The Greatest Voice Series

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