14.09.2025 Garth Gilmour

Welcome to Kymnhavn with the Arts Podcast. We are glad that you are with us, and we hope that you will be inspired, open, outweighed, in your faith, and in your life where you are. Go for noise. It's a bit different from this perspective. I normally sit at the back over there. So, uh, and some of you don't know who I am, and you're wondering why I'm preaching. Um, yeah, you don't have to raise your hands, but that's fine. You can send a letter to Maria after the service. Um, let me just say a little bit about who I am. I'm Garth. I um, I married to Vibeco over there. She's Danish, so that makes me okay. Uh, in fact, we're very Danish because we were married in our own kitchen, born home, so, uh, you know, that really is special. Um, and, uh, we've been living here for about five years. We met, uh, 25 years ago in Jerusalem, where we both were working. And, um, uh, I am an archaeologist by trade and training. Biblical archaeologists have been working in the land of Israel, and in Cyprus, and in Turkey, digging sites, and, um, studying, uh, the Bible, mostly Old Testament sites. I specialize in the Philistines, the land of the Philistines. Among other sites, I excavated two of the capital cities of the Philistines, Echron, and Ashkelon. And, um, uh, five years ago, we decided to come and live here. After I had changed profession, and we moved to Jerusalem, uh, in 2016, uh, where I took up a position as director of a Christian ministry, come charity, come NGO-type thing, in Jerusalem, in a string to the local people in the land, both Jew and Arab. So, uh, that's who I am. Uh, and, uh, I'm very, very honored to be invited to preach to you today. Um, and, uh, yeah, we're going to be looking at slide, please. So, we had a little bit of trouble beforehand, dealing with the slides. And the machine over there is off. So, if I get this wrong, please forgive me. But we'll, we'll do the best we can. So, this is what we're going to be talking about today. We're in the middle of a series about your kingdom come. The coming of the kingdom of God. And, uh, we're going to talk about how do we hear when God speaks to us? Because this is a critical part of the kingdom. I need to check my watch, we're starting now, okay? Otherwise, I've done this before a few times and I'm not used to being restricted so by time. So, I hope to stick to my notes, but I can't guarantee anything. So, Jesus announces the coming of the kingdom of God in Mark chapter 1 and verse 14. In fact, in Mark's gospel, the very first words that Mark has Jesus say, are this, here comes the kingdom or in old fashioned English translations, the kingdom of God is at hand. It's arrived, here it is. And that's how he announces his coming. But what does that mean? How do we know that God's kingdom has come? How do we know God's kingdom has come? What's different? The coming of the kingdom implies that there is a king. I know this sounds obvious, but we don't think about it, do we? And that king is King Jesus. And it implies that we who follow Jesus are citizens of his kingdom. And this kingdom is different from any worldly kingdom. In so many ways, in this kingdom, for example, Jesus tells us that we are not just servants, but friends. We're friends of the king. And he speaks to us as a man speaks to his friends. But how do we hear what he has to say? Because if we're honest, it's not easy. It's not obvious. Especially now, after his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven, how do we hear what he has to say when he speaks to us? And how do we know that it's him that's speaking? Fortunately, the Bible is not silent in this matter. And God does not always speak to us in the way that we might expect. We need to learn to identify the voice of God when he speaks, to isolate his voice from all the noise that is around us, from all the distractions and from all the other voices. So how do we do that? Well, that's what we're going to look at today. And to start with, we're going to look at the story in Scripture. But before we put the Scripture up, let me just give a little bit of background. We're going to first check, first Kings, chapter 18 and 19. And those of you who know the story, it's an exciting story. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in Israel. It's a dramatic encounter. Elijah calls down fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice and the prophets of Baal are completely humiliated and then executed. Their God is exposed as a fraud and Elijah confronts the wicked king Ahab and tells him that the God of Israel he is God. It's a great story. You want to know more? First Kings, chapter 18, God read it afterwards. And as if to demonstrate even further his closeness to God, Elijah then tells Ahab the king, that the drought that has beset the land for the last three years is about to be broken. And so Ahab goes back to his palace in Samaria and before he arrives, the rain is tipping down, it's falling heavily. But when Ahab gets home and he tells his evil wife, Gisebel, all that has happened, she turns on Elijah and threatens to kill him. Suddenly terrified, Elijah, this great man of God, flees south into the desert, where we find him hiding for fear of his life from Gisebel. Now we can put up the Scripture, please. We're going to read from the next chapter, from 1 Kings, chapter 19, verses 8 to 13. I hope you like the slides. I spent a lot of time preparing them. From verse 8, where are we? Strengthened by the food, he traveled for 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horib, the mountain of God. Horib is another name for Mount Sinai, where Moses received the law. There he went into a cave and he spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him. What are you doing here, Elijah? And he replied, "Oh, Jesus, I have been very zealous for the Lord, God Almighty." The Israelites, they've rejected your covenant, they've broken down your alters, they've put your prophets to death with the sword and I'm the only one left. And now they're trying to kill me too, pull me. And the Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass you by." The Lord is about to speak. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave and a voice said to him, "Now what are you doing here?" Elijah, just so far. Like many great men and women of God who emerge from a confrontation with the powers of darkness, Elijah comes down from a spiritual high of the event to the low that follows. In this case, there is little doubt that he is emotionally depressed. He goes down to Mount Sinai, to Mount Horib and hides in a cave, and he grumbles. He grumbles at God. He complains that he can't do this anymore. He's the only one left. It's not fair. Everyone's against me. They're all trying to kill me, whatever, so on. And God says to Elijah, "Go stand outside because I'm going to pass you by." And so Elijah goes and stands at the entrance of the cave, waiting for God to pass him by, waiting for God to speak. And there is a wind, a great and powerful wind, says the Scripture, that tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord. Wow. Wow. And Elijah thinks, wow. Of course God would speak to me through the wind. That's the Lord passing me by. That's the Lord speaking because the wind in Hebrew is the word ruach, which also means spirit or breath. It's the same word. And even when the earth was formless and empty, back in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2, it's the spirit of God, the ruach, the wind of God that hovers over the waters, and through which God says, let there be light. So Elijah thinks, of course God would speak to me through the wind. How else would he speak to me? This is God speaking. Hallelujah. But says the Scripture. The Lord was not in the wind. And the text then tells us that after the wind there was an earthquake. And I can imagine Elijah standing there just inside his cave and the wind has died down and suddenly the earth begins to shake. The ground gives way underneath him. The rocks begin to fall around him. And the realization dawns on him. Of course God's not in the wind. He's in the earthquake. Of course that's the way he's going to speak to me. He's going to speak to me through an earthquake. Why? Because that's what God used to get everyone's attention when he appeared on Mount Sinai to give the Lord to Moses on this very mountain, maybe in this very place. He's done it before. Of course that's the way he's going to speak to me. You see in Exodus chapter 19, as the children of Israel gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai on the third day they were there. The mountain says verse 18 and 19 was covered with smoke and the Lord descended onto the mountain and the whole mountain it says trembled violently. So of course God would speak in an earthquake. How foolish of me. How stupid of me not to realize that. This is the way the Lord speaks. Yes Lord, hallelujah. But says the scripture the Lord was not in the earthquake. And then we read that after the earthquake came a fire. A fire. A fire. Of course says it. I just, of course it would be the fire. I just destroyed the prophets of Baal by calling down the fire of God onto the altar. Wow. Of course God is in the fire. Why would he not be? How could he do anything else? Of course this is the way he speaks to me. This is his special way of speaking. What was I thinking about the earthquake on Mount Sinai when Moses got the law? Because if you read further in that passage when God descended onto that mountain he descended with fire. So it's obvious isn't it? That's how God's going to speak to me. But says the scripture. God was not in the fire. Do you see what's happening here? Elijah is putting God in a box. He's putting God in a box of his own expectations. He's trying to understand God on the basis of his own experience. He's limiting God's way of speaking to him. He hears the wind and he knows that God is spirit. So he expects God to hear God speak through the wind. He feels the earthquake and he know that God has spoken in the past through an earthquake. So he expects that this is the way that God's going to speak to him. And of course he's just seen God speak powerfully through the fire to the whole nation as it falls on Mount Carmel. So naturally he expects God to continue speaking through the fire. These are Elijah's expectations and maybe they're legitimate expectations. But God will not be limited by the expectations that we have of him. He is greater than we are. He is so much bigger than any boxes that we can put him in. And if we try and confine him in a box to limit him in the way that he acts in our lives or speaks to us, he will break out of that box because that is who he is. Think of all the ways that God could speak to you and he will choose a way you haven't thought of. Not because he's trying to be clever, but because he is infinitely creative, infinitely wonderful, infinitely loving and caring and kind. And he doesn't expect us to try and outthink him. No. Rather he comes to find us, he seeks us out. And when he comes to us, he speaks to us in a voice that we can hear and identify and understand as the voice of the lover of our souls, the good shepherd who knows his sheep and gives his life for them. And Elijah learns a hard lesson here. He's so caught up in self-pity and fear and exhaustion that he's forgotten how to listen to God. Elijah, of all people, this greatest of the prophets, maybe we can take heart from this, that even Elijah's struggle to hear God sometimes. And once Elijah realized that he could not contain God in the boxes of his limited expectations, when he understood that God was