We often long for things to happen that would frighten us into wishing they would not
have happened. One of these things is that God would talk to us directly in an audible
voice. We have no conception of what this would be like to hear the voice of God. The
people of Israel did hear it once and they were so frightened that they begged Moses to
tell God never to do it again, but to speak to them through the voice of a man. In Deut.
5:22-23 it says that God spoke to them out of the darkness as the mountain was ablaze
with fire. It was scarier than listening to ghost stories around any campfire. They felt
they would die if they ever heard God speak directly to them again, and so they requested
that Moses go near to God and listen, and then pass on to them what God had to say to
them. God’s voice was too awesome for them, and they did not want to hear it anymore.
They survived it once, but did not want to risk ever hearing it again.
Apparently God talks too loud for the comfort of the human ear. He does not even
need any loud speakers when He speaks from the top of a mountain to the people in the
valley below. If you have even been in a storm where the lightning and thunder have kept
coming in a continuous series of loud bangs that startle your ears, then you have a slight
concept of what it must be like to hear God’s voice. Spurgeon said in one of his sermons,
“It might well have occurred to a Jewish mind to have called the thunder the voice of
God, when he considered the loudness of it, when all other voices are hushed; even if they
be the loudest voices mortals can utter, or the most mighty sounds; yet are they but
indistinct whispers, compared with the voice of God in the thunder.” The people who
heard it said never again do we want this experience. We want God to speak to us in a
quieter voice. No man can shout loud enough to frighten us like the voice of God, and so
from now on they preferred to hear God through the voice of man.
God was not offended, for He knew His voice was not the best for public speaking. The
ears of man were not designed to listen to such loud tones. He agreed to keep silent and
speak through the voice of man, and especially a very specific man. This is how he
responded:
"And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which
they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among
their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his
mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command
him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken
unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it
of him" (Deuteronomy 18:15-19).
This is a messianic prophecy that refers to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world
to speak the Word of God. God sent many prophets, but Jesus was the Prophet who
spoke in the name of God. When Jesus spoke it was the very voice of God that men
heard, and God holds all men responsible for what they hear from the voice of Jesus.
Hearing Him is hearing God directly, and so the voice of Jesus is the greatest voice in
history, and the greatest voice in the universe, for it is the voice of God. It is a softer
voice, and it is easier on the ears, but it is just as authoritative as the thunderous voice of
the Father. Heb. 1:2 says, “..in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son,…” God
spoke in a variety of ways in the Old Testament, but now He has spoken directly again by
the Word, and the Word was with God from the beginning, and the Word was God. Jesus
was the very voice of God in human flesh. Jesus was God speaking to man again directly
and not through an agent. God speaks through nature, music, poetry, books, sermons,
and a host of different ways, but these voices are not the greatest. There is only one that
is the greatest and that is the voice of Jesus. Other voices tell of God, but the voice of
Jesus is God speaking, and his voice shows us God.
In Heb. 12:18-19 this Old Testament event of hearing the voice of God is referred to
again, and tells of how the people begged not to hear the voice of God again. It was so
frightening that even Moses was trembling with fear it says in verse 20. It goes on in
verse 25 to warn believers not to refuse to hear the voice of Jesus, for there is no escape
from judgment for those who refuse to listen to the voice of God in Him. He will shake up
more than a mountain. He will shake up both earth and heaven the passage goes on to
say. Jesus is the greatest voice any person will ever hear, for His voice is the voice of
God. It is a quieter voice, but it should still frighten us to think of not obeying it, for not
obeying the greatest voice will lead to the greatest judgment. Rather than fear this voice,
however, we should be praying often the prayer of Saint Makarios of Alexandria (300 -
394 AD).
Eyes of Jesus, look on me;
Lips of Jesus, smile on me;
Ears of Jesus, hear me;
Arms of Jesus, enfold me;
Hands of Jesus, bless me;
Feet of Jesus, guide me;
Voice of Jesus, speak to me;
Heart of Jesus, love me;
Spirit of Jesus, abide in me;
now and forever...
Amen.
We want to look at some of the characteristics of the voice of Jesus. Because His voice is
the very voice of God it is a subject too vast to cover in one message, but I want to share
some basic ideas. First of all-
IT IS THE LORD’S VOICE.
