Hearing the Voice of the Lord | Ep. 192

God’s been speaking to you longer than you think, so why does His voice still feel hard to discern? We start with a memorable image: a baby in the womb who can hear tone and spirit even when everything sounds muffled. Those pictures lead us straight into a practical, Scripture-based conversation about hearing God’s voice with clarity and walking in humble obedience.

We explore why distractions drown out discernment, why prayer has to become a dialogue instead of a nonstop monologue, and why the Bible pushes us toward quiet, reverence, and listening first. Along the way, we connect key passages like Romans 10:17 and John 10:27 to a simple truth: biblical faith is more than mental agreement. It’s hearing and following. We also talk honestly about what happens when study turns into noise, including the danger of “itching ears” and teachings that drift from sound doctrine.

Then we lay out four clear practices to grow: deliberately love what God says, choose a willingness to be taught, come ready to hear first, and mix faith with the Word through obedience. The closing story of Samuel shows how discernment develops over time as we respond, “Speak, for your servant hears,” and refuse to let God’s words “fall to the ground.” If this helps you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can learn to hear and obey.

Transcript

Vision Of Blood Cells And Humility

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 0:03

The vision received was that of blood cells traveling throughout the body, supplying the much-needed oxygen and other nutrients to the differing members of the body to fulfill their purpose. Once the blood cells are spent, they must return back to the heart to be refilled before being sent out again and fulfill their purpose. But I have to I have to be humble and and and in or I have to receive the gift in order to honor the giver. And so that's that's humbling. It really is.

Dig Deep For Intimacy With God

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 1:08

Digging deep in God's word and not just being a reader of his word, but being a studier. It's a study to show thyselves approved. And that's what I meant by digging deep, because you have to dig deep in order to get a really thick foundation. It's not just staying surface level with his word. It's not just staying surface level with your relationship with him where you see him once a week. He wants intimacy. And in order to have intimacy, there has to be a concerted effort on, I mean, it's always on his part, but it's there has to be a concerted effort on your part to reach out to him, to press into him, to lean into him, because as you draw nigh unto him, what does he do? He draws nigh unto you, but he's waiting for you. So when we dig deep, we want to dig deep in God's word, and we we want to begin to start delighting in his word. And I think today's message is kind of the other side of the coin, if you will. And and I I guess I'll give you a title later, but and and you'll see how how it hopefully how they they both connect this digging deep into God's word, and then this part that I want to talk about today. But God gives me thoughts, and I'm I I they communicate to me, they make sense to me, these thoughts that I get. And sometimes I'm kind of hesitant about sharing those thoughts with others because I don't think that they're gonna get it like I got it. And so you there's kind of a uh uh you know, a reservation on my part, and but I'm gonna share it with you anyway.

