Chapter Six
Voices on a Mountain of Stone
One shouldn’t ask to serve The King if one has no intention of doing what He asks.
More than one hundred years ago it is said that a young man who knew little of Christian theology stood in a testimony meeting and said simply, “I’m not quite sure, but I’m going to trust and I’m going to obey.” Those words were an inspiration for the beloved hymn written by John Sammis called “Trust and Obey:” “When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey…Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
If we are to successfully match our will to His, we must somewhere along the way, learn to trust and obey. These are easy things to say; but more difficult to put into practice. In my life I have learned that there are some things that I find very easy to trust God about. But there are others that I cling to, unwilling to give up into His hands. E.M. Bounds said, “Faith gives birth to prayer, and grows stronger, strikes deeper, rises higher, in the struggles and wrestlings of mighty petitioning.” Trust in the Lord actually births prayer.
Obedience, too, is necessary for prayer. Bounds also said, “Disobedience shuts the door of the inner chamber, and bars the way to the Holy of Holies. No man can pray—really pray—who does not obey.”
Trust and Obey…developing faith and obedience in my daily walk with God has been crucial to my prayer life. God continues to work these important truths in me…deepening my understanding of them when I fail, and stumble and fall, and when He picks me up.
The Servant Girl hesitated when she was told of the way that had been prepared for her--up to the top of the mountain. But she was wisely counseled that one shouldn't ask to serve The King if one has no intention of doing what He asks. Psalm 119:60 Says "I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands." Who was it that said "postponed obedience is disobedience?" The Servant Girl learned that there would be consequences to disobedience and chose obedience. It's best to do it quickly--hasten and not delay to obey His commands.
Whisper. Or Shout. Either way, He will hear you.
Climbing the mountain was the Servant Girl's first chance to walk a few steps on her journey seemingly alone. After enjoying deep fellowship and communion in the garden, she is suddenly taken to a new level of understanding. She must continue to obey, even when His presence is not obvious. But she is reassured that she can continue to speak to Him, and He will hear her.
Micah 7:7 spells out this important promise: "My God will hear me." Spurgeon has this to say about it: "What a charming sentence! Can you say it? Only five words, but what meaning! Every child of God may dare say that his God will hear him, for he may dare to say the truth! For myself, I would be well content to exhibit this diamond with many facets by merely holding it up and letting the light fall on it and flash back from it in variety of brilliance. 'My God will hear me.' It is a choice song for a lone harp which is half afraid of the choir of musicians and loves to have its strings touched in solitude. I feel, as I repeat it, that I need to sit down and quietly enjoy it. As I see the cows lie in the meadow, quietly chewing the cud, so would I ruminate on these few but precious words. Let me hear the sounds again and again, till my tongue, learning their rhythmic melody, repeats as a matter of habitual delight, the assurance, 'My God will hear me!'"
The Servant Girl could walk forward in that assurance and so can we. Five beautiful words…"My God will hear me."
The path prepared for you is one that you are capable of walking.
Corrie Ten Boom’s story of God’s preserving Presence through the darkest of times in a Nazi Prison Camp is documented in her book “The Hiding Place.” The adventure He leads her on after her release from that prison is equally compelling. In her book, “Tramp for the Lord,” Corrie tells of an instance when she found herself in unfamiliar territory: “For ten years the Lord had guided me step-by-step. At no time had I been confused or afraid. Now I was both—unable to recognize the Presence of God. Surely He was still guiding me, but like the pilot who flies into the clouds, I was now having to rely on instruments rather than sight.”
The Servant Girl is given a frightening task and is told that God’s Presence will be out-of-sight. She had the peace of knowing that He would hear her, and as she took the first steps of obedience, she saw that He would still guide her every bit of the way. As her eyes gazed on the glorious heights, His voice thundered around her and she knew that He was indeed with her.
To clearly hear the voice of your Shepherd and your King, you must learn to listen with your heart.
