Discerning His Voice When He Roars

And that's the bottom line. Amen. It's about him.

Yeah. It's about this God that we serve and that we

love. And when all is said and done,

when all is said and done, he is

faithful and he is good. And he

is worthy. He is worthy.

A couple of things. Guys, next week we have about 17

or 18 baptisms. So next week we will have a baptismal

service, and it starts at 10:30. Only one gathering

next week, and I'm excited about that. Something,

if you are one of the people That are being baptized

and you came with your family today, at the end of

this gathering, if you would make your way over to

the Fellowship Hall, we are gonna do the

prebaptismal videos. And so, I would like to invite

you to come and have a slice of pizza with your

family. And we have an order we'll go in. We're gonna

start with the littles first. And we'll get you in and do your

video and get you out of here as quickly as we can. But we will

feed you and be kind to you in the process. So, if you'll just make

your way over there. The only other announcement that I have, guys,

Hunchback of Notre Dame is today, and it's the last

performance. And I can tell you, if you miss

this, guys, you are missing something extremely special.

There is something wonderful. Half of the choir is

in the room, or in the— it is a beautiful

story, and it is a strong, strong, strong

performance. So I encourage you, if there are tickets left, I'm not sure, it's been

pretty sold out. If there are tickets left, I encourage you to come do that.

Okay. We are in the middle of the— or actually, we're at the

end of the Discerning the Voice of the Lord. So obviously, y'all have learned to

do that in the last few weeks. So, Discerning the

Voice of the Lord. And we had Pastor Jonathan shared about how

we discern his voice, how we find his voice in hard places

or difficult seasons, and in the wilderness, learning to

listen for his voice. And then last week, Pastor Ronnie

shared about— Listening for his voice. Oh, my goodness.

Listening to his voice in the whisper, not in the earthquake, not in the

thunder, but in the whisper and that still small voice that he

brings. And what I have for you that I believe the Lord has

given me is discerning his

voice in the roar. Because some of us don't listen to

whispers. Some of us, it takes a roar. And

I'm excited about what he has been sharing with me in this, and I

hope that you can grab hold of it as well. The Lion Has

Roared. For since the beginning, for since

the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his

eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly

seen, being understood from what has been

made. From what has been made. Father, I thank you so much for your Word,

your truth. Father, we have nothing else to stand on. Father, the Word, the

truth, the blood of Jesus Christ, that is where we are standing. And so,

Father, I thank you for your Word today. I pray, Lord, that it would

fall in fertile soil. Father, I pray our hearts would receive your truth. I speak

your Word, your truth today, that my stuff would fall and yours would

stand, in Jesus' name. My

Papaw was

something. He was one of the kindest, most— I said Papaw

really Southern, didn't I? Just went right back over there. My Papaw,

to my knowledge, he never stepped foot in a church, not one

time. He was— he had his Bible,

And he had the farm. And the Lord spoke to him through both.

And one of the greatest lessons that he would always teach me was to see

God in the everyday. I remember standing

with him, actually sitting, because it was like 2:00 AM in the morning and we're

out in the barn and he's helping a pig deliver about 21

babies, which I thought was impossible, you know. And he's talking to me

the whole time about, you know, God did this and then, you know, this will

grow in this creation and this. And I just remember learning at

his feet the beauty of God in creation. whether it was the stars above

and the skies. And he would stand out and he would explain, or he would

walk with me over to a blackberry bush and he would talk about, you know,

how things grow and how they are. And I don't know how God does this,

but, you know, and he would— I would see God in those

weathered and worn hands as he would display portions of nature

to me. You know, grab the blackberry, but watch for the snake behind it. You

know, on all of those things. That's so good. And so he was a very—

he was a country scholar

who loved the Lord, who loved his Word, but

didn't care a whole lot for church. And you know what? There's a lot of

those out there. And that's okay, as long as the Lord has their heart and

has their— and they have the Word and they're growing, that's wonderful. God does

what God does. But I wanna talk to you today about

how God can speak to you through the everyday ordinary that you're in.

you wouldn't think about if you just pay attention.

