up doing what I was going to do, or somehow there are things still left on my list, so to speak." When that happens, just go with the flow, and don't worry about not covering everything that you thought you were going to cover. Because as I said, many times God will drop things in your heart and you will be aware of them. You will think that you are supposed to prophesy them. God knows the whole time that He is not going to let you say those things. They just serve to orient your thinking, point you in the right direction. They help turn your head to make you look in a particular direction. When you look in that direction, you end up taking off from there. You end up prophesying that. Not these other things that you thought you were going to prophesy. Ok?

Now that applies to any of the gifts of the Spirit. You do not want to get into the place where you are directing the voice of the Lord. You may think, "Now wait, I was going to prophesy this, so let me bend this back around and prophesy the things I was thinking about." Now you would be in the driver's seat and in control. You do not want to be there. You want to let God control. Let God say what He wants to say, and you sit down and be real satisfied with the results, even if you didn't cover everything that you thought the prophecy was going to cover.

The Gift of Healing

Then, we have God's voice for physical healing. We know God wants to heal today. Now, when you have gifts of healing and you lay hands on the sick and they recover, one of the most powerful expressions of the gifts of healing is when they listen to the Lord and God begins to speak to them, revealing to them some of the physical needs present. When there is a word of knowledge, coupled with the gift of healing, that is a real powerful combination. We have seen this where not only will the gifts of healing flow, but first of all God will speak to your heart, telling you this is the person and this is the need. You have heard the voice of the Lord. Now go pray for them for that need. Then when you pray for them, the gifts of healing kick in. Healing takes place. That is a neat combination that when you pray for people for healing, that you listen to the Lord. Who am I supposed to pray for? What's wrong with them? How am I supposed to pray for them? Then, you pray. Let me listen to the voice of the Lord, and combine my listening with gift of healing. That is a real powerful thing.

Intercession

So there we have the gift of prophecy, the gifts of healing, and then we have intercession. How many of you are prayer warriors? Here is how hearing the voice of God in intercession can work. This is a real powerful combination as well. Do you remember the Persian Gulf War? When we were watching that and we find out about precision guided munitions or Smart Bombs. Some of them are TV guided. Maybe you saw on the news or documentaries where there was a camera in the nose of that bomb. The pilot in the plane has a little joy stick and he by looking at a screen in his cockpit, seeing what the camera sees in the nose of that bomb, is as if he is sitting right in that bomb. He can steer that bomb into that destination. Maybe you have even see this looking at the target and you are getting closer and closer until finally the screen goes blank. That is a TV guided munitions. There is also radar and laser guided. Laser guided is where they put a laser designator, like a flashlight shone against a wall, and point it at a target. It is an invisible light and you cannot see it. A second plane will come and drop a bomb and that plane will see a reflection of light on the target and will home right in on that reflection of light. It is very, very accurate. You've seen where they put a bomb right through a door or air shaft. Spirit led intercession or hearing the voice of God in intercession is like those precision guided munitions or Smart Bombs. You see we have the power of God, and as God tell us what to pray for and when to pray, that is like those precision guided munitions. Now your prayers are guided by the voice of the Lord. You are praying for the right person, the right thing, at the right time. Your prayers home in right on their target, and the power of God is released right on target. Instead of being in the place thinking, "Well, I'm an intercessor and am not real sure who to pray for or what to pray or when to pray, therefore, I am going to pray as it seems best to me." Well, first of all thank God you got that far. Thank God you have a heart to pray and to intercede. But there is a higher level. That Spirit-led intercession or hearing the voice of God as you pray and intercede.

Deliverance

Then we have the voice of God in deliverance. When God wants to free people from demonic spirits and the hold of demonic spirits, He wants to speak to us. Let me just tell you how God can speak to us to make the deliverance process so much more effective and efficient. One of them is when we are able to discern the type of spirit that is involved. What do they need to be delivered from? God speaks to us. Then God tell us what the stronghold is. What was the open door for this demonic spirit? How did it get there? As we perceive this, and God speaks to us, if the person is in the place to converse with us, we can lead them in a prayer where they renounce that. We can break that stronghold. It removes a lot of the power of the demonic spirit We can also discern how that demonic spirit came in. How did it get there? Was it a spirit that came down the family line? You know there are generational sins. Deuteronomy 5:9, says" the iniquity of the fathers is visited to the third and fourth generation." When there are sins, there are usually demonic spirits, kind of like flies around a dumpster. Where you have trash, you find flies. Where you have sin, you have demons trying to get involved in that. So where sins have been in the family line, a lot of times demons try to follow that. It could come through trauma. There are a number of ways, spirits get into a person's life, and you want to find that out. It is not necessary in order to bring someone to deliverance, but it sure can help. Therefore, you want to listen to the voice of God regarding deliverance.