A Baby In The Womb Analogy

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 2:43

And he he brought to my mind I it he brought I just uh held a couple weeks ago uh the Dinkin's new daughter, and just holding her in my just two hands was just like it brought back memories because I've had three children of my own, and it's been over 20 years, you know, that I've held a child so small in my just two hands. Um but he gave me the this idea, this thought about the baby in the womb has the same senses we all have. What are those five senses? Can you name them? Sight, smell, hearing, touch, uh-huh, uh-huh, and what? Taste. That's right. And all of those in the womb are in development. If you've seen the pictures in the womb, or if you've you've looked at the development of a baby in the womb through the first trimester, the second trimester, and the third trimester, it looks like their eyes are closed. They're still developing, you know, you know, the eyeballs inside and all of that, and the eyelids just look closed. The smell, I don't imagine that babies are smelling at that time. I mean, they're if you know anything about it, they're in an amniotic sac with amniotic fluid. They're not really breathing like we are. Uh and then the touch part, well, there's some sense of touch, like they're touching though the womb of the mother, and then she they're moving about and they're kicking and squirming about and turning around. And so there is that sense of touch and taste, I don't think they have much taste at that time. You know, they have the umbilical cord, they're getting all of their food and their nutrients from the mother who who's eating and and and it's passing through the through the I don't want to make this a biology thing. But hearing, yes, it's being developed, but I think one of the main things that they do have as they're developing, and that's kind of a first and foremost sense of a baby in the womb, is hearing. And I and the Lord just brought to my mind how how, you know, I said I've had I've had three children, and my wife can testify to this. I don't know if she's gonna remember, but I would I would sing to my children while they were in the womb. And there was a particular song that I sang to them. So I'm gonna give you five seconds. Think about it, see if you can remember what that song was that I sang to all three of them. Okay, she's looking weird. Okay, she don't remember, but hopefully when I sing it, she'll remember because I sang it to all of them. It was a song that really impacted me. And if I'm here, maybe Pastor Joe will allow me to do it on Father's Day. But I'm just gonna give you a little piece of the song that I sang to them. I sang, I'll have no other, for I love you only, I'll never forsake you or leave you alone. I love you oh how I love you. I love you oh how I love you. I'll have no other for I love you only. I'll never forsake you, or leave you alone. I sang that song to all three of them. It's not my song, it's a song of a particular individual that had an impact on my life and because of his music. And uh, like I said, if it's if I'm still around on Father's Day, I might like to do that with my daughter playing the piano. But I think about how I sung that song over and over to them throughout the times uh of their development in the womb. And I and I imagine now as I'm trying to give this teaching on it, that the sounds I would think were kind of muffled for them. It wasn't quite clear, like our sounds are clear right now. But even in the womb, I would imagine that a baby can sense and detect the tones, the inflection of the voice that's speaking. They can, I would think they could sense the spirit of the person that's speaking. Are they speaking with joy? Are they speaking with peace? Are they speaking in anger or sorrow or depression? And I want you to consider that this time that a baby is in the womb is like us when we were unregenerate, we weren't born again yet.

Distractions, Quiet Prayer, Still Voice

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 7:55

God has always been speaking to us. Always. As far back as you can remember, God has always been speaking to us. But at that time, it was muffled. It wasn't quite clear. We we couldn't really discern. Oh, that's the voice of the Lord. And he's been trying to speak to us, he's been trying to reach us, he's been trying to get our attention, but his voice was muffled because there were so many other voices. There were so many other voices we were listening to before we were born again, and it distracted us, and we couldn't quite discern the voice of the Lord, which is why so many times the the the scriptures and the Bible is telling us to get in your prayer closet, get in that quiet place. He's not in the thunder, he's not in the lightning. When he spoke to Jeremiah, He was in that still, small voice, and it spoke loudly when you attuned to that voice. It spoke clearly when you when you got rid of all of the distractions. And it's so hard sometimes because sometimes it's not it's not an audible thing. Sometimes your brain is going off the deep end with thoughts, and you can't get past those thoughts to hear him clearly. And so sometimes it's important that when you get into prayer, it's not about you speaking, speaking, speaking, and telling him about all the things that you need and all the things that are going on because you're speaking too much. If you're gonna hear the Lord and you have a dialogue with anyone, if you're just gonna keep talking over each other, you're not really listening. Because all you want to do is get out and vent what's in your heart. But nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that many of you here, you can reflect on your lives and you can testify how God has always been with you. He's always been reaching out to you and your past circumstances and your experiences. Everyone should be able to have that testimony. If you can look back and realize how merciful God has been to you, you'd realize I was never alone. I felt alone, but I was never alone. But you felt alone because you were too distracted to recognize God is with me. Through that tragedy, through that turmoil, through that loss, through that pain, God was with me.