According to the scripture, creation carries the fingerprints of God.

Creation carries God's fingerprints. It says that the heavens

declare, the heavens declare his glory. Some

translations say the heavens sing

of his glory. Some translations say the heavens

shout of his glory. And when you step out on your porch at

night and the sky isn't filled with every other kind of

light, and you look up and you see Yes. And you see how small we

really are, and how big and

vast. And you're going, there is no way that this

just happened. There's no way. There is a

Creator God behind this. And it

testifies. And if you will step out and look at something

bigger, you begin to see the bigness and the goodness of God.

Scripture says that the mountains testify. The mountains

testify. They testify of time. They testify

of His faithfulness. They testify of unchanging

God. Says the

rocks cry out if we don't. If we don't.

There's testimony in them. And Scripture says that all creation

groans in anticipation. All creation

groans in anticipation. So if the

Lord in His Word is speaking to us about how creation

can speak to us, I wanna pay attention to that because we're learning

to discern God's voice, right? And most of us have not heard

the audible voice of God, but we have stood outside

and we have heard the wind through the trees. We have heard the cry of

the birds. We have heard his voice in the

thunder. We have seen his strength in the lightning.

We've seen his provision in the rains that cover the land.

And if we will pay attention, you will find that God is speaking He's

speaking. And in all of those things, you know what else? He

also speaks as lions roar.

As lions roar. Amos tells us this,

the lion has roared, who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has

spoken, who can but prophesy?

And as I was getting into this Word, I was like, Lord, you know, there

are sometimes in my life that I can respond

to a whisper, you know, and sometimes a whisper is

wonderful. And as parents, sometimes our children might

respond to a whisper, but the chances of that are very

slim. Sometimes

we raise our voice to get attention, and sometimes we

need them to focus on— Rowan loves to

go, what are the words coming out of my mouth? You know,

sometimes we need to pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth, And

because there are so many words coming out of everybody else's mouth,

that if we aren't focused on what he's saying, we

will lose track of what's important in this. That's right. What's

important. And so, he speaks in the roar. And so, I

felt like one of the things the Lord was gonna help share with us today

was begin to discern his roar.

Because listen, guys, I am not an expert

on lions, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

No, I didn't. I did study. I began to study. I don't

know anything about lions, but I know one,

the Lion of the tribe of Judah. And so I began to pray, and I

began to study some texts and some things like that. So I said, Lord, I

want to know about this roar. I want to know that the—

when you speak to get my attention, What is the purpose

behind it? How can I discern if this is you speaking to me,

if this is my flesh speaking to me, or if this is the people around

me speaking to me? Because, God, I need to discern

your roar. And what I found out is that lions roar for 3 very

distinct reasons. How they know this, I don't know.

You can't really ask a lion, well, why did you do that? But what you

can do is pick up on the patterns of the roar and how

they do it. And that's what we're gonna go with, lions roar. for 3 very

distinct reasons. Now, before we do that, let me tell you, a lion

can roar. It says that a family, a pride of lions, can

hear the king of their tribe, they can hear his roar

up to 5 miles away. So that would be the equivalent of me

standing here with the door open and calling out,

and somebody over at Smyrna High School being able to hear it.

That would be the equivalent of, as the crow flies, me

speaking and yelling from here, and over in Antioch, they can hear me. That's right.

But see, the pride of lions is so attuned to the roar of

the lion, they can pick up on the timbre. It's almost as if

there is this vibration in the air when the lion

roars that the pride picks up on. And let me tell you something, that is

consistent with what the Holy Spirit does. When he speaks,

if we are attuned to his voice—

if we are attuned to his voice, we pick up on the nuances. And the

very first thing we find out is the roar, the day-to-day, day-to-day, day-to-day,

business roar of the lion is geared toward family

communication. Family communication. This is him

speaking to you day in and day out. The Word tells us that we

can have our senses trained through practice, according to

the Amplified, having our senses trained through practice to

discern what is good and what is evil. This

particular passage of scripture is talking about those who are satisfied

with the milk of the Word, or those who are going to move on to

the meat of the Word. And those that are able to move on to the

meat, appropriate when talking about lions. If you're gonna move

on to the meat of the Word, you have to be able to discern what

is good and evil over time through practice. And so,

as his tribe, as his people, learning to discern his

roar is important. It says, there is a roar that

orients the family. The lion may not be visible, but the

roar reveals his proximity to the family. And see,

we're kind of in that situation right now. We don't know Yes. See him

physically with us. The Lion of the

tribe of Judah is not physically with us in

this moment, but we can discern his roar. We can discern

his voice if we will pay attention and learn it.