Yesterday someone told my daughter a lie. She knew immediately it was a lie for this person has left himself wide open to a spirit of deception. I am so grateful to God that she recognizes the voice of her Shepherd. Without a doubt her heart knew it wasn’t His voice, but the enemy whispering his lies in her ear, in an attempt to destroy what the Lord has blessed her with.
Oh, we need so desperately to know our Shepherd’s voice and know it well! The Servant Girl took her first steps in learning to hear Him and the peace of being a precious lamb held in the arms of her Shepherd was everything to her!
It still is.
Spurgeon tells us that one way we hear God's voice is through His magnificent wonders: "All God’s works praise Him whether they are magnificent or minute, they all discover the wisdom, the power and the benevolence of their Creator. 'All Your works praise You, O God.' But there are some of His more majestic works which sing the song of praise louder than others. There are some of His doings upon which there seems to be engraved in larger letters than usual the name of God. Such are the lofty mountains which worship God with uncovered heads both night and day. Such are the rolling seas, too mighty to be managed by man but held in check by God. And such, especially, are the thunder and the lightning. The lightning is the glance of the eyes of God and the thunder is the uttering of His voice."
The Servant Girl could hear His voice echoing through His creation, and it brought her comfort while also filling her with reverent awe.
Spurgeon explains other ways that God chooses to speak to man: "At sundry times He has spoken absolutely without the use of means—by His own voice—as for instance when He spoke from Sinai’s blazing mountaintop. He has spoken immediately from Heaven by His own lips on one or two occasions in the life of Christ. At other seasons God has been pleased to speak to men by angels. He has, as it were, written the message and sent it down by His messenger from on high. As frequently, perhaps, God has spoken to men in dreams, in visions of the night when deep sleep falls upon them. Then, when the natural ear has been closed, He has opened the ear of the Spirit and He has taught Truths which, otherwise, men could never have known. More frequently still, God has spoken to men by men. From the days of Noah even until now God has raised up His Prophets, by whose lips He has spoken. God speaks through men and now also, we know that God speaks through His own written Word of Inspiration. When we turn to the pages of Scripture we must not look upon these words as being in any degree the words of men, but as being the words of God. And though they are silent, yet do they speak. And though they cause no noise, yet, verily, 'their God has gone forth throughout all the world and their noise unto the ends of the earth.'"
All of these are direct ways of communicating with us, but what if God chooses to speak in a whisper? In our culture today we have become fearful of silence and addicted to ‘white noise.’ Often we find ourselves turning on the radio or TV, not to actively listen, but to create a static envelope of sound around us. Some of us can’t even fall asleep at night without that low, but constant hum of sound gently rocking our cradle.
I have come to believe that a big reason that God wakes me up in the wee hours of the morning is because that is the one time that He knows that the world around me finally falls silent.
Like the Servant Girl,
I long for a silent world around me so that the ears of my heart can clearly hear His “still, small voice.”
Spurgeon explains this still small voice: "Yes, and there are times when the Spirit of God speaks in the heart of man without the use of means. I believe there are many secret impulses, many solemn thoughts, many mysterious directions given to us without a single word having been uttered but by the simple motions of God’s Spirit in the heart. This thing I know, that when I have neither heard nor read, I have yet felt the voice of God within me and the Spirit Himself has revealed some dark mystery, opened some secret, guided me into some Truth, given me some direction, led me in some path, or in some other way has immediately spoken to me Himself."
And he adds one last exhortation about knowing the voice of our Shepherd: " O may we hear Christ’s voice, each one of us for ourselves! I find that language fails me, and metaphors are weak to describe its potent spell. One point is worth noticing, however. I think our Lord meant here that His sheep, when they hear His voice, know it so well that they can tell it at once from the voice of strangers. I saw hundreds of lambs the other day together, and there were also their mothers. And I am sure if I had had the task of allotting the proper lamb to each, or to any of them, it would have kept me till now to have done it. But somehow the lambs knew the mothers, and the mothers knew the lambs. And they were all happy enough in each other’s company. Every saint here, mixed up as he may be at times with parties and professors of all sorts, knows Christ, and Christ knows him, and he is therefore bound to his owner."
May we know His voice so well that we can tell it at once from the voice of strangers!