Hearing Forms Faith Like Language

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 10:46

So I come to the point, I believe, of today's message is that I believe that hearing and discerning the Lord's voice is the most important part of our walk with God. Coupled with that study part, but hopefully we can we can merge those two ideas together. Now, when you consider that the birth of this baby has been in the womb for nine to ten months, like that of our born-again experience, when they're birthed, that birthing experience, I want you to consider it like your born-again experience. You were born of the water, you were born of the spirit. Now that you've been born again, you can see, you can enter into the kingdom of God. So I want you to think of it like that. My wife teaches Spanish. And there's in Spanish, like in many other subjects, I'm sure if there's other teachers here, there's always this pendulum swing of how to teach a particular subject, a particular curriculum. You know, for me in special ed, when I was in college, it was about do we include all of the special ed students with the regular ed students? And then before that, it was no, we have to separate them because we have to meet their needs better and all this stuff. It's a constant uh a pendulum swing. Well, in Spanish, because she teaches a foreign language, there's this pendulum swing. The pendulum swing is uh we have to teach grammar, we have to teach reading, we have to teach writing, but the pendulum on the other side says, no, we need to immerse them into the hearing of it. You can battle back and forth all you want, but I would say consider as you grew up and you were birthed, yeah, your eyes were starting to see, and after six months, you could probably see a little bit beyond six feet, uh, it says. Uh, but your your nose and your taste and all of those things, but hearing was always there. And how does a child learn language? Do they learn by reading? Do you first teach them how to read? Do you first teach them how to write? No. What's the first thing you teach them? How to hear. And what is it that I'm speaking to you and what it means? Well, that I feel that's the same way with our walk with God. Yes, we need to get into the word. Yes, we need to read. Yes, we need to study, but we really need to develop a heart that desires to hear him every day, all day. Not just for the great big things, because we always run to God. Oh, God, we got this great big issue that's going on in our house or in our family or in our workplace. I really need you, I really need to hear you. No, we need to hear him on the big and the small. When I first met my wife uh before we got married, she would describe to me how she would uh wake up every morning and she would be struggling just to get into, you know, get out of bed, and then she would be asking the Lord for like every little thing. Like, what do I wear today? What do I, what shoes do I wear? What and I was like, and I when I heard that, I was like, what? I I that that just wasn't me. But when we develop our hearing with the Lord, we don't go straight to the big things. We have to start little, a little here, a little there. And we've got to to learn to hear him, not just for the big things, but for the small things. Small things that we may not think are are important because it says in the scriptures in Romans 10, 17, faith cometh by what? Hearing. And hearing by the word of God. So it's more specific. It's not just that you hear, but what is it that you're hearing? You got to be hearing the word of God. And so there's another scripture that's talking about, so it's not about the reading, it's not about the speaking, it's not about the writing, it's but by hearing, hearing the word of God. There's another scripture in Revelation that says, and his name shall be called what? The word of God. So I translated, and it's like, oh, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the voice of Jesus. I've got to hear the voice of Jesus. So one of the most important skills that I need, I believe that we need to put in the forefront of our mind is that we must develop this skill, being children of God, of hearing the voice of our Father. We need to be able to hear the voice of our Father. In John 10: 27, do you know what Jesus said? My sheep hear my voice. But he didn't stop there. Anyone know what the next section is? My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. That's what the sheep of our Lord does. They hear and follow. Faith is not just simply a mental ascent to an agreement that something is true. Biblical faith, I think I said this last time, biblical faith is you hearing God and obeying. You follow him with whatever he said. I don't mean this to apply to Pastor Joe, because I know he went to Indiana Bible College. I

When Study Replaces Listening

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 16:37

think he got some sort of degree there. Right? Okay, he got some sort of degree there. So I say this, not that it applies to him, but I say this because I've known one, too many ministers that have gone to seminary school, and they come out believing less in the Lord and in his word than when they registered to go to that school. Though they may have studied hours upon hours and spent semester after semester studying classes, they know more reasons that make others doubt the validity and the veracity of God's word. They know more about social justice causes, they know more about how to do violence to the word. That's in the scriptures, violence to the word. And that means by manipulating it to tickle and scratch the itching ears of their listeners. They haven't been hearing the voice of the Lord. I can tell by their fruit, I can tell by the hiss of the serpent in their doctrine. Because they're preaching another gospel after coming out of seminary school. They're preaching about another Jesus after coming out of seminary school. They're preaching another spirit after they get their what are the letters? THD? Yeah. Not PhD, THD. Theological, I don't know what that means, honestly. Jesus warned us about this in 2 Timothy through Paul. He wrote to Timothy and he said, The time is gonna come where they will not endure sound doctrine. But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. In other words, they're gonna be listening to the teachers that scratch their ears and make them feel good. You know, like a dog loves to get scratched behind the ears and then they get all cuddly with you as you're scratching them in the earth. Well, that's how some people are in regards to spiritual matters. They're just looking for that person that's gonna just scratch the itch that they have, and sometimes the itch they have is some sort of soapbox. We've seen it all in the past year with all of these social justice causes that have become more grand than the word of God itself. And then they're gonna turn their ears away from the truth and they're gonna turn aside to fables. So Jesus said it like this in Matthew Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he's won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. So I don't know about you, but I realize that they have gone to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They have gone to a place that has taught them supposedly right and wrong, good and evil. But I tell you this, I haven't seen anyone, anyone that has been saved by going to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I've only seen man fall by going to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because the only other tree to eat that's gonna give you the eternal life you so desire is the tree of life. And the tree of life is not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were two distinct, different trees. So we need to take heed to what we hear. Now, there's many examples of God talking to man and man talking to God. And have

