TRAINING US TO HEAR GOD

This blog is a chapter from a manuscript I wrote in the early 1990s on “Divine Discipline: God’s Training Ground for Spiritual Growth and Maturity” which covers the divine disciplines of Divine Darkness, Divine Delay, Divine Differences, Divine Difficulty, Divine Disappointment, Divine Disturbance, and Divine Drudgery.

Chapter Two

Divine Darkness
“Training Us To Hear God”

“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1).

Job was a man who was blameless, upright, God-fearing, and an avoider of evil. He had a high, moral character, and he lived what he professed. He was a man of integrity, fairness, and loyalty. Job had a holy, reverent respect for God. He avoided evil, and he deliberately turned from it when confronted by it. Job wanted no part of anything that was against God.

The Bible says that Job was the greatest of all the people of the East (Job 1:3). He had a wealth of possessions and property. He had seven sons and three daughters (v. 2). His concern for their spiritual welfare was so great that he would often rise early in the morning to intercede before God in their behalf (v. 5). Their family enjoyed being together (v. 4). Job was blessed with fame, fortune, a fine family, and a fervent faith in God.

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, ‘From where do you come?’So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.’ Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?’ So Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!’ And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD” (Job 1:6-12).

Job had it all! Yet in one day, he lost it all. The first chapter of Job records that in one day all of Job’s oxen, donkeys, sheep, and camels were either destroyed or stolen. According to the text, it appeared that all but four of his servants were killed. As his sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s house, a great wind caused it to fall in, and all of Job’s children were crushed to death. Those tragedies occurred because God allowed them to happen. It was not because of wrongdoing on the part of Job. His simple response to this first set of tragic circumstances was, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).

It got even worse for Job. At a later time, the Lord called again the life of Job to the attention of Satan. This second time that God asked Satan to consider the life of Job, He said of His faithful servant, “Still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause” (2:3). But this time, Satan said that if Job’s body was afflicted, he would surely curse God (2:5).

“And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:6-7).

From Job 2:8-37:24, the Bible gives the account of a season of time during which Job experienced the divine discipline of divine darkness. The story of Job had a happy ending, but before the last chapter was written, Job had come to the end of himself. He never cursed God, but he cursed the day of his birth. Job got so low in his life that he exclaimed, “Why did I not die at birth?” (Job 3:11).

The Divine Discipline Of Darkness

Job has been used as an example to introduce the divine discipline of darkness. Job used the word, darkness, to describe the “adversity” (Job 2:10) God had sent upon him:

“He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass; and He has set darkness in my paths” (Job 19:8).

“Because I was not cut off from the presence of darkness, and He did not hide deep darkness from my face” (Job 23:17).

“But when I looked for good, evil came to me; and when I waited for light, then came darkness” (Job 30:26).

Several words from the Hebrew and Greek are translated into English as darkness. The meaning can either be literal or figurative. Context determines whether its usage is for physical darkness or spiritual darkness.

Two different Hebrew words are used in Job for darkness. Both of these words appear in Job 23:17. The first use in the verse is the word, chosek. Literally, it means a state that is the opposite of light. Figuratively, it means distress, blindness, or judgment. The second word translated darkness is ophel. Literally, it refers to a deep darkness, which is so dark, that you cannot see anything. Figuratively, it means spiritual darkness as a result of a calamity. The figurative meaning applies for both words in Job 23:17, but the literal sense of the words helps to bring out the spiritual picture Job was trying to make. Job has implied in this verse that he was not spared from adversity coming upon him and that God did not protect him from the calamities which resulted in his state of spiritual darkness.

Other Biblical Examples of Divine Darkness

Although Job will be the main example of divine darkness, other biblical examples give an insight into the divine discipline of darkness. Jeremiah, the “weeping prophet,” was one whom God used to speak an unpopular message of judgment and doom. Jeremiah experienced divine darkness in his life. He said about God, “He has led me and made me walk in darkness and not in light” (Lam. 3:2). This was the one to whom God had said, “For you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you” (Jer. 1:7-8).Isaiah made a reference that is applicable to the divine discipline of divine darkness: “Who among you fears the LORD? Who obeys the voice of His Servant? Who walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely upon his God” (Isa. 50:10).