not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, then, then God spoke in a way to Elijah that he could not miss, in a way that he could never have expected. He spoke in a silent whisper. After the fire says the text, came a gentle whisper. The English translators, and I suspect the Danish ones too, have struggled with this term. They've struggled to convey the meaning of the Hebrew here. Now, I've studied a bit of Hebrew, and I can tell you that literally here, it says that after the fire came a thin silence. What is a thin silence? What does that mean? Another way of understanding this is that God spoke to him in the silent sound of nothing. The God of the universe, who created everything, sometimes comes and speaks, not in the wind and the fire and the earthquake, not through the noise, not through the bluster, not through the chaos, but with the silent sound of nothing. After all the noise and the shaking and the excitement of the wind and the earthquake and fire, that's how God speaks to Elijah, and Elijah wonderfully instantly recognizes the voice of God. That's the amazing thing. He emerges from the cave the Scripture says where the voice says to him, "Now what are you doing here? Now we can talk. Now I've got your attention." And so God gets his attention and is able to speak with him and restore him and send him on his way again. So how does God speak to us, to you and to me? And perhaps just as importantly, how do we hear God when he speaks? Well God is infinitely inventive. After all he created the universe out of nothing and he made us all to be unique and special and different. He meets all of us where we are and he speaks to us in ways that we know it is him. It's not difficult. We may not always identify that it is him speaking, but we can learn to hear his voice and know that it is his. And this is a process. Have you ever had the experience of suddenly realising that God spoke to you once? God recently spoke to you just recently. You might have noticed it, but you ignored it because you didn't know it was him. Or you missed the significance because you weren't expecting it. But later on after a series of events has taken place, you remember it and realised that was God. That's part of the learning process. So we're going to turn to another passage to find out how this affected the life of little Samuel and the priest that worked in the tabernacle Eli. Next slide please. Here we go. One Samuel chapter 3 verses 1 to 10. I have to find it. Here we go. The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare. There were not many visions. And one night Eli whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out. And Samuel was lying down in the tabernacle of the Lord where the Ark of God was. And the Lord called Samuel. And Samuel answered, "Here I am." And he ran off to Eli and said, "Here I am, you called me." Well, they old man up. Eli said, "I didn't call. Go back and lie down." So he went and laid down. And again the Lord called Samuel. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am, you called me." My son said, "I did not call. Go back and lie down." Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. Isn't this an interesting little comment? The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel a third time. And Samuel got up and went to Eli and he said, "Here I am, you called me." And finally Eli realizes what's going on. Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. And so Eli told Samuel, "Don't lie down." And if he calls you, say, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening." So Samuel went and laid down in his place and the Lord came and stood there calling as at other times. Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." Precious story. If little Samuel growing up in the tabernacle compound in Shiloh is well known. Eli was the high priest, but he had sinned against God for so long that he lost touch with God. And he couldn't hear him speaking any longer. The word of God says the Scripture at the beginning of this passage was rare. It was rare. The light hadn't quite gone out yet, but the word of God was rare. And God had a message for Eli and he chose to send it to him, not by speaking to him, because Eli had forgotten how to identify the word of the Lord. But through Samuel, through this little boy who was staying there living in the temple or in the tabernacle compound. Eli hadn't so much put God in a box as he'd put him outside and shut the door. He closed himself off from hearing God so that even if he wanted to hear him, he had no regular experience to draw on. But God knew Eli's heart and he wanted to warn him of the fate that was coming upon his family and why. Samuel, meanwhile, was just young. A boy. He hadn't learned how to hear the voice of the Lord. So when God calls him gently, one night, he answers, "Here I am, and he rushes off to Eli, thinking it's Eli who's woken him up." Samuel's response of immediate obedience is a lesson for us all, childlike, because he's just a child. "Here I am, instant alertness and awareness, listening for what comes next." He just didn't understand that it was God calling him. "Here I am, the little Hebrew word for here I am is Hinnany, Hinnany, a term that occurs with remarkable regularity throughout the Scriptures among those called by God." Just one example. Abraham, remember Abraham, the patriarch, he hears the call of God in Genesis chapter 22, calling him to sacrifice his son Isaac. The chapter starts sometime later, God tested Abraham and he said to him, "Abraham, here I am, he replied, Hinnany." Well, you know the story. Abraham takes his son. They go up to the mountain that God has said they should go to to make the sacrifice. And when they get there, Abraham takes his son, straps him down to the altar. And later in the same passage, Abraham is about to