Scripture tells us this, they shall walk after the

Lord. He shall roar like a lion. When he shall

roar, then the children shall tremble, From the west.

Now let me tell you, when there is a roar, kids tremble.

My husband does not have a— well, there is a roar, but it's a different

kind of roar. But my husband, there's this thing that he does that gets

everybody's attention in the family. Can you, can you

do that for me, please? Okay. All right.

Oh, that's just a little one.

When he does that, the kids, Growing up, it

didn't matter where they were in the neighborhood, it didn't matter what they were doing,

when they heard that, they knew that that was their father, and they knew it

was time to get home. And if it was stronger than that, or

harder than that, or God forbid if he did it twice back to back,

they were like, oh, we're hiding now. But they knew that sound,

and they responded to that sound. And there is a resonance in the

voice of the Lion that when he's speaking to you, there's an

awareness. The Word tells us that eternity is written on the

hearts of men. When he roars, when he begins to speak in family

communication, it is to orient you. You know, in Genesis, when

he walked into the garden and Adam and Eve had sinned, and they

had hidden, they had made clothes for themselves, which I think

that would be really interesting to see it sometime. But

anyway, when he walked into the garden and he said, where are

you? He went to walk with them in the cool of the day and he

said, where are you? Where are you? Of course, he knew where they

were. They said they've sinned and they had hidden themselves

from him. But the question wasn't, where are you? It was more, where

are you in proximity to where I am? Are

you paying attention? It's like there's this thing that the Holy Spirit does

that brings his voice into your situation and

orients us as a family to go, how far off track

am I? How far away from this voice have I

gotten? And he will roar to do that. Sometimes

God's greatest mercy is not found in explanation, but in positional

orientation. You know, he doesn't have to explain

why he's done what he's done. Right. He doesn't have to give you an

explanation, or me an explanation, why you're walking through

the things that you're walking through, or going through the things that you're going through.

But in his grace, and in his goodness, and in his mercy,

he will sound, he will speak to you. It might sound

like a scripture that someone gives to you. It might sound like a prayer that

someone is praying for you. over you. It might

sound like you sitting in your room just talking to Him

and allowing Him to speak. But this specific

roar does a few things. This roar brings you into positional

alignment with the King.

And sometimes we need that. We need to go, God, I just need

to be in alignment with the King. I just need to be in

alignment with You, Father. Line me up in this. Comfort.

and reassures when you're not in his presence. Does

anybody ever need him to just comfort you for a

while? To just reassure you of his presence?

That regardless of what you're going through, knowing that they're there. When my

kids were little, and when your kids— as your kids are little, do you

ever notice how everything can be fine and

the world is going on as it should until you walk out of the room?

And then you walk out of the room and it's like, wait a minute, I

am no longer the center of attention. Wait a minute. Mom,

Mom, Mommy, Mommy, Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mommy. And all of a sudden they're wrapped

around your ankle because you've left. I remember one of my kids going,

oh, I lost you! No, you didn't. I was hiding

anyway. No. I'm like, I know. Thank you for finding me,

honey. And Lord forbid that you try to take a bath. It's like,

Are you still in there? Well, the door's still shut. Are you

still in there? What are you doing? You have to splash and

make noise, you know, just so they can orient themselves to

know, hey, she's still in the room. It's still okay. And then

they would get to where they would slide their fingers under the bathroom door.

Are you still in there, Mom? Yes, those tears you

hear are mine. But

orienting themselves, because sometimes when you

need to just line up and go, okay, He's still here. I'm still

reassured of his presence. And then instruction.