In 2 Samuel 22:29-32, David proclaimed, “For You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD shall enlighten my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop; by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” This Scripture passage contains the words of
a song that David wrote after “the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul” (2 Sam. 22:1). David was the one described by God as “a man after my own heart, who will do all my will” (Acts 13:22; also 1 Sam. 13:14). Now he was not without faults and failures in his life, even being guilty of adultery and part of a murder plot, but the divine darkness that David experienced, was not punishment for sin, it was divine discipline to mold David into a man after God’s own heart who would do all his will.

The prophet Micah knew about divine darkness when he wrote, “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8).

Divine Darkness Trains Us To Hear God

God may put you in a state of spiritual darkness. When God has placed divine darkness upon you, you know it. You know God is there, and you can even be calling upon God daily, spending a great amount of time doing so, but you just cannot seem to find His will or direction concerning various matters of your life. God has His purposes for sending divine darkness, but it is a tough discipline to endure. It takes a mature Christian to be exercised by it because a weaker Christian might become so discouraged in it that he may waver in his faith or be tossed to and fro so that he would miss the reason for the divine darkness.

Among the reasons why God sends divine darkness is that He uses it to train us to hear Him. We live in a day when we are bombarded from all sides by well-intentioned individuals with sincere advice as to how we should respond to decisions facing us. But the voice we must hear above all others regarding the issues of life is the voice of God. We are often put into the “shadow of God’s hand,” as Oswald Chambers described it, until we learn to hear Him above all else and all others.

When we have decisions to make, whether they are major ones or minor ones, God wants to lead us to make the right choice. Human nature leads us to make the common sense decision. That is where most of our advice from others will lead us. But so often, God’s direction for a particular matter will lead us to do what is contrary to our human logic. It is often the opposite of what would seem the normal thing to do. The Bible says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding” (Prov. 3:5). God wants us to lean on His understanding. That is why we are to know His voice. It is so that we will follow Him (John 10:4), and that we will not be directed incorrectly by the voice of a stranger (John 10:5). To follow the wrong advice is to follow the voice of a stranger.

From the life of Job, we learn three results God desires in our lives as He uses divine darkness to train us to hear Him. We are to: seek God’s voice above all others; stay upon God until you hear His voice; and speak God’s message in the light.

Seek God’s Voice Above All Others

If divine darkness comes upon you, seek God’s voice above all others. Divine darkness is the time to listen to God’s voice alone. One reason why God may put you in the dark is because too many voices have been influencing you, and you are having a hard time distinguishing the voice of God from others. As a result, you may be about to make a wrong move, or you may have already gotten started in the wrong direction. So God places you in divine darkness so that you will seek His voice above all others.

When you find yourself in the spiritual dark, you need to be still. It is a time to think back to where you believe God put you into darkness. Review the decisions you were facing at the time. If you are not definitely sure that you acted according to the will of God, then halt as much as possible in the situation and circumstances you are in right now. When all the adversity came upon Job, he halted everything. He sat for seven days and seven nights, not saying a word to anybody, and no one spoke a word to him (Job 2:13). It was a great time of grief for Job, but surely, as he sat still and silent, he reviewed every decision of his life that he could remember.

As you review decisions and realize that you made some poor decisions, then reverse those decisions as God permits, as it is appropriate, and in an ethical manner. Several years ago, a pastor left a strong, solid church he had pastored for several years to accept the pastorate of what was then a larger, more well-known church in another state. After a few weeks on the new church field, he felt that he had missed the will of God in moving to that church. He was completely honest about it with the members of that church, and in a spirit of understanding they accepted his resignation. His former church asked him if he would come back as their pastor. He did, and since then, his church has flourished, grown, and received notoriety for its ministries.