There are many passages of Scripture that deal with the voice of God, and when you look
at a series of them you can get a clear impression that the voice of Jesus is the voice of God.
Here is a series of examples:
Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God
amongst the trees of the garden.
Genesis 3:10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I [was]
naked; and I hid myself.
Isaiah 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for
us? Then said I, Here [am] I; send me.
Jeremiah 7:23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your
God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that
it may be well unto you.
Jeremiah 7:28 But thou shalt say unto them, This [is] a nation that obeyeth not the voice of
the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their
mouth.
Jeremiah 42:6 Whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil, we will obey the voice of the
LORD our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of
the LORD our God.
Matthew 17:5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a
voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear
ye him.
John 10:3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own
sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
John 10:4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep
follow him: for they know his voice.
John 10:5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the
voice of strangers. John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also
I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, [and] one shepherd.
Hebrews 3: 7 Therefore (as the Holy Ghost says, To day if you want to hear his voice,8 Do
not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness.
I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me
commandment what to say and what to speak. John 12:49
He who is of God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you
are not of God. (John 8:47)
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has
eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (John
5:24)
He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have
spoken will be his judge on the last day. (John 12:48)
Jesus was the voice of God, and in Him we have the final Word of God. He is the
ultimate authority. Secondly-
IT IS A LOUD VOICE.
It may not always be as loud as the voice of the Father who scared the wits out of people
when he spoke and shook the very mountain, but it is loud enough to be clearly heard so that
there is no excuse for not obeying it. In Rev. 1:10 John writes, “..,I heard behind me a loud
voice like a trumpet…” He turned to see and discovered it was Jesus. Jesus knows how to
speak loud enough to get man’s attention. Revelation 3: 20 has Jesus speaking, “Behold, I
stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in
to him, and will fellowship with him, and he with me.” He knocks loud enough to be heard.
In John 10:27 we read, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me…”His voice is always loud and clear enough for us to hear and open the door to Him, or
to follow Him in obedience as our Shepherd. Two hymn writers have conveyed the idea that
we can clearly hear and we can respond in obedience to the voice of Jesus.
Hark, the voice of Jesus calling,
“Who will go and work today?
Fields are ripe and harvests waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?”
Long and loud the Master calls us,
Rich reward He offers free;
Who will answer, gladly saying,
“Here am I, send me, send me”?The voice of God is calling its summons in our day;
Isaiah heard in Zion and we now hear God say:
“Whom shall I send to succor my people in their need?
Whom shall I send to loosen the bonds of shame and greed?”
“I hear My people crying in slum and mine and mill;
No field or mart is silent, no city street is still.
I see My people falling in darkness and despair.
Whom shall I send to shatter the fetters which they bear?”
We heed, O Lord, Your summons, and answer: Here are we!
Send us upon Your errand, let us Your servants be.
Our strength is dust and ashes, our years a passing hour;
But You can use our weakness to magnify Your power.
From ease and plenty save us; from pride of place absolve;
Purge us of low desire; lift us to high resolve;
Take us, and make us holy; teach us Your will and way.
Speak, and behold! We answer; command, and we obey!
Another hymn writer made it clear that all who will listen can hear the voice of Jesus
calling them into the family of God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of
God. This voice of Jesus is going out over our planet constantly by means of radio, video
and print, and it is loud enough so that many daily make the choice to listen and respond. In
1846 Horatio Bonar wrote-
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Come unto me and rest;
lay down, thou weary one, lay down
thy head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was,
so weary, worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad.
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Behold, I freely give
the living water; thirsty one,
stoop down and drink, and live."
I came to Jesus, and I drank
of that life-giving stream;
my thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
and now I live in him.
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"I am this dark world's light;
look unto me, thy morn shall rise,
and all thy day be bright."I looked to Jesus, and I found
in him my Star, my Sun;
and in that light of life I'll walk
till traveling days are done.