Instruction, guys, this lion, when it roars,

they say that the pride understands just from that roar,

which is amazing to me. From that roar, whether they need to

run, whether they need to hide the family, whether they need to

sit still positionally, that he can hear that, that roar, and

he can do those things. And I love I love that. That that is the

kind of God the Lion roars.

It says, whether you turn to the right or to the

left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is

the way, walk in it. This is the way,

walk in it. I trust that. I trust

that if I will listen and if I will pay attention, he will tell us

how to move and how to walk as family. The

second thing that he does is this: a lion will cry out in dominion

and in warning. Dominion and in warning. It says

this: the lion roars to

establish presence and testimony— or territory. The

roar announces, someone rules here. You are in

my house now. You are in my house now.

I grew up in the country in In case you didn't

know, well, like, my Uncle Tommy,

my Uncle Paul, my Uncle Junior all lived on the farm with my Papaw.

And they just basically, they were a compound

before compounds were popular and trendy. But I mean,

those boys could shoot. And I mean, they'd take the

wings off a gnat. And it wasn't so much that my Papaw taught them, my

Granny did. And which leads me to

just tell you that The Beverly Hillbillies was not a sitcom. That was a

documentary.

And it adequately and accurately depicts the life

I grew up in. And my granny could shoot. I said that to

say this: where I came from,

guns spoke and trespassers

didn't. you

kinda knew that you let somebody know if you were getting ready to go on

their property, 'cause they were protective. I mean, they were protective

of their families and obviously had a lot of

enemies, but we're not gonna get into that. You know, they just— you

just didn't do it. And I think about this lion, and I think about him

being off in the distance and still watching over his family, and

caring for his family, and sending out the cry that he needs

to in that time to go, Listen, you're on my land

now. And some of us need to remember that this is his

land. This is his church. This is his

house. And he has dominion in it. He has

sovereignty. He is sovereign in it. Listen to this,

guys. It says, a lion will often roar before he pounces. He

isn't afraid of giving away his position because he knows nothing can touch him

anyway. That's right.

What? What? Okay, I'm a visual

person, but I kind of have this image of the lion going,

hmm, okay, if you think so.

If you think so, we're gonna go. That a lion will often roar before he

pounces. He isn't afraid of giving away his position because he knows

nothing can touch him anyway. Oh, that's a lion. But it says,

a lion mighty among beasts who retreats at nothing. That's

the Word. Our God retreats before nothing.

Nations rage and kings rise, rulers plot, and the One

enthroned in heaven laughs.

You ever just feel like the Lord's going, is that the best you got?

Is that the best you got? And that's what I think with this lion, to

go, I'm gonna roar. I'm gonna

give away— I'm gonna even give away my position. And I'm

gonna give you a choice in how you deal with that. How

you deal with that. It says this, a

warning roar means there is still time to respond.

You've still got time to move. You've still got

time to act. There's a warning roar. There is a place, and it's

gonna come to you. When that warning roar comes, it's gonna come to your

spirit, and it's— I had somebody ask me today, they said, what is the difference?

Oh, not today, this week. What is the difference between conviction

and condemnation? And I will tell you, for me, that conviction is a

word from the Lord that pierces that place of

truth and eternity in your spirit. And for me, the difference

between the two is there's not accusation in it. There is warning

in it. There is a promise at the end of it to go, okay,

okay, Smitty, you know what you're doing.

And I want you to stop. Because if you will

stop, here's what's on the other side of this for you. There's

conviction that leads to repentance. Conviction will cause you to go,

God, I am so sorry. I am so sorry.

But not sorry like the world is sorry, because there is

a worldly sorrow that leads to death, according to

scripture. In other words, I'm so sorry I did that. Okay, but there's no

repentance behind it. And there's a godly sorrow that leads to

repentance, and repentance will lead to life. Yeah.

That's the warning roar. The warning roar. And

one of the other differences, guys, is condemnation, when it comes at

you, listen for the voice of the accuser in it.

Because he accuses. He tells you how bad you are, how wrong you are,

how horrible you are. And there's no promise of hope, of

redemption behind it. Learning one will lead you

to life, and one will allow you to stay in your mess.