plunge the knife into his son to kill him. And again, he hears the voice of God calling to him to stop. Abraham, Abraham says, "God, here I am, he replied, Hinnany, Hinnany, here I am." There is a submission contained in that word, more than just an acknowledgement of the call. More than just yes, there's more than that. There is submission there. Implied in the words is a sense of giving one's whole attention to what God wants to say next. And obedience to whatever it is. Three times Samuel hears the call. Three times he says, "Hinnany." Three times he runs to Eli to respond. Eventually, of course, Eli, the old man who has forgotten not only how God speaks, but perhaps even that God speaks, tells Samuel how to respond next time. And the next time God calls Samuel, he replies, "Speak Lord, for your servant is listening." Isn't that how we want to hear God? Clearly, strongly so that we can reply, "Hinnany, here I am, speak Lord, your servant is listening." The trouble is that so often in our prayer times, in our prayer meetings, we find it so much easy to say, "Now listen, Lord, your servant is speaking." In that the case, the story ends with God giving Samuel a message to pass on to Eli, a difficult message that he and his family are under God's judgment. And Eli no doubt aware that God was speaking to Samuel in this way and recognizing his own sin in not restraining his wicked sons and that he could no longer hear God, make sure that Samuel gives him the message, even though Samuel is reluctant, despite its heaviness. How does God speak to us? How do we hear God when He speaks? God is infinite in His methods, so varied in His ways. It could be at night like with Samuel. It could be with a voice, He could appear in a dream, it could be with a thought, something that drops into your mind. You might be praying, you might be walking, you might be sleeping, you might be playing sport, you might be playing badminton, you might be watching television, you might even be sitting in church. Like now, especially maybe when you're in a church service, when your heart is open to hearing the Lord because worship opens our heart to hear the Lord. That's why we have worship before the servant, before the sermon. It's not just because it's pleasant or it's nice to sing songs though it is. I once heard a very gifted worship leader saying, "What's the role of the worship leader?" And he said it is to take the people from where they are and lead them into the presence of God. And so if we be led into the presence of God, we're able to hear Him speaking. But when God speaks, the important thing is that you will know that it's Him speaking. That's what happened with Elijah. He knew somehow, even though it didn't make sense that God was not speaking through the wind and the earthquake or the fire. And when he did indeed speak, ridiculously, through the silent sound of nothing, even though Elijah had never heard him speak that way before, he knew it was God. And the old man, Elyne, knew that God was speaking to Samuel, even though it had been so long since he himself had heard the Lord speak. He knew that God was speaking to him through Samuel. And for our third story, we flip over to the New Testament to Acts chapter 9, to one of the most familiar passages in the whole Bible. Here we go. Where Paul or Saul, as he was once known, meets the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. I'm sure you know how it goes. Saul and his companions are on their way to Damascus to persecute the early church to arrest the believers and to bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem to be tried. On the way, the Lord Jesus appears to Saul, not to Samuel, to Saul, in a bright light, saying, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And Saul asks, who are you, Lord? He didn't have any difficulty hearing the voice of the Lord there, did he? To which the reply comes, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. And so his companions takes all into Damascus, but it's what comes next that I want to focus on briefly. So we read Acts chapter 9, verses 10 to 17. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias, and the Lord called him in a vision. Ananias. Yes, Lord, he answered. How similar is that to the story we just read about Samuel. The Lord told him, "Go to the house of Judas on Strait Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul for he is praying." In a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias come and places hands on him to restore his sight. Lord Ananias said, "I've heard many reports about this man and all the harm that he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and he's come here with the authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name." But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go. This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Verse 10 here tells us that there was a man in Damascus called Ananias who was a follower of Jesus. The Lord called him in a vision. Ananias and his response was, "Yes, Lord, he named me exactly the same word. Here I am. Speak, Lord." Your servant is listening. And that submission that Ananias showed in that response is critical because the message that he heard is hard. It's an impossible message. And if Ananias had not learned to hear the Lord, to recognize the voice of the Lord and know that it was God speaking, he may never have done what comes next. For Jesus tells him to go to the house where Saul is holed up and pray for him to get his sight back. And Ananias is fearful, rightly so, for he knows Saul's reputation and why he's in Damascus. Talk about walking into the lion's den, but because he knows he has heard from the Lord, Ananias is obedient and he trusts that he has heard God correctly and he goes. Verse 17, "Then Ananias went to the house and he took