One day the voice of Jesus will be so loud that it will wake the dead. “Truly, truly, I
say to you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son
of God, and those who hear will live.” (John 5:25) When John says, “and now is,” he
is referring to the fact that those dead in sin now can hear the voice of Jesus and rise
from the dead to new life in Jesus. The ultimate will be, however, when Jesus comes
again and by His voice raise all who are in the graves to face their judgment and
reward. Ray Stedman gives an account of just how loud and powerful a voice Jesus
has in raising the dead in sin to newness of life. He writes,
“Yesterday morning I gathered with about 650 other people to hear former Senator
Harold Hughes, ex-Governor of Iowa, tell how God had drastically changed his life. When he
was a hopeless alcoholic, wallowing in his own vomit, so despairing he was ready to take his
own life, God met him and delivered him through much struggle and pain, and led him to a
place of prominence and power. I sat on the platform watching people hanging on his every
word, listening to a man describe what God could do.
Listening to Senator Hughes, I was again impressed by this phenomenon. He spoke of
reaching a point in his life where his wife and children had left him and he had lost his work.
He ended up drunk, sitting in a bathtub, with the barrel of a gun in his mouth and his finger
on the trigger. He sensed within an agonizing cry of despair. Then he called out to God and
immediately felt a spreading sense of peace within that delivered him from the crisis of the
moment. Through much pain, heartache, and failure, God led him along until he was at last
free from the grip of alcohol. He eventually became the governor of his state and a United
States senator.”
The voice of Jesus is loud enough and power enough to accomplish all that God wants to
do in history and in lives. Thirdly-
IT IS A LOVING VOICE.
Jesus was just like His Father in heaven. He was the express image of the Father, and,
like the Father, He was always seeking to encourage those who followed him in obedience.
He loved deeply and longed for them to have his joy. It says of the Father in Zeph. 3:17
"The LORD your God is with you...He will rejoice over you with singing" Only once do
we read of Jesus singing, and that is when the Last Supper was over and He and His
disciples were ready to follow Him to the garden. It says in Matt. 26:30, “When they has
sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” Jesus was in human flesh and so He
did not have the powerful voice He had before the incarnation. We cannot imagine what
it would be like to hear His voice in heaven as he sang in joy over His people. What a
divine duet it must have been for Father and Son to join in a song of joy over the people
of God when then walked in obedience. We know that He also sang the blues, for so often
His people did not walk in obedience. But the voice of God and that of Jesus is a voice
that loves to sing in joy. Love songs are His favorite, and we will get to hear His songs for
all eternity.
We tend to hear only about how we will praise God and the Lamb of God for all
eternity, but we have every reason to believe that we will also have the opportunity for all
eternity to hear them sing to us, or over us, with joy. Talk about a concert! This will be
the mother of all concerts when we hear the Father and the Son join is a concert of love
songs for the people they have redeemed and made a part of their family forever. The
Hebrew word describing how God sings means a loud shout expressing extreme joy and
gladness. Imagine a vast choir with voices like that of Pavarotti, and you still will not get
the thrill it will be in hearing this divine duet. For all eternity we will hear the loving
joyful voice of our Redeemer singing over the Bride He loves so dearly that He died for
her so she could be with Him forever. There will be no blues in heaven, but only joyful
love songs. We will sing them to our Savior, and we will listen to them as we hear the
loving voice of Jesus, and never again have to hear his voice of judgment.
Unfortunately we still need to hear His voice of judgment in this life because we do not
always walk in obedience. But the fact remains, that even in time we hear most often the
loving voice of Jesus giving comfort and encouragement as we run the race of life.
Thomas Troeger in The Parable of Ten Preachers tells this story that comes to a
conclusion that the Scripture clearly supports.
... A youngster...had asked a spontaneous question during a church service...
The child was standing on the chancel steps with other boys and girls who had
come forward for the children's sermon. Before [the preacher] had spoken
her first words to them, the boy asked, "What does the voice of God sound
like?"
...The little boy's question had preempted the [prepared] children's
sermon...All were waiting to see how their pastor would answer the question,
"What does the voice of God sound like?"
...She began slowly, saying "The voice of God sounds like...." and drew the
words out as long as she could while she prayed desperately that God would
speak and give her an answer.
She started once again: "The voice of God sounds like ... like your best friend,
like someone you trust, someone you can really talk things over with. The
voice of God sounds like your mother or your father or your favorite baby
sitter when they comfort you because you're having a bad dream in the night.
You hear them next to your bed, calling: "Everything's all right. Everything's
all right. I'm right here beside you."
