The Still Small Voice: How God Speaks in the Silence

Godʼs Communication He's a relational God. He's a God that loves to talk. He's a God that loves to speak. So right from the Garden of Eden, he will come to the Garden and commune with Adam and Eve. And from that day forward, he has always communicated with his people. He loves to talk, he loves to communicate, he loves to give us instructions, directions, nudges, and he loves to communicate with us and have intimacy with us. So he's developed a number of ways that he communicates with his people. I can count about six ways that God communicates with us. There are other ways, but from where I stand, I believe that there are six ways that God communicates with us. The first way that I can count off is the word, which is the most of irritative way that God speaks to us by his word. I can make mention of the Still Small Voice, which I'm going to talk about shortly. Then we have visions, dreams, his audible voice, and prophetic ministry. So the first one is the word. There are still small voice, visions, dreams, the audible voice of God, and prophetic ministry. Sex with that, he speaks with us. I did a video about the word of God, how God communicates with us, what is word. You want to look out for the video on my website, samudanies.co.uk or on YouTube, Samudanies Official, and you have that video. But today I want to talk about how God communicates with us using the Still Small Voice. I believe that is one of the most important and the commonest way that God speaks to us. God speaks to us often times using the Still Small Voice. You may have heard God talk to you using the Still Small Voice. Obviously, you didn't even know that was God speaking. Elijahʼs Still Voice The first time we see God use the Still Small Voice in the Bible was in the book of 1 Kings chapter 19, verse 11 to 13. Then the Lord said, Go out and stand on the mountain, referring to Elijah. The Lord said to Elijah, Go out and stand before the mountain of the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed, and a great and a strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rock in pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the still small voice. So, it was when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Suddenly, a voice came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? God asked Elijah to go and wait for him. And I believe that it was a very dramatic moment. Because as a great prophet, when he heard God communicate with him to go and wait for him, he was waiting for a very dramatic experience, a very dramatic move of God. And so a lot of things happened at a time. The wind blew, that was throwing the mountains, breaking the mountains apart, uprooting trees. It was a very strong wind. And he thought that if all powerful God is gonna communicate, then he should exhibit all power. So God must come through a very dramatic and powerful exhibition. But God didn't come through that wind. There was a fire, a fire that was consuming things all around, and God didn't speak through that fire. There were a lot of dramatic experiences that happened, but God never spoke through any of them. But there was a very unassuming wind, a gentle, small wind that was blowing. And then he heard the still small voice. God's voice came in a very still small voice. Understanding Godʼs Whisper It was very strange because Elijah was expecting a very dramatic experience. And many of us, that's our perception, that if God is going to speak to us, there must be some kind of drama with it. If God is going to speak, there must be some echo, there must be some sound, some bass, because if all powerful God is going to speak, there must be power. You know, so we have that perception, that voice must sound in a very unique way, very dramatic way, very powerful way. It should begin to tear our ear drum. But God speak in a very gentle way. The Still Small Voice comes deep within us. You have to be careful not to miss it. Well, that's why I'm here today to show you how to pick up that Still Small Voice. Now, in the Book of Hebrews, Chapter 5, verse 14, the writer of Hebrews said, But strong need belong to them that are of age. Even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. It means that you can actually exercise your senses to discern good and evil. Hearing God's Voice is a conscious, meditative effort that will do a daily basis to hear God. God can communicate with us through diverse ways. God, as I said before, is a dynamic God. God doesn't stick to one thing forever. He changes how he does things. So God communicates with us in diverse ways. Now, there's still a small voice. It is a voice that God uses to communicate with us to tell us the things we should do and the things we shouldn't do. Oftentimes, we miss it. Have you ever found yourself telling people that you are gonna do something or you are going somewhere but something told you to stop? Many a times, Christians misconstrue there's still a small voice to do something. So they often go like, okay, I was going somewhere, I was gonna do something, I was gonna buy something, but something told me to stop. That so-called something can be the still small voice. Often we attribute that to something because we are not aware. And I think we are not different from Samuel. The young man, Samuel, was sleeping and God came calling a lot of times and he didn't know it was God that was calling. He heard the voice all right, but I never knew it was God that was calling. Until his father, Eli, prompted him that perhaps the one that is calling could be God. So when he comes calling, respond in this manner. Speak and your servants hear it. And when God came calling, he responded in the right manner and God communicated with him. Many of us, we are like that. God speaks to us and we misspoke through his voice to be something else. So we use the word something to represent God's voice. Perhaps that is why we don't obey. We don't do the things he asked us to do. Because I believe if we were aware, if we were sure it was God that was speaking to us and giving us instructions, we would be sure enough to obey. Yet many of us don't obey. Not because we want to intentionally and meditatively disrespect God, but particularly because we are not conscious, we are not cognizant of his voice. Attributes of Godʼs Voice Now, The Still Small