Sometimes, though, decisions cannot be reversed immediately. For instance, a student may enter a college and later realize he needs to be at another school that would better fit him for continuing his education. But he would be better off finishing a semester of school, without loss of course credits and tuition, before transferring to the college where he really needs to be.

Then there are decisions that are irreversible once they have been made. For example, you should not reverse a decision if you have to violate a Scriptural truth or principle. God will never call us to disobey His Word to obey His will. In such a case, when a decision cannot be changed, ask God to help you live so that you can serve Him, even though you missed His will regarding that decision. Make a fresh commitment to live within His will from that point on in your life.

When you are in divine darkness, you not only need to be still in seeking God’s voice above all others, but you need to be silent as much as possible about your situation. If you talk very much in the dark, especially about why you may be in it, you normally will talk in the wrong mood, in a spirit of anger, bitterness, confusion, fear, frustration, or worry. For seven days and seven nights, Job was silent (Job 2:13), when divine darkness came sweeping over his life. The Bible says that in all the adversity which came upon Job, he did not sin with his lips (Job 2:10). His silence, early in his state of divine darkness, was a factor to his not sinning with his lips. Now the Lord did acknowledge that Job spoke some things that revealed a lack of knowledge and understanding (Job 38:1-3), but Job never denied his faith in God.

In the spiritual dark, do not seek out other people to talk to about your situation. God may send someone to you to act as a spokesman on His behalf, but do not seek them out. Let God send them to you. Do not even seek out books, other than The Book, The Bible, to find out the reason for your darkness. If you talk to other people too much about your spiritual darkness, or you look to other sources other than the Lord, you cannot clearly hear what God is trying to say to you in divine darkness. Be silent and listen.

Also consider that God can say as much in His silence as He says when He speaks. Silence can speak louder than words. When you clear out the noise and clutter of other voices, your spiritual ears can clearly hear the voice of God. And if God continues to remain silent, your spiritual mental perception will be sharper when you get away from the clutter of other voices. God will not necessarily need to speak to you because you will be able to perceive where you got off course of His will. Seek God’s voice and His vision for your life above all else.

In Job’s period of divine darkness, he had some well-intentioned friends, who came to be with him during his suffering. They all offered their opinion as to why God had put divine darkness upon Job. But none of those four men said what God wanted Job to hear. The four men were sincere in their efforts to help their friend, Job, but they were sincerely wrong. They all had some wise things to say, especially Elihu, the last one to speak. But none completely represented God in what He wanted to say to Job (Job 42:7). Sincerity can be sincerely wrong.

When you are in divine darkness, seek God’s voice above all others. In going back to where God put you into divine darkness, if you find that you made a wrong move, then correct your situation as much as you are able by God’s direction. If you believe that you have made decisions within the will of God, then be silent, remain quiet, and listen for the voice of God.

Job got to the point where he desperately wanted to hear the voice of God:

“Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come to His seat! I would present my case before Him, And fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which He would answer me, And understand what He would say to me” (Job 23:3-5).

Job did come to an understanding of what God had to say to him, but he heard it when he listened for and to the voice of God alone.

Stay Upon God Until You Hear His Voice

In spiritual darkness, not only should you seek God’s voice above all others by being silent and still, but you also need to stay upon God until you hear His voice. The prophet Isaiah said:

“Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God” (Isa. 50:10 KJV).

The Hebrew word translated stay in the King James Version Bible of Isaiah 50:10 literally means lean or support oneself on something. This same word is translated lean in Proverbs 3:5, which says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” In Proverbs 3:5, the application of this verse is that you lean to God’s understanding by placing absolute trust and confidence in Him so that no matter how difficult a situation you may be experiencing, you will not take matters into your own hands, but you will wait on God to see you through. In divine darkness, you are not to take matters into your own hands, and you are not to trust man’s understanding with your life’s plan. How can you do that? You are to stay upon God by leaning on His Word. In the midst of divine darkness, Job said, “I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12). The means by which you lean upon the Word of God today is through the Bible. It is the only book that you really need to read when you are in divine darkness.