Preaching and Teaching

Also, you want to learn to hear God's voice in preaching and teaching. There are just so many applications for hearing God's voice. This is why we say that hearing God's voice is a lifestyle. You should always be listening in all areas of your life. I remember when I was doing some research for this set of teachings, and this was l0 years ago. Remember the first lesson, we talked about John 10:27, l0:l6, l0:4, and I was amassing these verses to give evidence to the fact that we do hear God's voice. I stumbled across another one. When I read it, I thought, "Okay, this validates what I wanted to say." The Lord quickened to me and said, "No, don't use that verse." I said, "Why, Lord?" The Lord said, "Because it doesn't say what you think it says. You read it quickly and casually, and it appears to say what you think it says, but that is not what that verse really means.." I had been in too big of a hurry to research the verse, and so I just said, "Okay, God, we're going to leave that one." It was a little bit of a struggle. Isn't that amazing? Because I wanted to give evidence to prove a point. So I left it out and came back later and did the research on it. I found out that sure enough. That was not at all what it meant. Now how many people could have been sitting in on the teachings and had actually heard that other verse and realized that No, this guy didn't do his research. If I can't trust him on that point, maybe he made mistakes on other points as well. It undermines the validity of the teaching. God wants to speak to us as we are researching his word.

Counseling

Then, we have God's voice for counseling. As we are counseling, God can show us beyond what the counselee is telling us. God can speak to us concerning the true root issues that are at play with this particular person. This is what they are telling you, but this is not really the bottom line. This is a fruit issue, not a root issue. Some people are very perceptive and they can get to the root issue. Other people are not so perceive, and they really need God to show it to them. God, what are we dealing with here? God can speak to us. So the voice of the Lord is invaluable for counseling. Those are some of the ways we can hear God's voice in our ministry lives.

Business Life

Then, we have our business life. I am speaking of our vocation, our career. So when I say business, I'm not just talking small business owners. I'm talking about anybody that works and our work life. God can speak to us in our work life in decision making. This is a wonderful area. There are so many decisions to make. God is the best decision maker there ever was. In fact, God has never made a wrong decision. He is perfect. He does it the best way every time. So you know that when you are making a decision and you disagree with God, the most you can hope for is second best. God already has first place. So the most you can do is second place in terms of the quality of the decision. So the idea here is, "Don't disagree with God." Go God's way. Do what God wants you to do. When you are making a decision, and you are in your workplace, go with God's decision. He sees the big picture. He understands it all. He knows what has happened in the past and what is going to happen in the future.

Personnel

Then we have the voice of God dealing with personnel, or other people in the workplace. Particularly, when you have authority over those people in the workplace. How many of you know that your business will benefit when you place the right people in the right positions? Having interviewed and hired people myself, you realize that it is not always easy to get the right person in the right slot. Whether you are hiring them in or transferring them into another position you want to fill, it is not an altogether easy thing to do. Because you know God knows that person. He knows who is going to blossom in a particular area. He also knows when a person is giving certain responsibilities what is going to shut them down. Rob them of creativity, rob them of effectiveness. Therefore, if you really want your business to go well, you want to get the right people doing the right thing. Some people have the mentality that when they need a job done, they just designate a person. Here, you do what I want you to do, not what you want to do. Now I know that you have a gift in a certain area and an aptitude in that area, but I need this other thing, so go over there and be faithful. Now there is a certain amount of merit to that, but a wise leader will realize that it is essential to get the right person in the right slot. If you don't do that, you may have the authority to make them do what you are asking them to do, but your business is going to suffer if it is not the right person in the right place. So listen to God. This works not just for Christian businesses. This works in the day to day workplace. If you are working with personnel, God can show you who is going to do well and where. He can show you how to work with them and how to interact with them. An effective leader wants to learn those things.

Financial Matters

God also wants to speak to us with regard to financial matters. Are you all beginning to get the picture that this is a lifestyle? You think of the area and that is where you can learn to hear God's voice. When you learn to hear His voice efficiently, accurately, and consistently with great clarity, you are way ahead. Some years ago, I believe in 1989, when the stock market took a great tumble (Black Tuesday), I had an associate in ministry that the Lord spoke to the day prior to the crash. The Lord spoke to this man and told him to get his money out of the market and put it in something else. This requires a high level of knowing the voice of the Lord. You need to have some experience in hearing God's voice with something like this So, the man pulled his money out of the stock market and put it somewhere else. The next day the market took a tumble, and the following day he goes into the office. Other men in his office are sharing how they lost money. One man said he lost $l0,000. Another said he lost $50,000. They asked him how much he lost. He looked at them and said he actually made about $l5,000. Because God showed him how to take his money out of one place and put it in another. Now again, a word of caution. This is not for someone who thinks, "Oh, this is a great idea. I'm going to use God's voice to make a pile of money." But if God has put you into that realm or level, He wants to speak to you about it. His wisdom is better than yours anyway. So start listening to God on a small level, and prove that it is the voice of the Lord and work your way up until you are hearing the Lord efficiently.