God's Conversations In The Old Testament

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 20:31

you ever considered, have you ever noticed that of all the many testimonies and the many conversations that have taken place between God and those that have heard the Lord, that they weren't one-word exchanges, they were dialogues, they were communications and exchanges. And I'm only gonna give you examples of people that have not been born again in the new covenant. Just go back to the old covenant. I'm just gonna bring up old covenant examples. Adam walked with God in the garden. They had conversations. God told them what I want you to do, and I want you to do this, and I want you to do that. He gave them responsibility in the garden. Go back over and see, just look at the conversations that he has had and look at how there's an exchange, there's a back and forth. How about Cain who killed Abel? He had a conversation back and forth with Cain who killed Abel, or Noah, or Abra Abraham. Abraham, he's got a he's got a multitude of examples of actually talking with the Lord back and forth, back and forth. But the one I remember the most is when uh God came with two others, and it looked like three men, and Abraham just starts having a conversation with God, and Abraham begins to try to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's a back and forth conversation. It wasn't just like one word, it was a conversation. We can talk with God and have a conversation. What I'm sharing with you is a conversation that I had with the Lord in my heart. And I'm just sharing it with you. And it doesn't, it might not look like the conversations that you have with your wife or with your daughter or with your husband or with your children or with your friends. Because the relationship that you have with the Lord is not flesh to spirit. It's not flesh to spirit. It's deep calleth unto deep. It's spirit to spirit. Rebecca. Rebecca was, remember when Rebecca was about to have her babies, her twin babies? She was prophesied to. She was spoken to by the Lord and told specifically about her own children. And it wasn't just a one-word thing. It was a hey, you had to read a couple verses to see what God was saying to her. And Jacob, Jacob had the gall. Jacob was a conniver. He was a deceiver. But even after all of his deception and trying to get the blessing, which you got, and trying to get this and that, and he was always, you know, he was just a deceiver. After all of that, do you know he had the gall one evening to wrestle with the Lord all night and say, I'm not gonna let you go, let me go, I'm not gonna let you go, let me go, I'm not gonna let you go until you bless me. That's an exchange. That's that's a dialogue that is happening even in the midst of wrestling. Anybody ever wrestle with the Lord over something that's going on in your life? It's not a physical thing, it's a spiritual thing. It's a it's something that's going on in your heart between him and between you, and he wants to conform you, and you're here wrestling and wrestling and regularly. No, no, I don't want to do that. And and but it's real. I've been saying to my kids you know recently, hey, the struggle is real, is real. I wasn't talking about the relationship with the Lord, but it's appropriate right now. Moses, Moses talked to a burning bush, it was God, and he was having a dialogue conversation. Back, read it, reread it. It wasn't just a one-word answer. Uh Moses, go back to Egypt. No, it was a lot more than that. And Moses had the gall to say, No, I think you got the wrong person. Uh, no, I didn't, and then I'm gonna tell you why. Uh I still think you got the and it's a back and forth, back and forth. And it's not only that, he was on the mountain, and he was hearing from the Lord and conversing with the Lord about the Ten Commandments, and then you hear him talk about, oh, yeah, and the people, yeah, they just built a calf. We gotta go deal. It's an exchange. Have you ever considered that all of these exchanges that unborn again people have had? Joshua, Gideon, Lord, I need a fleece. You you you you gotta show me that this is actually you. I need a fleece, and and and and and he tested the Lord. And Gideon and Samuel and David, and then you got the prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Hosea and Amos and Zachariah. I ask you or I challenge you, go back and just focus on the conversations that God has had with his people who were not even born again, who did not even have his spirit living in them. And consider can I have that relationship with him now? Can I have that type of talk with him, that kind of exchange with him? I mean, it's rich in communication. And my my thought as I'm as I'm receiving this and talking with the Lord about it, is if we have the Spirit of the Lord residing in us and we live in a new and a better covenant, then why don't I? Or why don't we have that kind of conversations with him? If the old covenant will wrestle with him in conversation, can I have those conversations with him? Yeah. Now

