It was some years ago, we had a bit of an old car, a station wagon. You know, in those days you just jammed all the kids in the station wagon; and we were going through a time or a season in the church when we were facing tremendous spiritual pressure. A lot of bad stuff happened, and I had this case with - my file with the police was very, very big. Anyway we were home one night, and I looked outside, and my car's gone, and apparently the kids had seen it drive down the drive and go, but they didn't think it was anyone else, but someone had stolen our car. They'd got into it, and started the thing up, and drove the station wagon off; and I remember thinking: we've got no way of replacing this thing. This is a disaster for us, and I remember just thinking: Lord, what do I do about this. So I rung up the police, and I reported: hey, my car's been stolen. I gave them the number plate; there's this Ford Falcon station wagon, and it's our family wagon, and here's the number. They said: oh, you'll never get that back.
You know something rose up inside me, and I said: we'll see; and I got off the phone, and I felt the Lord impress in my heart that scripture when David had been ripped off, and the Lord spoke to him and said: pursue, overtake, recover all. So Joy and I just stood in prayer, and we agreed. We agreed on certain things, so we said: Lord, we just speak right now, we forbid the stealing of our car. We command that car to be returned. Father, we pray the police will discover the man, we pray the conviction of the Holy Spirit will come on him, and that we will end up better at the end, than we have at the beginning. So we stood in prayer, and then went to bed. It was about 11 o'clock at night I suppose. We woke up at one, and there's a phone call, and I thought: oh, who's ringing me at one? This is a bad time to ring. It was the police, they said: we found your car. I said: really? This is the car that wasn't going to be found, that was gone, going to be broken up for parts? They said: yep, we've found it.
So anyway we were able to go get the car, and have it restored, and got it back home again; so number one, now I had a look at the petrol tank, and blow me down it had been empty when it had been stolen, and he couldn't drive it. Now it was full of gas - so I'm one up already. Anyway, so the next day, you know, the police go through their thing; so next day I'm out there cleaning the car, and trying to tidy it up, thinking: I wonder how the kids allowed this to be pushed down the drive, and someone steal it like this. I heard this sort of shuffling around behind me, I looked around and there's a young guy there, and I said: hello, how are you? What can I do for you? He said: I'm the young man who stole your car. I said: really? Wow, I'm glad to meet you. I hear they caught up with you. He said: yes, they did, but when I found it was a Pastor I felt - I've been tormented all night. He said: I haven't been able to sleep all night. I've felt so bad all night, I just haven't been able to sleep; so he said: I've never done it. I've stolen a lot of things in my life, and I've never done this before. He said: I wanted to apologise for taking your car.
I said: apology accepted. I said: I believe, we're a Pastor, we pray, and we've been praying for you. We prayed that God would touch your life; and I began to ask him some questions, and his story. We took him in, and he had a meal with us. This is the guy that stole the car - so we had a meal, introduced him to all the family, and that was I think Saturday. The next day, he was in church on Sunday, and we led him to the Lord, and his life was blessed, so it was actually able to turn it around completely. Now not all stories end like that. I've had other thefts that didn't turn out that way, but on the other hand, God is able to turn everything around for our good. Do you reckon that? The other big thing is, to keep your attitude sweet.
Alright then, I want you to open you Bible with me in John, Chapter 10. I want to share with you tonight, what I shared this morning, on hearing the voice of God; because of all the things, it's the most important for you to be able to do in your life, is to know when God is talking to you. God talks to us, it's got to be important. In fact, I can think of times God spoke to me, and my whole life changed. Just one example, I can remember like it was yesterday, standing doing my lawns and I was in Dannevirke. There I was with the lawnmower, chundering through all the lawns, a huge amount of lawns we had to do then, and in the middle of this [dok-dok-dok] with the mower, I heard God speak to me. He began to speak to me, and talk to me, about what He wanted for my life. I wasn't praying, or doing anything much, just praying in tongues a little bit. It was a sunny, hot day, and I'm doing the lawns, not really thinking of anything very spiritual. Suddenly in the middle of it, God's voice came; and He began to speak to me about what He had for me, about Him calling me to be a Pastor, calling me to lead His people, calling me to a place of leadership. I had no desire for such a thing at all. I said: I don't think so, I've actually got other things I'm really busy doing, I don't really want to be the leader of a church at all; and I'm really quite full, doing what I'm doing already.