As you stay upon God by leaning upon His Word, look for your word from God in the Word, when you are experiencing divine discipline. As you look, listen at the same time. God has a message for you that you can only find and confirm in the Bible. Now there are other ways other than the Bible by which God speaks to us and directs us, but none of those ways will ever be in contradiction or disagreement with the Scriptures. If they are, you can be assured that you are not hearing the voice of God.

In divine darkness, you are to stay true to those divinely inspired autographs, written by God through about forty individuals over a period of fifteen hundred years, which became the Bible as we know it. You will find and hear your word from God through a verse or passage that will stir your heart and soul regarding your particular situation. Job stayed upon God by leaning upon God’s Word alone. Chapters Thirty-Eight through Forty-One record God’s Word for Job.

If you are in the spiritual dark right now, stay tuned to the frequency of divinely illuminated airwaves until you hear God speaking to you. Lean on the Word and listen for your word from God. God’s divinely illuminated airwaves have their reception from the Bible, as it is the main means by which God transmits His Word to us. The only possibility of fully understanding the ways and works of the Lord is by the Word of God and by the witness of the Holy Spirit Who illuminates the Word of God within you (see John 16:13). The Bible has many words to us, but in divine darkness look and listen for a word from the Word. Although all the words of the Bible are inspired, inerrant, and infallible (absolutely and completely reliable), there are times when a specific verse or passage of the Scriptures will stir you. Those words become the word from the Word for you in the particular condition in which you find yourself. That is the way God speaks to us today. The prophet Isaiah said of God, “Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth” (Isa. 25:1). Those “counsels of old are found in the Bible, and they are just as faithful and true for today as they have ever been. Isaiah also said of God, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You” (Isa. 26:3). Even in the spiritual dark, you can be at peace, as you stay upon God by leaning on and looking to His Word. If you are in divine darkness, stay upon God until you hear His voice. By the simple way of words, as spoken through the Holy Scriptures, and as stirred by the “still, small voice” of the Holy Spirit, that is how God will speak to you.

Speak God’s Message In The Light

When God speaks to you in the spiritual dark, it is not something you are to keep only within yourself and for yourself. God’s message to you is also a message for others that they need to hear. When you get back into the spiritual light, you must speak God’s message in the light. Jesus said, “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light” (Matt. 10:27). There are two benefits that God’s message to you in the dark will have for others: enlightenment and encouragement.

The Bible says in Psalm 18:28, “For you will light my lamp; The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.” God’s message to you in divine darkness is for your enlightenment and the enlightenment of others. Job had a greater message to share after his period of divine darkness. It was an enlightenment not only to himself, but also to others, especially Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (see Job 42:7-9). The enlightenment received from divine darkness is beneficial in two ways: unto salvation and unto sanctification.

When Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, the commission of the Lord Jesus to Paul was for him to take the gospel to all the world “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.” (Acts 26:18). Divine darkness gets you completely set apart to God, to the point, that you realize nothing in life matters more than your personal salvation from sin through Christ. Everything you have—property, possessions, prosperity, your family—can be taken from you, but not your eternal salvation (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9).

I mentioned in the first chapter that sometimes God may have to reduce you to nothing so that He becomes your everything in order that He can do anything He wants to do through you. Divine darkness so reduces you to nothing that you are so hungry to hear God that everything else fades out of view. The enlightenment received is then for your benefit. It is then that the Lord can light your lamp and enlighten your darkness. It is then that you can most effectively become the light of the world in the spiritual darkness around you. Your light begins to shine before men so that they may see your good works and many will be led to glorify your Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16). As a result, your divine darkness has enlightened others unto the salvation of their souls.

You and I are chosen to proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). As nothing matters more than your own salvation from sin, you have a desire to lead others to Christ. You become a “vessel of honor, sanctified and useful for the Master” (2 Tim. 2:21), as you desire to live a life of obedience and commitment to the Lord because you want to live before those to whom you witness a living example of what it is to be a Christian. Your enlightenment is then for the benefit of others in that they too may be saved from the darkness of sin and sanctified also to shine as lights in the moral and spiritual darkness around us. As you are already saved, divine darkness leads you to become more holy so that others may be saved and set apart as witnesses for the Lord.