a deep breath, I'm sure, and entered it." And because of Ananias' obedience, Saul becomes a follower of Jesus. The story of the early church may have been so very different if Ananias had not been able to hear and recognize the voice of the Lord. But how did Ananias know that it was God speaking to him? How did Samuel know? For he too got to know God's voice so that later, for example, when he has to anoint the next king, he knows when he sees David that this is the one, how does he know? And what about Elijah? Even with Elijah, how did he know that the Lord spoke through the silent sound of nothing? That he did not speak through the noise of the wind and the earthquake and the fire. We could get very spiritual here, but I think actually the answer is very simple, practice, practice. I believe that these people were sensitive to God's leading and the more they allowed God to speak to them, the more they expected God to speak to them, the more familiar they became with his voice when God spoke to them. How does a baby learn to distinguish its mother's voice from all the others? Practice. It's like a muscle that you exercise. The more you exercise, the stronger that muscle becomes and the less you notice it. Or it's like a reflex that at first doesn't come naturally or easily, but the more you do it, the less you notice it. It becomes natural, second nature. It's like learning to drive a car. Do you remember that? Feet all over the place? Or even riding a bicycle for some of us? How does a sheep learn to recognize the voice of the shepherd by spending time in his presence, by listening to him? Which brings us finally to John chapter 10. We're nearly done. John chapter 10. Reading from verse 14 and 15 and 27, just three verses, "I am the good shepherd," says Jesus. "I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep." Verse 27, "My sheep listen to my voice or my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me." Jesus compares himself to a shepherd, to a good shepherd. A good shepherd, he says, "nose his sheep." And the sheep know the shepherd. And they listen to his voice. They hear him. They know it's him and they follow him. We are citizens of the kingdom of God that Jesus has established. And he is our king. But he says also that we are the sheep of his pasture and he is our good shepherd. And as we listen to him, we get to know him. Our king is a shepherd, our shepherd, and wonderfully he cares for us, his sheep. Whether it's through reading the Bible and becoming familiar with it, learning with it, gaining an understanding of God's character through it, praying it, sharing it with others, or whether it is through being open to hear God speaking through the voice of other people, as Eli did when God spoke to him through the voice, Amul. Or whether it's hearing God speak, as he drops thoughts into your minds, or meets us as we sleep, or as we draw close to him in prayer. Whatever it is, the more time we spend with him, the more we get to hear his voice. And soon we get to know that voice so well that we recognize it, it becomes second nature. And when we hear God speaking, we can distinguish what he says above all the other noise and disruption. And it becomes our joy and our delight to respond when he says, when he speaks and to say to him, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." Or simply Hinnany. Yes, Lord, here I am. I want to close with a brief story. During the last century, during the 20th century, some of you know that the British were the colonial authorities in Palestine. And then, as now, there was a lot of trouble and violence between the different communities in the land. Well, there was an occasion when the British authorities became aware of a plot by one group to attack another. And in order to protect as many women and children as possible, they sought to remove them from the area in advance. The young boys, though, many of them were shepherds. And their sheep would scatter if they were unattended. So the British told the shepherd boys to bring all their sheep to a large field surrounded by a wall where they would be protected by some British soldiers. And so this walled sheep pen filled up with hundreds of sheep. A few days later, after the trouble had passed, one of the young shepherd lads came to the soldiers standing at the gate leading into the field and said that he wanted to get his sheep back. "How many sheep do you have?" asked the soldiers. "Oh, just two," he said. The soldiers looked into the field where there were hundreds of sheep and they fell about laughing. "Just two," they said. "How do you know which are your two? Just take any two." And the lad stood there and he called out one word, one simple call. And as the soldiers looked on, first one sheep up there and then another one over there looked up from where they were grazing in the field as they heard the boy call and they trotted down to the gate. The soldiers opened the gate, the two sheep trotted out and went off following their shepherd boy and the rest of the sheep in the field carried on grazing as if nothing had happened. "My sheep," said Jesus, "he am my voice. I know them and they follow me." The wonderful thing about the kingdom of God is that the king knows us all and he speaks to us. He is not silent. And just like the sheep know their shepherd, we hear him speaking and we learn to know his voice. And the more time we spend with him, the more we listen, the more we become familiar with his voice and are able to say, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening." Thank you for your time. We hope that you will be able to have more peace of mind and more. You can find more from Kømnholm Vineyard on Facebook, Instagram and our website. And you should know that you are welcome at our church on New Year's Eve. We hope that you have a good day.