December 2001

THE KINGDOM OF GOD COMES TO EARTH
Paul & Emily Meuller

Part Four     April 2001

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To be able to hear our Lord's voice is, I believe, the highest privilege ever afforded to any man. It is a high and holy privilege learned through sometimes difficult but necessary experiences in this life. Very often through the years, I heard a voice speaking within me and directing me as I ran an errand. For example, there were times when that inner voice would tell me not to leave home without taking a part that I needed to replace. The voice was so still and quiet within that my carnal mind overruled that voice and I went on my way to run that errand. When I arrived at the destination, I often discovered that the voice I heard was the correct voice - it was His Voice - and I would have saved myself another trip if I had listened to Him. But I did not know it was His Voice until the experience was over. In this way we have often learned to hear the Voice of our Beloved. I have had many such experiences, and I am sure you have also. Through those minuscule and insignificant but necessary experiences, we learned to hear and obey the Voice of our Beloved.

I am sure I told this experience before, but it merits repeating here. While ministering to thousands in Nigeria over forty years ago, the Lord spoke a word within me, informing me to tell the lame to get up and walk in Jesus' Name. Since I had been trained to hear His still, small Voice, I recognized it as His Voice, and did what He told me to do, When I told the lame and the halt to get up and walk in Jesus Name, they got up and walked as if they had never been lame. The thousands of people present began to shout and praise the Lord when they saw the lame walking without the cane or walking stick they brought with them when they came to that meeting. Hundreds of Nigerians accepted Christ as their Savior because I obeyed that still. small Voice within.

Multitudes were healed, delivered and saved during those meetin2s. But just as important for me. for the kingdom of God, and for the whole creation, were those experiences of hearing, knowing and obeying His voice. Every experience we have had of a similar nature, which taught us to hear, know, and obey the Voice of our Lord, no matter how insignificant those experiences were, was a necessary part of our training unto sonship. It is that same Voice that will speak to our Innermost being when we have reached the top of the mountain of His presence and glory. That Voice will call to the Spirit within us, changing us into His image and likeness, and releasing the whole creation from its bondage to sin and death. This will result in a much greater deliverance than anything we have witnessed in the past, for this is the Day of one-hundred-fold fruitfulness in the kingdom of God.

What a wonderful and glorious Word this is for all the elec:"The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice, and I know them and they follow Me, And I give them eternal life, and they shall never lose it or perish throughout the ages - to all eternity they shall never by any means be destroyed. These three things are vital and necessary in our relationship with our Fathers hearing, listening, and following Him. The sheep that are His own, who are the elect and chosen sons of God, hear and are listening to His voice. The wording of this passage tells us that the Lord is always speaking, for His own "are listening (continually) to My (His) voice." The most important thing any of us can do now is to hear, listen to and obey His voice. Most Christians serve and worship the Lord by busily praying, witnessing, or speaking. Rarely will they remain quiet long enough to hear and listen to their Lord. But that is not true of the elect! They hear their Father speak, they listen to Him, and they also follow Him. They know this is the only way they shall be transformed, to become fully matured and perfected, manifest sons of God.

We hear and listen to His Voice and we also follow Him as He leads us. In hearing, listening, and following the Lord, we are being changed to receive eternal life, or the abundant Life of Christ for the eternal future. "And they shall never lose it or perish throughout the ages to all eternity they shall never by any means he destroyed. Amen and amen! Furthermore "no one is aible to snatch them out of My Hand." We are safe and secure in the hands of our loving, merciful and caring Father! He will complete the work He has already begun in us, for His glory! And nothing or no one, whether human or spirit, shall ever take us out of His caring, masterful and creative hand!