When you are in divine darkness, God’s message to you is also for the encouragement of others. The Bible says that we are mutually encouraged by each other’s faith (Rom. 1:12). As other Christians, particularly, weaker Christians, see you remain committed to the Lord and to your faith while you are in divine darkness, it is an encouragement to them. It prepares them to receive divine discipline from the Lord for its intended purpose, not as punishment, but as a means of taking them from a weak faith to a strong, mature faith. The message you have received, and your remaining faithful while waiting to receive it, help to strengthen weaker Christians.

The message God gives you in the spiritual dark may also be for the purpose of encouragement in edifying, reconfirming, and directing believers to greater maturity. Your message from God is also meant to stir willing Christians who will receive it and respond to it. God has His special spokesmen in every generation who can so open the Scriptures to us that our hearts burn within us (Luke 24:32). These spokesmen make God’s wonderful counsels of old (Isa. 25:1) wonderful counsels for today. They bring fresh insights and deeper understanding into verses and passages we have heard preached upon many times before. Divine darkness is one way God gives such powerful messages to these proclaimers of the Word who stir our hearts and lives to change and who move us to higher levels of faith. Such sermons are born in the dark, still night of the soul, when all you can focus your sight on is God, and the only sounds you hear are from God. If it were not for the night, we would never know the sparkling brightness, brilliance, and beauty the light of the stars produces. It is a unique kind of light from that which we see in the daytime. It is never too bright for the eyes to gaze upon, but peaceful and pleasant to behold. There are truths, lessons, experiences, and wonders of the Christian life that would never be seen, heard, or learned if we were always in the light concerning all spiritual matters. Be thankful for those who have shared the message they have learned and heard in the spiritual dark; otherwise, you may never have known it.

Conclusion

Divine darkness trains us to hear God. This comes through seeking God’s voice above all others, staying upon God until you hear His voice, and then speaking the message God has given you to others who need to hear it in the light. Job did in divine darkness what he needed to do, and he came out of it a better and greater man. He sought God’s voice above all others. He did not heed the voice of strangers (John 10:5), in his case, some well-intentioned friends who offered plenty of advice. Job stayed upon God until he heard God’s voice. He got to the point that he desperately wanted to hear from God, so much, that he hungered for the Word of God more than food. He treasured God’s words as the most valuable thing he could receive (Job 23:12). He heard from God, and he knew it when God spoke to him.

The Book of Job begins by revealing what a great man of God Job was. The Book of Job ends with Job an even greater man of God. But he had to go through an extremely dark period to be that greater man for God. Job already knew much about God before his season of divine darkness. He knew enough about God that he had a healthy fear, reverence, and awe of the Lord. But through the divine darkness he experienced, Job really got to know God intimately:

“‘I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2-6).

Those are the words of a man who not only knew of God, about God, and who believed in God. Those are the words of a man who personally and intimately knew God, heart to heart. The divine darkness Isaiah and Jeremiah experienced factored in the powerful prophecies they proclaimed under the inspiration of God. They were men who knew God personally and intimately. Certainly the divine darkness David experienced help to influence the Book of Psalms and so many verses and passages that minister to us concerning the issues of life because every emotion we feel is in those psalms. David was a man who knew God personally and intimately, and God Himself said about David that He was a man after God’s own heart. Like Job, divine darkness was the discipline by which Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, Micah and others heard clearly the only voice that mattered, the voice of God, which they boldly proclaimed to those who needed to hear God’s message.

Through it all, God gave a message to Job that benefited Job personally, that was the salvation of Job’s friends (Job 42:7-9), and that is an encouraging and inspirational message for us today. It is a message which we can look to as we strive to endure dark and difficult times. If God should bring divine darkness upon us, may it be as spiritually profitable to us as was the divine darkness of Job.