That's what it will do. You'll feel bad about the mess, but you'll stay in

it. The warning

protects. It says, if you are coming for them, you are coming

through me. I like that a lot.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have

summoned you by name. You are mine. You are

his. You are his. And he is fiercely

protective of you. He will speak to you in

family, in communication. He will speak to

you in warning. He will speak to you to let you know that

he is still in charge of this situation.

He is still speaking. And if I get the worship team to come

out, there is one more roar. If he's speaking in victory,

Or is he speaking in communication? He speaks in dominion to

establish, I am still in charge. I am still over you

and over this situation. And the final one that we

find in the roar is a roar of final victory.

There's a roar that a lion has that sounds like no other roar,

but it's a roar of final victory. I wanna pull up

some scripture for you.

Amen. If you are in the middle of a hard place,

if you are in the middle of a place, know this: God always

finishes what he starts. He always finishes the work,

whatever that looks like. And it may not look like you think it's going to.

It may not look like I think it's going to. But he will finish the

work in such a way that beauty will come from ashes. He will

finish it in such a way That His Bride is covered

and blessed.

It says this, after the battle,

the lion roars to announce to family that the threat has been

overcome and the battle is finished,

inviting them to come and eat.

Inviting them to To come and eat.

Doesn't that sound familiar? To

know what He has done, the battle

that the Lion of the tribe of Judah has waged, to

understand that there is a final victory

roar. This is what the scripture says in

Revelation 5.

Beginning with verse 1. Then I saw

in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing

on both sides and sealed with 7 seals. And I saw a

mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, who is

worthy to break the seals and open the scroll? But no one

in heaven or on earth or under the earth

could open the scroll or even look inside it. And I wept

And I wept because no one was found.

No one was found who was worthy to open the scroll

or to look inside. Then one of the elders said to

me, do not weep. Do

not weep. The Lion

of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,

has triumphed. He is able to open The scroll

and its 7 seals.

And you know, you would think,

you would think when somebody says, behold the Lion

of the tribe of Judah, you would have thought that, that, that

John would have turned around and seen this magnificent

lion, but that's not what it says.

He is able to open the scroll and its 7 seals. And then

when he turned, it says, then I saw a Lamb

looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne,

encircled by the 4 living creatures and the elders.

See, the Lion becomes the Lamb. The

lion roars and he sends his message to us. He communicates

to his family day in and day out. He is

speaking. He is instructing. He is allowing us to orient

ourselves to his truth, to his Word. He is

speaking to us if we will listen to him. He is speaking

to us about just the communication and

drawing us in. He's letting us know that, hey, listen,

I know this is hard. I know that this is a

painful season. I know what you're going through, but you know what? I'm

still here. I am still over you.

I'm still sovereign, and I am still strong enough to

take on all comers. He is faithful,

and He is good, and He has not changed. He has not

changed. The lion

roars in communication and dominion, and Amen! Guys, He

has roared in victory! He has

roared in victory! And the roar sounded like,

it is finished!

It is finished! The

roar of the Lion of the

tribe of Judah! We'll hear it again.

We'll hear it again. Amen. But we're listening for it now.

Listening for it now. I have asked Jonathan and them, we're going to go back

to the beginning. We are going to— you know,

it just seems appropriate that deserts and lions and Egypt

would go together. And the way that he draws, it's

still in my spirit for us to worship through. It's still in my

spirit to end in worship and to worship To worship

anyway. To worship anyway as we are navigating our

way through waters. And guys, I do remind you that when this is

said and done, we're gonna worship. If you wanna join us down here,

we're gonna worship. And then those who are gonna be baptized or

get filled for baptism, if you'll go through those doors and join.

Father, I thank you so much. Thank you so much for your Word. I thank

you for your truth. I thank you, Father, that you are still

speaking, that you are still roaring. Father, and we long for the

roar of the Lion of Judah to direct us, to orient us, to draw us

back toward you. We bless you and we thank you in Jesus'

name. Bless your name. Would you stand? And those who wanna

worship, if you would just come down, we're gonna worship for a minute.