We have more than once seen that God's listening to our voice depends upon our listening to His voice.  (See Lessons 22 and 23.)  We must not only have a special promise to plead, when we make a special request, but our whole life must be under the supremacy of the word:  the word must be dwelling in us.  The testimony of George Muller on this point is most instructive.  He tells us how the discovery of the true place of the word of God, and the teaching of the Spirit with it, was the commencement of a new era in his spiritual life.  Of it he writes:--

`Now the scriptural way of reasoning would have been:  God Himself has condescended to become an author, and I am ignorant about that precious book which His Holy Spirit has caused to be written through the instrumentality of His servants, and it contains that which I ought to know, and the knowledge of which will lead me to true happiness; therefore I ought to read again and again this most precious book, this book of books, most earnestly, most prayerfully, and with much meditation; and in this practice I ought to continue all the days of my life.  For I was aware, though I read it but little, that I knew scarcely anything of it.  But instead of acting thus and being led by my ignorance of the word of God to study it more, my difficulty in understanding it, and the little enjoyment I had in it, made me careless of reading it (for much prayerful reading of the word gives not merely more knowledge, but increases the delight we have in reading it); and thus, like many believers, I practically preferred, for the first four years of my divine life, the works of uninspired men to the oracles of the living God.  The consequence was that I remained a babe, both in knowledge and grace.  In knowledge, I say; for all true knowledge must be derived, by the Spirit, from the word.  And as I neglected the word, I was for nearly four years so ignorant, that I did not clearly know even the fundamental points of our holy faith.  And this lack of knowledge most sadly kept me back from walking steadily in the ways of God.  For when it pleased the Lord in August 1829 to bring me really to the Scriptures, my life and walk became very different.  And though ever since that I have very much fallen short of what I might and ought to be, yet by the grace of God I have been enabled to live much nearer to Him than before.  If any believers read this who practically prefer other books to the Holy Scriptures, and who enjoy the writings of men much more than the word of God, may they be warned by my loss.  I shall consider this book to have been the means of doing much good, should it please the Lord, through its instrumentality, to lead some of His people no longer to neglect the Holy Scriptures, but to give them that preference which they have hitherto bestowed on the writings of men.

`Before I leave this subject, I would only add:  If the reader understands very little of the word of God, he ought to read it very much; for the Spirit explains the word by the word.  And if he enjoys the reading of the word little, that is just the reason why he should read it much; for the frequent reading of the Scriptures creates a delight in them, so that the more we read them, the more we desire to do so.

`Above all, he should seek to have it settled in his own mind that God alone by His Spirit can teach him, and that therefore, as God will be inquired of for blessings, it becomes him to seek God's blessing previous to reading, and also whilst reading.

`He should have it, moreover, settled in his mind that although the Holy Spirit is the best and sufficient Teacher, yet that this Teacher does not always teach immediately when we desire it, and that therefore we may have to entreat Him again and again for the explanation of certain passages; but that He will surely teach us at last, if indeed we are seeking for light prayerfully, patiently, and with a view to the glory of God.'1

  We find in his journal frequent mention made of his spending two and three hours in prayer over the word for the feeding of his spiritual life.  As the fruit of this, when he had need of strength and encouragement in prayer, the individual promises were not to him so many arguments from a book to be used with God, but living words which he had heard the Father's living voice speak to him, and which he could now bring to the Father in living faith.