Voice, it is a gentle, non-cohesive communication of God. And it has to align with Scripture. Needless to say that all the ways that God communicates with us must necessarily align with Scripture. Scripture is a fundamental principle used to examine all these ways that God communicates with us. Every one of these ways must be an append by Scripture. It must be the foundation to examine all these modes of communication. And so when God speaks to you in any of these ways, you must align it with Scripture. If there's any contradiction, you are sure that it wasn't God. God will never, ever contradict His Word. He has left His Word above His name. And so He will never contradict His Word. If God is going to speak to you in any manner, He must not contradict His Word. Because His Word is true. His Word is eternal. His Word is God. God will not contradict God. Now, The Still Small Voice draws believers towards obedience and holiness. God uses that voice to draw us towards Himself. And oftentimes, it is a voice that we miss because in the midst of confusion, in the midst of anger, God can come and whisper in that voice. God uses that voice to draw us closer to Himself for obedience and holiness. The Still Small Voice is used for clarity, peace, and conviction. God uses that voice to give us clarity. Whenever we are torn between opinions, whenever we are confused about a situation, where we should go, what we should do, God can use the Still Small Voice to bring clarity. And often, we miss it. You know, many believers are praying about the things God should do for them. They are praying that God should respond to their situation. They are praying that God will come in in their situation. They are praying for clarity in their matter. And God always speaks. The problem is that we pray all right, but we don't hear God speak back to us. And so we prayed about our situation. We prayed about clarity in a situation. And God came speaking. God came to talk, but we missed that voice because we don't know that he's the one speaking. The Still Small Voice is used by God to bring clarity. So in the time when you are confused about matter, about a situation, about who to marry, God uses the Still Small Voice to bring clarity and to bring peace. Whenever God speaks, God's voice brings peace. It can even be what is being communicated against what we want to do in the first place. Most of the time, the Still Small Voice communicates things that are against our perception, against our notion, our impression, against our desires. So because it is against our desires, we miss it. God often uses the Still Small Voice to caution us, to prompt us, to ask us to back down, ask us to let it go. And often, because that voice almost always contradicts what we want to do in the first place, we miss it. We put it in the background. But God communicates, he speaks, his Still Small Voice is still echoing. Not Random Thoughts Now, what the voice is not, the Still Small Voice is not random thought. Don't misconstrue the Still Small Voice to be random thought, so that any thought that crept in your mind, you take it as God speaking to you. You will hurt yourself, you will be in trouble, because God doesn't speak to us through random thought. We are human beings, we are emotional beings, we are rational beings. God has given us intellectual capacity. So we think of desires, that do not necessarily conform to what God wants to communicate. Our desires, our perceptions, our thoughts, are not necessarily what God is communicating. So we should be careful to distinguish between our thought, our emotional cues, and the Still Small Voice. So the Still Small Voice is not emotional thought, it's not random thought that creeps in your mind. It is not emotional impulses. People have misconstrued their emotions to be God's voice. Most of the time people go like, God says I should marry you. The Still Small Voice is not emotional impulses. It is not fear driven by urgency, because you saw a snake, suddenly you think God is speaking to you. No, that voice doesn't come as fear that is driven by urgency. It is not something that contradicts scripture. If you hear from God and whatever you heard contradict even one verse in the scripture, that wasn't God that spoke to you. I cannot emphasize this enough. God will not contradict his word. God will not do anything that will contradict his divine nature. His word is God, so he will not contradict God. When you are lying down, meditating on the things that God is doing, praying about your situation, praying about something, deep inside you, that voice will come and speak. Often it comes with a lot of peace. After God speaks, you know what to do, you know how to behave, you know where to go, you know how to respond. Because deep inside you, it comes to communicate, it comes to bring clarity, it comes to bring peace. You are asking God about something, you want to go somewhere, you want to seek clarification, it comes and it speaks. And once God speaks, it may not be what you wanted to do in the first place, but as much as it may not appeal to you, it still brings peace. Because whenever God speaks, it comes with peace. God's voice comes with a lot of peace. So that's the Still Small Voice. When it comes, it brings peace. In the midst of the confusion, there's peace. In the midst of you being torn between opinions, asking about where to go, what job to do, who to marry, in the midst of that confusion, God can bring peace using the Still Small Voice. Voice Brings Peace The question is, does the Still Small Voice glorify God or self or us? It doesn't come to glorify you. It doesn't come to amuse you. God doesn't come to tuckle you, to amuse you. He comes to give you priority, to give you peace. He comes to give you rest. So the Still Small Voice comes to glorify God. When it comes to communicate to us, it puts us in a place where we can praise God, we can glorify God. It produces peace in righteousness. When it comes, it brings peace. It gives us rest in the midst of chaos. What peace did Christ experience that he could sleep in the midst of storm? You know, once Christ was traveling with his disciples by sea and they were in the boat, the tide began to beat into the boat and the boat was half filled with water. Scripture says that Christ was sleeping on a pillow. It is that kind of peace that God gives, that assurance that