Strategic Planning

God wants to speak to us with regard to strategic planning in the marketplace. God spoke to Pharaoh and gave him a dream. Seven fat cattle coming up out of the river, and then seven skinny cows coming up and eating the seven fat cows. Joseph interpreted the dream and said there were going to be seven years of feast and seven years of famine. He told Pharaoh to gather up grain during the seven years of plenty, and then during the seven years of famine, Pharaoh would have everything needed. It turns out that that plan was so good that even surrounding nations during the famine came to Egypt and became debtor nations to get the grain. So God can speak to us in strategic planning in business.

Organizational Structure

God wants to speak to us about organizational structure. When I worked in the ministry of Christian International, I had an administrative responsibility. I am still associated with them, but I travel full time in ministry. We were providing college courses in our School of Theology to individuals to study the word of God. We also had colleges and local churches involved, so a church could set up their own college using our material. I was the Dean of the Bible College, and the Director of Education for our ministry. This organizational structure had been in place for a long time. It pre-dated me and also my predecessor. So the way we provided courses to individuals and churches had been done this way for a long time. So as I was trying to make our department more efficient and effective, the Lord spoke to me. He showed me that we were providing the same product to two different markets, and we have one department that handles the needs of the individual, and you have another department that handles the needs of the churches. It was almost like I could see a picture with two conveyor belts, and the two conveyor belts were doing the same thing with the same product. The Lord told me to consolidate. If you will consolidate these departments, you can reduce the manpower. Neither department had been working at capacity. Therefore, we consolidated and reduced the overhead. It had never been my intention to lay anyone off. That allowed us to allocate more people to research and development. We actually ended up making money in the process. Therefore, God can even help us in things like organizational structure.

Entrepreneurial Endeavors

Then lastly, God can speak to us in entrepreneurial things, endeavors, doing something new. God can sometimes speak to us, telling us it doesn't matter how good it looks, don't do this. As we obey Him and heed the cautions He gives us, He can save us from all kinds of heartache. God can also encourage us to get involved in a new area and it will bless us tremendously. But the idea is to hear God's voice in the process.

Now let me just talk to you about business for a moment. I want to encourage you. This departs just a bit from hearing God's voice, but it is a tremendous encouragement with regard to God being involved with your business. When I say business, I am thinking workplace. Whether you are an employer, employee, part time or full time, salaried or hourly wage, own your own business or work for someone else, I want to encourage you that God can be trusted in business. God is a businessman. This is real essential for you to know this because sometimes we think we don't want to turn our business over to God. You know it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. When you go to work it is not like being in church. But I want to encourage you that God is the ultimate business man. He knows business. In fact, God invented business principles. Let me explain it to you this way. In economics and in the free market economy we have here in the United States, the way that the value of good and services is determined is through supply and demand. Right? It is not it's intrinsic value that determines its price. It is the law of supply and demand. If supply is high and the demand is low, the price drops. if the supply is low, and the demand is high the price goes up. God invented that principle. Our intrinsic value is zero. In me, my flesh, there is no good thing. But because God loves us so much, the demand is high. He paid the ultimate price for us which is the life of His Son. You have value because God loves you. That is the only reason you have value. That is the law of supply and demand. God invented it.

Another example is marketing. Marketing is telling other people about your goods and services. Do you know what God calls it? Evangelism. It is getting out the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the most printed book of all time. God knows how to get out the word. God knows evangelism. He understands this principle.

God understand personnel and organizational structure. He runs the affairs of the universe, including this planet with five billion people and all of the angels in heaven with perfect order and structure. He even understands personnel and who to put in what position, including Judas. Sometimes when we don't understand this and we think God is removed from business, we conduct ourselves differently in business than we do in church. Maybe we do some things in business that we know God would not approve of. But when we realize that God fully understands business and we listen to His advice, God will bless and prosper us. When you learn to hear the voice of the Lord, it is like having the most high powered business consultant that ever was. He wants to help you every step along the way.

Summary

Let me summarize that as we learn to hear God's voice more efficiently in that digital burst (rapidly, openly), we will make much more progress in our Christian life. But if we don't learn that, God will still communicate with us the slow way - through trials and life experience. He really would prefer to communicate through direct communication.

Lord, I ask for each person here that you would help them to open their hearts to You and be vulnerable to You. So that You can speak to them with direct communication and speak to them all the things that You want them to know so that they can grow up in You and be who You want them to be in Jesus' Name. Amen


-- © Transforming Life Prophetic Ministry -- 1999 --
-- Do Not Reprint without written permission from John Webster <prophetjpw@aol.com> --