Four Practices To Hear And Obey

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 26:40

I want you to think about the next four points. If you're taking notes, these would be my four points at the end that that bit, you know, that uh Pastor Joe gives us every time he gives us a teaching. In order to hear him, you must deliberately decide to be a lover of God's word. And I I don't I do not mean the black and white pages of your Bible. You have to fall, not not fall in love. I don't want to make this little romantic thing, but you have to be a lover. You have to have this intense, innate desire in your spirit, in your heart to want to hear the voice of the Lord. I get that from Psalms 119. If you're taking notes and you want to see what why would I make such a statement? It says, Oh, how I love thy law. It is my meditation all my day. You see, whenever it says, I love your law or I love your word, think about I love the things that you're saying. Just just make it more plain. Oh, how I love the things that you're saying. Oh, how I love your words. I meditate on your words all the day. When it says commandments, just put his word. That though my that through thy commandments has made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for they are my testimonies, they are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, more than the elders, because why? Because I keep thy precepts. You see, that other part has to be there. It's not a simply, oh, I heard the Lord, and you're just so proud, and you want to have a chip on your shoulder that you heard the Lord. It has to be followed by your obedience. I have heard because I keep thy precepts. You see, there's an active part on your this is how you have an exchange. This is how you have this dialogue that I'm describing. God says something, he's not just there for you to say, Oh, I heard you. No. I hear and I obey. And then I walk in your word, I walk in your commandments, I walk in your precepts. I have not refrained, I have, excuse me, I have refrained my feet from every evil way. So he's gonna direct you and he's gonna guide you, and he's gonna show you. No, this is not what you should be doing. No, this is not what you should be doing. Oh, yes, this is you should be doing it. And I'm gonna lead you and guide you in all those ways. And it says that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments, for thou hast what? Taught me. You have to want to be taught. And so, some some many of us, maybe not all of us, but there are certain times in our life that I think all of us have experienced a season where I don't want to listen. I don't I don't want to do that. We get that adolescent stage. I know better. I don't need to do it that way. I could do it this way. But that's not the heart we need to have with God. We need to have a heart that is deliberately deciding I'm gonna love whatever it is that you say, and I'm gonna do it. Even though it may hurt, even though it may be hard, even though I may feel ashamed or embarrassed, I'm gonna do it. And my my desire is how sweet are thy words unto my taste. Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth, though thy pre through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. This is this is what needs to be in our heart. This is the attitude that we need to have in regards to hearing him and then desiring to walk in the ways that he is teaching us. And I I hope that others of you can testify like I can, that there have been ways uh that I was taught I was raised in a certain way in different things, and when I came fully into the Lord, meaning fully into covenant through the blood, the water, and the spirit, um there were some things that I had not experienced in it as I was raised and growing up that I had to change. I can't just continue walking in ways that I was raised in when those ways, when I realized through the Lord's teaching that that wasn't right. You know, I'll just give you one quick example. My father never laid a hand on me. I never, ever got disciplined. My mother did once. Once. But other than that, I was a very, I was a child that was just really never disciplined. And I would think back that, yeah, I could have used some discipline. It might have helped me in other areas later on in life, but I was just one of those kids that was raised without discipline, whether it was Dr. Spock from 70s or something, I don't know. But that's just me. Number two, there must be a willingness to be taught, to learn through obedience. Isaiah 54 through 7 said, The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned. This is a prophecy through Isaiah, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth, listen to this, mine ear to hear is the learned. Anybody here ever feel like they're struggling to hear the Lord? Anybody here when you struggle with the Lord, did you ever ask the Lord, hey, waken my ear to hear you? I want to be taught, I want to learn from you. But see, you gotta have that heart. Because some people might say it on the outside, but deep down inside they're mumbling, I don't want to do that. And that's why you don't hear Him very well. Because you're not following in what he's already told you that you already know this is what he desires. So your growth, your maturity in your hearing the Lord is gonna be proportional to your obedience when he does speak to you. Because no one becomes a teacher right off the bat, no one becomes a CEO right off the bat, no one becomes the top dog, if you will, right off the bat. You need to grow and you need to mature and you need to develop into it. But when we're talking about a relationship with God, when he speaks, if we want to mature, then we obey. We stay immature when we hear him and then we don't do what he says. It keeps us milk Christians. You want to move to the meat? Yeah, you start with the milk. All babies naturally start with the milk. You don't feed them the vegetables, you don't feed them all the sweet stuff, you don't feed them all the meat, you don't feed them all the breads. They're drinking milk. And they're taking it in, and then they're developing, and then you change their diet as they're you know, as the teeth start growing in, and then they're starting able to chew. And that that's our faith walk. But so that we understand how do we develop, how do we mature, is when we hear the Lord, we need to obey. So awaken my ear to hear you. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. And then it says, I gave my back to the smiters, I gave my cheeks to them that plucked off my hair. Who's speaking here? Oh, that's the Spirit of Christ. Jesus said that of himself. Let me let me repeat that again. Jesus was prophesying through Isaiah, saying, God hath given me the tongue of the learned, he wakens my ear to hear as the learned, and when he opens my ear, I was not rebellious, and neither did I turn away back. So he was obedient, and as we know, obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. So it says, I hid not my face from shame and spitting, for the Lord God will help me, therefore I shall not be confounded. Therefore I have set my face like a flint. I'm not gonna be moved, I'm not gonna be shaken. If the Lord says to go this way, that's where I'm going. My desire is whatever the Lord says, what that's what I'm gonna do, that's what I'm gonna do. Whatever he says, I'm gonna say. Whatever he does, I'm gonna do. That's what Jesus said. Jesus said, Whatever I hear the Father say, that I say. Whatever I see the Father do, that I do. That's how we grow in our relationship with the Lord. But it starts with the hearing. It's so hard to obey when you can't hear what it is that you need to obey. So I set my face like a flint. I'm gonna hear you, and when I hear you, my desire and my heart is I'm gonna do your will. Even though it may be hard, even though I may struggle through it, even though I may be embarrassed about it, I'm gonna do it. Hey, we stumble. We stumble. But hey, Paul, you ever read Romans chapter six, seven, and eight, mainly chapter seven? Paul was Paul was struggling, but he said, deep down in my heart, I desire to do his will. My flesh may not, that's another story, but I'm not my flesh. I I don't know if you all know that, but you're you're not your flesh. He breathed into you a spirit. That spirit is your heart. That is who you are. This flesh is just a manifestation of who you are, but it's not you. So, yeah, you may stumble, you may fall, you may lied, you may fibbed, you may have taken something that wasn't yours, you may have done all of these things in your life, even sometimes after you were born again, because of fear, because of whatever. If deep down in your heart you desire to please the Lord, then what does it say in 1 John 1? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So I'm not, like that song, I'm not under guilt, I'm not under shame. Jesus said in John 8 28, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself, but as my father hath taught me, I speak these things. He is a living example, an epitome of how we need to be with our Father. When he speaks, we listen and we do as he says. Number three, there must be a readiness to hear first. There's a scripture that says, be swift to hear, slow to speak. You see, we we gotta have this idea that I'm not gonna go so that I can speak and vent my heart. I'm gonna go to listen first. You need to be a very few words. I'm not making that up. I'm gonna read it to you. Ecclesiastes 5, 1 and 2. I want you to consider these words. It says, Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God. He's saying, When you come to the house of the God, listen to this. Keep thy foot and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools. In other words, blab in your mouth about all the things that you want to talk about with him. When you come into the presence of the Lord, there should be reverence, there should be awe, and there should be zipping silence. Listen for my voice. Because if Jesus is the answer, what can I say to him that he doesn't already know? Why do I have to go blab about all the things that I'm going through? Not to say that there's not a time for that, but when you come into the presence of the Lord in prayer, zip it and be ready to listen first. That's hard. I'm not saying that's easy, that's hard. But that's a part of your growth, that's a part of your maturation, that's a part of your development. You learn to yield to the Spirit of God, you learn to surrender your natural inclinations to fall in line with his will and his word. So be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not nine heart be hasty to hudder anything before God. It's all right there. I'm not making this up. God is in heaven and you are on the earth. Therefore, let thy words be few. I want you to consider these scriptures. How are they applying to me? Am I letting them be applied to me? Do I need to make a little bit of modifications, a little bit of tweaking? We all do. We all do. We don't have all the knowledge and the revelation right up front. We learn as we go. This is as much applicable to me as it is to all of you. He says in James 1.8, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. That's the order. Swift to hear, quick to hear, sprint to hear. But everything else, slow down, slow down, pump the brakes. You don't need to talk so much. He already knows. And number four, you must have the readiness in you to mix faith with the word of God. How? How do you mix faith with the word of God? Through compliance, through obedience. There has to be a willingness in your heart that when he speaks, I am ready to do. It says in Galatians 3, 2 and 5, the only would I learn of you. Received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, that worketh miracles among you, doeth it be by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? If you know anything about Galatians, they kept wanting to go back to the to the to the law and because they were being pressured by by the Jews that they had to go get to circumcised and they had to go do this and they had to go do that and they couldn't touch this and they couldn't touch that. And and Paul was like, hey, when you were born again, when you were saved, was it because you were walking in the works of the law or because you heard the word of faith and then you believed? And I don't just mean simply believed, I mean you did something with that. You obeyed the gospel. That's how you got saved. It wasn't because we were teaching you, hey, you got to abide in the works of the law. And then I want you to also consider Hebrews 4 2. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them. Anybody know why? Anybody remember? It says, not being mixed with faith in them that hurt it. The gospel is going out. Why doesn't it affect everyone? Why doesn't it change everyone? Because some people are not mixing their faith with that word. That's why. It's not God's fault. God hasn't failed. God is making a covenant with people in the earth. They have to come into agreement with the covenant. He's made all of these promises. These promises are not for everyone, they're for everyone who will mix their faith with his word, and then you can appropriate the promises of God for yourself. Ah, the infamous music. The cue. The cue. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it. So I'll leave you with one last testimony.