God gives, he can still sleep in the storm because you know that the storm is not meant to kill him. The Still Small Voice comes to bring peace. It comes to bring assurance. It comes to bring certainty. It comes to confirm an affair that God is with us, that God is in our situation. Sometimes, in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the situation that we go through, the things that we go through, we can somehow forget that God is with us. And sometimes, when we go through pain and difficult situations, we ask sometimes ourselves that, does God even cares or is he with us? Is God still in our boat? So we've told about a man who was traveling and he was traveling with God. But because God is pure, he couldn't see God, but he could only see his footprint. So at any point in time, when he lose back, he could see two set of footprint, one for him, one for God. Then he go to a place that he got scared. He go to a place that he felt was scary. But he look back and then suddenly, he could see only two footprint. So he yelled and said, God, why will you leave me in this season and time? When I need you most? And God whispered and said to him, that I've not left you, but I've carried you on my shoulders. Then God said to him, whenever I move with people and they get to a difficult point in their life, I carry them on my shoulders. So the footprint you are seeing behind you is not yours, it is mine. When God speaks in this manner, it brings peace. There are still small voices, the voice of God uses to communicate things that brings us assurance. It is that voice that communicate joy in sorrow, communicate peace in chaos, communicate assurance in uncertainties. When we are not certain, we are not sure something is going to happen, when we are anxious about the future, about how things are going to unfold, then deep in us we have this peace, the peace of what is a past understanding. Whenever God speaks with the still small voice, it comes with peace. God's aura is peace, because he is the Prince of Peace. God is peace. You know, Provigidians say that peace is a person. Peace is not a course, peace is not EU, peace is not an enterprise, it's not intervention that someone or some country can back on, but it's a person, it's Jesus. When the Lord speaks to you, when it comes to your certain, when it comes to your boat, when it comes close to you, peace comes close to you. So, whenever God uses the Still Small Voice to communicate, it brings peace, it brings assurance, it brings certainty. It makes us aware, it makes us cognizance of God's presence, it makes us aware of God's love. Every love casts away fear when we are aware of God's love, when we are sure that God still cares, give us some kind of peace, give us assurance. No matter what we find ourselves in life, we will not be bothered, because we know God is with us. Because when Christ is in the boat, you smell of the storm. It comes to remind us that God is with us, that God is in our boat. It comes to remind us that God is part of our situation, that God is not sleeping, that he is wide awake and is aware of what we are going through. It is that voice that speaks to bring clarity, that voice that comes to speak to direct us. It is that voice that comes to assure us. It is that voice that God uses to tell us to back down. It is that voice that God uses to tell us to stop, to let go. It is that voice that God uses to move us away from anger. Knowing this is important. Knowing that it is God that is speaking is important. Many have learned to trouble because they refused to obey the still small voice. It is that voice that you can quite easily disobey because it doesn't come with aggression. And many have disobeyed the voice because it didn't come with force. Engaging Godʼs Voice How do you engage this voice? The Book of Hebrews says that strong meat belongs to the age that are of age. He first talked about milk, children drinking milk, then he said strong meat is for the old. They that by reason of use have exercised their senses to discern good and evil. It means you can exercise your senses, your sense of smell, sense of sight, your taste, your sense of feeling. You can exercise these senses to discern good and evil. It is a deliberate and conscious effort that you do on a daily basis to grow it. You can grow in the Lord. You know, they are dept in God. The more you pay attention to his voice, the clearer it becomes. Told by scripture that Eli prompted Samuel that the voice he heard was God. And that was the only time we saw Eli prompting Samuel. When the young man got to know how God sounded, that was it. He became a prophet. God would speak to him and he wouldn't have to be prompted anymore. So I'm here prompting you, as Eli prompted Samuel, to know God's voice, to understand God's voice and to obey God's voice. Whenever God speaks and we obey, his voice becomes louder. When God speaks and we obey, we keep doing the things he wants us to do, it becomes clearer. Watch out for the next episode of Hearing the Voice of God. I've already talked about the Bible being the authoritative word of God. God's word is his seal for humanity. And so God speaks to us by the word, the written word. And today I just spoke about God speaking to us using the still small voice. The next episode, I'll talk about God speaking to us using dreams. You know, dreams is a mystical language that God used to communicate with us. And God communicate with us so much using dreams. So the next episode, I'll speak about dreams. You want to follow this series on my website, samualdaniel.co.uk. If you want to support this course in any shape or form, you can head to my website, samualdaniel.co.uk and go to give. I give you a way to give, to support. Everything you give will be appreciated. I want to also ask you to share this to Frasier family and let them be part of this move and know how they can hear from God. It's a series that I've begun and it's gonna be six episodes and I don't want you to miss any of them. So go to my website and subscribe to my channel so that you can have access to the videos when I post them. And I believe it will be a blessing to you and your family. Thank you so much for watching. Look out for the next episode, How God Communicates to Us Through Dreams, How God Speaks to Us Through Dreams. It's gonna come to you very soon. Thank you so much for now.