One of the main themes of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus became fully human that he
might fully understand and sympathize with us in our temptations and trials. Chapter two
stresses that he became just like us in order to understand what we go through, and then
in4:15-16 we read, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet without
sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Again, the hymn writer has expressed it-
The great Physician now is near,
The sympathizing Jesus;
He speaks the drooping heart to cheer,
Oh! hear the voice of Jesus.
We can hear the loving voice of Jesus time and time again by reading the many
promises He gives us in the Gospels. For example:
Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be full. (John 15:11)
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you . . .. (John 14:27)
I have said this to you that in me you may have peace. In the
world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world. (John 16:33)
So, if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. (John
8:36).
I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in
me shall never die. (John 11:25,26)
I came that you might have life, and have it abundantly. (John
10:10)
The more you listen to a voice the more easily you can identify the person who is
speaking. Some people call on the phone and you can know who it is right away by the
first word they say because their voice is known to you. Mary Magdalene though it was
the gardener she saw that first Easter morning, but when He spoke her name she knew it
was Jesus. She knew His voice well, for she spent much time listening to Him teach. We
need to listen to the voice of Jesus often so we can distinguish between his voice and the
voice of impostors who try to pretend to be the voice of God. That which does not
conform to the voice of Jesus is not the voice of God.
The world is filled with the voices of those who seek to give you religious guidance, but
these voices often convey that which leads us in different directions from that of the voice of
the Good Shepherd. The only way we can be sure of any guidance is to compare it with the
voice of Jesus in His Word. The more we understand the Bible the easier it is to detect what
is false guidance. So much that sounds good is not truly of God, and the only way to know
this is to listen often to the voice of God. When you hear what is truly His voice often enough
you will be able to detect right away what is contrary to His voice, and also what is consistent
with His voice.
I read an account by a pastor who knew by experience how sheep can hear the voice of
the shepherd and respond. He wrote, “We just didn't have many sheep running around
where I grew up on the south side of Chicago. So I listened with fascination the other day
when my father-in-law told about being the shepherd for his family's flock of sheep. He
was just a boy, the only child, and Mom and Dad left the sheep pretty much with him -
and he was with them a lot. One day he and his parents were watching the flock and he
said, "Would you like me to call one of them out?" Right, kid - like one sheep is going to
know it's him you want? So Mom and Dad kind of laughed. The little shepherd asked
them to pick a sheep they wanted called out . . . and then he made a little bleating sound . .
. and the selected sheep proceeded to leave the flock and come right to him. Mom and
Dad were still skeptical. "Pick another sheep", he said. Another bleat - this one a little
different - and Mr. Sheep answered the call. And no one else could get that kind of
response. That little exercise was repeated several times, until there was no denying the
amazing fact - those sheep had such a personal relationship with their shepherd that his
was the only voice they followed.”
The point is, if we spend a lot of time listening to the voice of Jesus as our Shepherd
we too can hear when He calls to give us guidance, comfort, and encouragement. We will
not be led astray if we know how to distinguish His voice from the many voices that seek
to entice us to follow them. All the stress on reading the Bible and prayer is not just a
legalistic duty, but it is so that we can be familiar with the voice of Jesus, and respond in
obedience when we hear his call. The call often comes through the voice of a man, and
that is why Jesus has ordained that the Gospel be preached in all the world.
By the voice of pastors, missionaries, and teachers of all kinds, Jesus speaks today.
Spurgeon once said, “And now tonight Jesus speaks to us in the gospel. So far as his
gospel shall be preached by us here, it shall not be the word of man, but the word of God;
and although it comes to you through a feeble tongue, yet the truth itself is not feeble,
nor is it any less divine than if Christ himself should speak it with his own lips.” Jesus
confirms this, for he said in Luke 10:16, “He who listens to you listens to me…” When we
speak the Word that God has revealed in Jesus, we too can become the voice of God.
Ray Boltz and Steve Millikan wrote a song called When He calls, and it end with this
chorus:
“When He calls, When He calls
Just say "Lord I am listening"
When He calls, When He calls
Just be ready to obey.
For there's no greater joy
Than hearing Him call . . . your name.”
There is no greater joy than hearing Jesus call, for there is no greater voice than His.
Jesus has the highest recommendation in the universe, for when Jesus was transfigured a
voice from the cloud said in Matt. 17:5, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well
pleased. Listen to Him!” No matter how poor a listener you are, it is your highest obligation
to listen to Him. Without a doubt, Jesus is the greatest voice.