Samuel Learns To Discern God's Call

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 43:41

I tell this to my kids because they need to understand that you can serve the Lord and not have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit yet. You can serve the Lord and you hadn't even heard from the Lord yourself. There was a young man that was dedicated to the house of God, to the high priest. Anybody know his name? Samuel. Very good. Jim Money's on the mic. Samuel was dedicated to the house of the Lord at a very young age after he finished suckling. And he served in the house of the Lord. He never heard the word of the Lord for himself, but he learned all the things that were needed in the house of the Lord. And Eli the high priest was there. And he ministered. It says, the Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. He was learning to how to serve the Lord, and he hadn't heard the word of God for himself. And in those days, hearing the word of the Lord was a very, very precious thing, it says, but there was no open vision. It wasn't like everybody was getting, it was hard. It was a time that from successive generations, the fall just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and there was a lot less people hearing the word of the Lord because there were lots and lots and lots more rebellion. But Eli's eyes began to wax dim and he couldn't see. And one night, Samuel was it wasn't two or three, he was he was a little older in age, maybe adolescent. One night the Lord called Samuel for the first time. Samuel had never heard the voice of the Lord before. And what did he do? He said, Here am I, he got up and he ran over to Eli. He hadn't learned to discern the voice of the Lord, he he didn't recognize it. Didn't see a voice, didn't know. So he ran to Eli. And Eli said, No, no, I didn't call you. Go back to bed. Go back and lie down. And the Lord called again. Samuel said his name, Samuel. And he says, Here am I. And he runs down to Eli again. He says, No, no, I didn't call you. I didn't, I didn't call you. Go back to bed. It says, Samuel did not know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. So the word of the Lord needs to be revealed unto us. But if we're born again of the water and of the spirit, hey, it already has. This obstacle, this barrier is no longer there. But I love this passage because it speaks so much about how when we were not yet born again, God was speaking to us. God was reaching out to us. And he had to come to the high priest to learn hey, if you hear that voice again, if you hear that voice again, say, speak, for thy servant heareth. And the Lord called him, just like he did the other time, Samuel. Samuel. And Samuel answered, speak for thy servant heareth. So what did he do? He obeyed the man of God to be able to discern, oh, that's the Lord. And then the Lord started speaking to Samuel about Eli and his family. And it wasn't pretty. When he shared that vision that he received with Eli, even though it was against Eli, his house, his children, it was a bad thing that was about to happen, but the Lord said it was going to happen. Eli said, Okay, so be it. And from that day forward it says, And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. You know what that means? That means that he heard the Lord, and when the Lord spoke, he didn't just treat it like a vain thing and just let it fall to the earth. No, he did something with it. He obeyed. And that's how he grew. That's how he learned to discern the voice of the Lord better and better. And it says, all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. Your reputation is gonna grow. Your reputation, not that that's our goal, that's our objective. It's not, I'm not saying that. But what happens is when you start believing God's word and you start obeying God's word, something happens in you that your reputation precedes you, and everybody seems to know that's a prophet of the Lord, that's a child of God, that is someone who loves the Lord.

