Hearing God – The Limits of Signs

Scripture: John 20.19-31; 1 Corinthians 1.20-25


But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” John 20.31


Jesus showed them his hands and his side, at Thomas’ request. It was a bold request. But it was also a request, in other forms, that we make all the time. If only we could see God or evidence of his work, more plainly, then we would believe. If only we could hear his voice more clearly, then we would listen. We are going to spend the next several weeks thinking about How We Can Hear God in our lives. For this series, I am indebted to Dallas Willard’s book, Hearing God, Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. I recommend your own reading of the book.

You might have already noticed, but the central idea in our thinking will be that we can hear God and in fact, have an ongoing conversation and relationship with God. In fact, this way is the way of mature discipleship. Following Jesus is about more than following the rules. As Dallas Willard points out, “An obsession merely with doing all God commands may be the very thing that rules out being the kind of person that he calls us to be.”

The Bible is clear that God wants to have relationship with us. It also follows, and it is clear, that God wants to speak with us, person to person. Is that so outrageous and unthinkable?

“Why is it,” comedian Lily Tomlin asks, “that when we speak to God we are said to be praying but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?”

If, as people of faith, even a little faith, we can’t believe that God would speak in response to our prayers, then we might as well give up now. As the hymn, comfortably and confidently asserts, “He walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.”

Jesus says, “I have called you friends.” (John 15.15) and

“Look, I am with you every minute, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.20)


Before we talk about one way God speaks to us, perhaps we should say a few words on how God does not speak with us.

Bible Roulette - Have you ever wanted to know God’s will and opened your Bible to a random page and put your finger on a verse? Or used the numbers of your birthday?

I have a decision to make that is of some importance to me and would like to know God’s mind on it, so I thought I’d try this method. My birthday is April 19th. So I turned to the fourth book of the Bible (Numbers), the 19th chapter, and the first verse of that chapter tells me, wait for it. . . to go get a red heifer. Now, unless I’m missing something, that’s not terribly helpful in regards to my decision. I don’t think that’s what God has to say to me.

Hearing from God is not like playing the lottery. This way of reading the Bible, call it Bible Roulette, and imploring God to speak is not only desperate and superstitious, but it’s also just play mistaken and ineffectual, not to mention unfaithful.


Humble Arrogance - This is another hindrance to hearing from God. We look at those Bible characters and we say, they’re not human, or people aren’t like that today.

In the movie Gandhi, there is a scene set in South Africa where the young Indian Gandhi and a white clergyman are walking together down a street, which was illegal at the time. They are accosted by some thuggish looking young white men who seem about to assault them when the mother of the ringleader calls out from a nearby window to go on about his business.

As they walk on the clergyman exclaims over their good luck. Gandhi says, “I thought you were a man of God.”

The clergyman replies, “I am, but I don’t believe he plans his day around me!”

The scene gets a chuckle, but what God has taught us about himself in the Bible and in the person of Jesus contradicts the clergyman.

His greatness is precisely what allows him to “plan his day” around me or anyone and everyone else as he chooses.

Message-a Minute-View - This view says that God is telling you what to do every moment, or would if you would ask him. Notice, this is not the same as saying God is with you every moment and enjoys that prerogative. God can speak at any time to us, but there is nothing in the Bible or in Jesus that suggests this frantic and tyrannical control of us. God calls to grow in understanding of his desires and purposes and then freely act in harmony with them.

Related to this mistaken view is the Whatever Comes Must Be God’s Will View. Again, there is little in the Bible to suggest this is true. Virtually all the prophets down to Jesus interact with, argue with, plead with God to do some things and not do others, and amazingly, God listens to them! It’s also obvious that many things happen that God does not want to happen

“The Lord is. . .not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3.9)
God’s world is a place where we all have a role to play, in the salvation of others and the coming Kingdom. With respect to many events in our future, God’s will is that we should determine what will happen. What a child does when not told what to do is the final indicator of what who that child is.

Not that we have mentioned a few of the mistaken ways of trying to hear from God, let’s look at the first real way God speaks to us – through miracles and signs. Again, let’s keep in mind that God can speak to us and God desires a relationship with us.

Like the Jim Carrey character in Bruce Almighty, sometimes the signs are so numerous that our blindness in seeing them for what they are is almost laughable if it weren’t so sad. Sometimes, God uses a megaphone. Miracles and signs are some of those times.

The end of chapter 20 in John tells us that many signs were done by Jesus and recorded by the apostles so that we might believe.

God performs miracles today as well. Willard tells the story of Peter Marshall, the Scotsman who would become one of the most well-known ministers of the 20th Century. One foggy night in Britain, Marshall was taking a shortcut across the moors in an area where there was a deep, deserted limestone quarry. It was pitch dark as Marshall plodded forward blindedly, when he heard an urgent voice call out, “Peter!”

Marshall stopped. “Yes, who is it? What do you want?” But there was no response.

Thinking he was mistaken he took a few more steps. The voice came again even more urgently, “Peter!” At this he stopped again and, trying to peer into the darkness, fell on his knees. Putting down his hand to brace himself, he found nothing there. As he felt around in a semicircle he discovered that he was right on the brink of the abandoned quarry, where one step more would certainly have killed him.

God still speaks. And yet, there is a limit to what signs and wonders can do for us. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus heals a man of a withered hand and he asks the people whether it was good for him to heal on the Sabbath. What answer does Jesus get? Silence.

They don’t know what to say or do. And yet, immediately afterwards some of them thought it right to make plans to kill Jesus. That what Jesus got for his miracles there.

In his hometown Jesus refuses to do any because of their unbelief. Jesus won’t perform stunts for us. He desires faith and growth in us instead. As E. Stanley Jones wrote,

I believe in miracle, but not too much miracle, for too much miracle would weaken us, make us dependent on miracle instead of our obedience to natural law. Just enough miracle to let us know He is there. . .

If we don’t have faith, we can’t see the signs that require faith to be seen.

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1.20-25)

To us doubting Thomases, God has said, the best sign you will get are marks in my hands and my side and my feet. Will you hear and believe these?