1 Samuel 28:6 says:

And when Saul enquired of the LORD [Yahweh], the LORD [Yahweh] did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets.

In the Old Testament God spoke to people in different ways. mThe most common and powerful way that He did this was to speak through the prophets.

In the New Testament the prophet still has a very important part to play. The prophet still hears from God and speaks it out. But how does he or she hear from God? Does God speak in a specific way, and can a prophet learn to hear God's voice better?

I want to look here at the subject of Prophetic Listening. I want to show you how the prophet hears the voice of God and how God speaks to him or her.

I will also show you how a prophet can receive from God and can speak His words into the earth. To do this a prophet needs to hear from God, and this means first learning how to listen.

We will look at seven ways that God speaks; seven ways that a prophet can hear His voice, know what He is saying, and get instructions from the Holy Spirit.

Since seven is the number of perfection or completion it is easy to remember. And although I did not plan it that way, the Lord gave me seven different ways of hearing from Him. This shows how important it is to hear well.

The Urim and Thummim

The first method that God used to speak in the Old Testament was the method called the Urim and the Thummim. In the verse that I gave at the beginning it said,

God did not answer Saul by Urim...

Urim was one of the ways that Saul tried to hear from God. The Scripture says that God did not answer him by Urim. To understand what the Urim is we need to go back into the Old Testament and look at a few Scriptures.

The Urim and Thummim are not very clear and there is not much description of them. The Scriptures do not give us much detail on what they were. But most Bible scholars believe that the Urim and the Thummim were two stones.

These stones may have been embedded in the breastplate of the ephod which is what the priests wore. Or they were two stones that were contained in a pouch that was on the side of the ephod where he could place his hand.

Somehow these two stones would give a person direction from God. It was not a detailed direction like you would get by asking something like,

"What must I do?"Or, "Where must I go?"

It was rather a direction given by asking something like,

"Should I do this or should I not do that?"

The answer would come either as a yes or a no. So when they used the Urim and the Thummim to get direction from God in those times, they would already know which direction they were planning to go in.

They would ask the Lord a question like,

"Lord, should I do this?"

God would answer back by Urim or Thummim; yes or no. It seems that if you had a Urim the answer was yes, and if you had a Thummim the answer was no.

How did the answer come? That depends on exactly what the Urim and Thummim were.

One of the suggestions is that the Urim and Thummim were two stones in the breastplate, and when the person prayed one of those stones would light up and glow.

If it was the Urim that glowed, God was saying, "Yes," but if it was the Thummim that glowed, God was saying, "No." If neither of them glowed, God was saying,

"That is none of your business. I am not talking to you."

That is what happened to Saul. God would not answer him.

I want to show you a Scripture that tells us how David used it. In 1 Samuel 23:9 to 11 it says,

And David knew that Saul secretly had planned evil against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring the ephod here.
Then David said, O LORD [Yahweh] God of Israel, your servant has certainly heard that Saul seeks to come to Keilah, to destroy the city because of me.
Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD [Yahweh] God of Israel, I beg of you, tell your servant. And the LORD [Yahweh] said, He will come down.

God answered him with a Urim. So in the Old Testament there was this means of hearing from God and receiving a yes or no answer from Him.

You might say to me now,

"We don't have that anymore in the New Testament. We don't have the priesthood or the priestly garments, nor do we have the temple and all those old things."

Yes, but all of those things have become spiritual in the New Covenant and we still have a Urim and a Thummim. You might ask,

"Where is it then?"

It is in your soul; in your spirit. It is within you. God has put a spiritual Urim and Thummim within you. He has placed within you a sign or a revelation that will help you to get a yes answer or a no answer.

You can still come to God in prayer with that kind of question and say,

"Lord, must I do this?"

The answer will come up from within your spirit as a, "Yes," or a "Uh uh, no way."

You will sense it in your spirit. You will feel it as a surge which says,

"Yes, it is good. Let's do it."

Or you will feel a check in your spirit. It is a gut feel; an inner thing. It is a very deep thing, and God is in fact speaking to you out of your spirit.

Receiving Out of Your Spirit

In a lot of our teachings we have shared about the spirit, soul and body. God has made man so that He can place things into his spirit, and God is speaking in your spirit all the time.

The Spirit of God and your spirit are in communication all the time. For you to receive what God is saying to your spirit, that revelation or Word from God has to be sent outwards from your spirit. As it is sent outwards, it comes out via your soul and your body.

Effects in the Soul

What comes out of your spirit has to rise up. And the first thing that is affected is your soul.

We all know that the soul contains the mind, emotions and will. That means the influence from your spirit has to affect or influence your mind, your emotions and your will.

The Urim and the Thummim that I am talking about causes this influence from the Spirit within you to affect your emotions. It is a feeling at first.

You say, "But we don't go by our feelings."

Yes we do - all the time. Every decision you make in life you make by your feelings. Most of the time you do what you feel like doing. Of course your feelings and your emotions are involved!

But if you learn to submit your soul to your spirit, and submit your emotions to your spirit, then your emotions will be influenced by your spirit.

Then when the influence of the spirit rises up, it creates either a positive or a negative feeling. That is your Urim and Thummim.

A positive feeling that creates excitement or a yes is your Urim. Watch out for an emotion that comes out negatively with fear, care or concern. It is a Thummim. Your spirit is saying,

"No, that is not a good idea. Do not go that way."

You need to submit to the spirit within and hear through your feelings. Some people call it 'the peace of God'. Some have called it 'the umpire of God'.

It is an effect deep within you; a deep feeling in your spirit. It goes deeper even than your emotions. It is coming from deep within your spirit, out from your innermost being from your belly somewhere. The feeling seems to come from deep inside.

Using the Urim in Prayer

Sometimes you feel the Urim and the Thummim when you are praying as a prophet. Someone may give you a prayer request and say,

"Please can you pray for my friend? She is sick and needs healing."

You open your mouth and begin to pray,

"Father, in the name of Jesus I ask you to reach out and..."

When you pray though you feel like there is something in your mouth. It does not want to come out. You are stumbling over the words and feel like you are chewing on cotton wool. Something inside of you says,

"No, you are praying wrong."

That is your Thummim. It is saying,

"Just hold it. Wait, it is not time yet. You are praying wrong."

If that happens you need to stop it right there. At other times you may think of a person. You begin to pray and say,

"Oh Father, I am just thinking about this man. I pray that you will bless him."

Suddenly something bursts out and starts to pour out of you. It is your Urim saying,

"Yes, pray it out and send the Word into the earth. You are doing it right. You have it!"

Do you know what I am talking about? If you are a prophet you will know what I am talking about. Your spiritual Urim and Thummim is the ability to hear from the spirit within whether you are flowing in the right direction or not.

Receiving in the Mind

Then there are the effects that are created from the spirit that come to the mind.

The problem with the mind is that it is continually filled with what you are doing. It is affected by your circumstances, your surroundings and the activities you are involved in.

While you are conscious and awake your body is continually pushing input in. It is sending data inwards into the soul and into the spirit. Influences are coming from your five senses - seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and feeling.

Those senses are picking up impulses in the world around you all the time while you are awake. They are then fed inwards from the body into the soul. They keep your mind busy so that it is filled with what you see and hear.

If you are sitting at the dinner table, your mind is filled with what you smell, taste and feel. All of these things affect us all the time. But you will find that your mind is a one-way street. You cannot feed inwards and outwards at the same time.

You have to change the direction. And the only way that you can do that is to stop the flow in one direction before the flow can take place in the other direction.