Balance Word Study With Hearing

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 48:50

The Spirit, meaning the Word, and the written word, are always in agreement when it's rightly divided and when it's accurately understood. There always seems to be some contradictions between something you may have heard and something in the word, and it's because it's not accurately understood or the word is not being rightly divided. And so there's always that, uh I don't did I hear the Lord? I'm not sure if I heard that, and there's this right, hey, that's okay. That's a part of your growth, that's a part of your development. All throughout your school years, you didn't write really great with your penmanship and your cursive, you had to work at it, you had to develop it, and it's the same thing with our faith walk in him. It is important to be balanced in the knowledge of the word as you develop a discerning ear for the voice of the Lord. So when we're studying the word, when we're digging deep, just doing that is helping to develop and attune our spirits to the voice of the Lord. Well we begin to recognize him more easily than we ever did before. But I gotta tell you, you remember all those Old Testament testimonies and names that I gave you? Did any one of them have the written word of God? No. Adam? Noah? Abraham. None of them had the written word of God, yet they had a healthy communication with the Lord. Being ignorant of the word makes it difficult for us to validate what you heard. But listening to too many voices makes it difficult to validate what you're reading. So you have to be balanced. You have to understand, you have to do your part. Dig deep. Study, study, study his word. Not read, study his word. But consider those scriptures that I gave you and be quick to listen first before you start speaking and blabbing and doing all these things. That's how you're gonna develop your hearing. It's just as important to study the word as it is to hear the word of the Lord. And I'm gonna just leave with this. A lot

Rapture Debates Vs Daily Listening

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 51:18

of people have different ideas of the rapture. You go to a pre-trib seminary place, you're guaranteed to come out believing in the pre-trib. You go to a mid-trib seminary place, you're gonna graduate believing in the mid-trib. You go to a post-trib seminary place, you're gonna come out believing in the post-trib. You go to a partial preterist doctrination thing, you're gonna come out a partial preterist. I know you probably don't even know what that means, that's okay. There's another one that's a preterist. They believe that all the prophecies are fulfilled and all that stuff. You're gonna come out a preterist. I'm not here to quibble with you on which one is right and which one is wrong. I could if I wanted to, but I I I think it I think the most important thing is that no matter whether it's the pre-trib, the mid-trib, the post-trib, the partial preters, or the preterist, what's the most important thing? That you're hearing the voice of the Lord. Because if it's the post-trib and you've got to go through the seven years and all the hell's breaking loose on earth, you better be hearing the Lord. If it's the mid-trib and you gotta go through three and a half years of it, you better be hearing the Lord. You want to get through it? You better be hearing the Lord. Pre-trib, oh well, that's well, you don't have to suffer anything. Okay, so you probably know where I'm going. Uh, all your life before the pre-trib, are you hearing the Lord? Because that's what you need to be doing. All the while, no matter what's happening in this life, we all need to be hearing the Lord. Amen. All right.

Closing Support And Share The Show

j - Jesus M. Ruiz 52:52

If you were blessed and appreciate listening to this podcast and you would like to support us in our efforts, consider lifting us up in prayer first. Then remember these four social media buzzwords. Share, like, subscribe, or follow. Share this podcast link with someone else by text, email, or word of mouth in the hopes that they might be uplifted as you were. Like by leaving a positive rating or review with whomever you listen to our podcast with. Subscribe to support the show monetarily with the link in our podcast description. Follow us on all our social media platforms. May God bless you and make you prosper to him as you listen and obey his voice.