Give ear and hear my voice. Listen and hear my words” Isaiah 28:23, NASB

Have you ever had the experience of being somewhere away from the noise and din of the city, perhaps in the mountains somewhere, or in a desert; and as you sat and looked at the starry sky, you were amazed at the silence?  It was quiet, right?  Wrong!  It wasn’t quiet; it was just that you couldn’t hear the sounds.  Strange but true is the fact that the atmosphere around you is filled with a thousand voices, but you just aren’t tuned to them.  You can’t pick them up.  If someone asks you what kind of a device you’re listening to, you would say, “Well…it’s a radio.”  Or “I’m listening online over the internet.”   There are “voices”—sound waves, cellular and digital signals all around us!

May I ask you something which is a little frightening to some folks?  Have you ever heard the voice of God?  Immediately you think, “What kind of a nut would claim to hear God’s voice?”  I’m thinking of a man in a mental institution who claimed to be Napoleon Bonaparte, and the psychiatrist who was treating the man asked, “Who told you that you are Napoleon?”  “God did!” replied the man, and about that time the booming voice across the room says, “I did not!”

When I ask if you have ever heard God’s voice, I don’t mean something weird, but I mean to ask if you have ever heard God’s inaudible voice within your heart saying, “I want you to do something.”  If you answer, “Never!” then ask yourself, “Is it possible that He has been trying to tell me something, and I just haven’t been listening or tuned in to His frequency?”

Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, “Give ear and hear my voice. Listen and hear my words” (Isaiah 28:23, NASB).  The New Testament book of Hebrews says, “His voice shook the earth” (Hebrews 12:26); yet that passage in 1 Kings 19, telling about Elijah’s encounter with depression, says that when God spoke, it was a quiet, still voice.

One troublesome question follows another.  Here’s a second.  “How do you recognize the voice of God, as opposed to the voice of Satan, or something else such as our own selfish desires?”

Here’s part of your answer, and it comes from the New Testament.  “God…in these last days has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:2).  The words of Jesus are recorded in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, as He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20, NASB).

It is through His Word, the Bible that we most often hear His voice today–sometimes as others tell us about His Word, and sometimes as we read it ourselves.  I would not be so presumptuous as to tell you that God cannot speak directly to your heart convincing you that you must do His will, but I can tell you quite clearly that He will never, never speak anything to your heart which contradicts what He has given to us in His Word.

God’s voice is too often drowned out by a thousand other voices that clamor for our time and recognition.  Want to hear His voice more clearly?  Take time to read His letters to you in the Bible.  Take time to meditate on what you have learn­ed, and listen to His voice in prayer.  The voice of God is saying, “Here’s the right path.  Walk ye in it.”  Only a fool would deafen his ears to that kind of a voice.

Resource reading: Hebrews 1