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Voice of God
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Under the Old Covenant, the Voice of God was in His duly ordained—appointed—prophets. Under the New Covenant, He transferred that responsibility to His apostles, and to reject that message is to reject Christ and the Father. Only by accepting and believing that message can the faith of Christ be in us. That is saving faith. In summary, there should know five things about the Voice of God: 1) There is the definite article—the Voice of God. 2) The Voice of God is in the creation, and it speaks of His existence. 3) The Voice of God is in His Word, and it expounds in almost infinite detail the things that we need to be prepared for the Kingdom of God. 4) The Voice of God is in His prophets and apostles. 5) The Voice of God is in His ministry—if they are speaking in agreement with the Voice of His Word. In some regards, our salvation hinges on our yielding to the Voice of God that we see in His Word. That is where our life is. "The words that I speak to you," Jesus said, "they are spirit, and they are life." If we reject them, if we harden ourselves to them, there is no possibility that we will have in us the faith of Christ because this Book represents what Christ believed. It is His Voice. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

Deuteronomy 4:32-36  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) What power! Those people were terrified when they heard the voice of God. It shook them to their very being—and that was God's purpose! This, of course, "is written for our admonition," as Paul says in Romans 15:4. Moses writes this to impress upon us the connection between "voice," "words," and "power." So powerful is the voice of God that it is a miracle that they lived through hearing it! None of us have ever had to face anything like this, but this was written for us so that we could make the connection between "voice," "words," and "power." When we think of power, we almost always think of the Holy Spirit, but Jesus said, "The words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life"—they have power. When God gave His spirit, He gave it accompanied by the sound of a mighty, rushing wind—like a hurricane that bends and breaks things in its path, the same forces that create and form lightning and thunder! So we have "voice," "words," "power," and "spirit" linked in a process that will affect life. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

Psalms 29:1-11  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) David uses "thunder" as a metaphor for the voice of God. For the purpose of instruction, the reason is to make obvious the connection between something that everybody is familiar with—the powerful, reverberating sound of thunder—and the power of God's spoken Word. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

Zephaniah 3:2  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) "She obeyed not the voice." This is what led to Jerusalem's downfall! The Voice of God was in the prophet He sent with a message to bring about repentance, and she did not obey it. The preacher or prophet gives sound to the Voice of God and His words. The people heard the sound, but they did not believe. So, their sin persisted. Christian preaching is the preaching of Christ. Do not misunderstand this. It is not "preaching about Christ" but "the preaching of Christ"—meaning preaching what Christ Himself preached. Obviously, some of what Christ preached was about Himself, but it included a great deal more than that. Only when we preach what Christ preached are we able to have the faith of Christ—the faith that saves—because Christ preached what He believed. What He believed was the message that He heard from the Father. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

John 10:1-5  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) In the illustration many sheep are in an enclosure where several flocks come together for the night. The shepherd comes in the morning to lead them to their pasture, and he calls to his sheep by name. Though the individual flocks had become hopelessly intermixed during the night, the shepherd's sheep hear his voice and separate themselves from the larger flock. Notice how often Christ emphasizes the voice of the shepherd in this short section: "The sheep hear his voice" (verse 3); "The sheep follow him, for they know his voice" (verse 4); "They do not know the voice of strangers" (verse 5). When the shepherd speaks, the sheep go to him immediately. When "voice" is used in the New Testament, the writers all chose the Greek word phone, meaning "sound" or "spoken word." But phone can also mean "an address as to a group of people, a speech." Phone derives from phaino, meaning "to enlighten" or "to shine." From this root meaning springs the fact that phone can mean "disclosure" or "revelation" through an address or speech—a message! This is its figurative meaning in John 10. The true and faithful shepherd will be preaching a message which his sheep will hear and immediately follow! Mike Ford The Shepherd's Voice

John 10:1-4  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) The sheep, like the lover in Song of Songs 2:14, know the voice because they know the Shepherd and trust Him. They trust His voice. In it, they hear safety, security, sustenance, joy, hope, encouragement, love, warmth, and correction that does not turn them aside. The voice is the effective means of communication between Christ and us. The voice not only identifies, but it also communicates concepts to us that reveal both character and emotion. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

John 12:27-30  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) In this example, taking place shortly before Jesus' suffering and death, a gathering of Greek visitors and probably some of His disciples are present (see verses 20-22). They all hear the voice. Jesus says the thunderous voice was made audible for the sake of His visitors. At such a troubled time, it was no doubt encouraging for Him as well. Jesus speaks to His Father in the presence of the Greek visitors, and His Father audibly answers Him. Some compare the voice to the sound of thunder. Others think an angel has spoken to Jesus. Could it have been an angel speaking? No. The voice says that the Speaker had glorified His own name, so if it were any other being than the Father, this declaration would be false. Surely, the Father would not delegate the duty of glorifying His name even to an angel, especially at such a pivotal time. John Plunkett The Voice of God

1 Corinthians 1:18-21  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) We need a voice—a preacher, a true minister of God—to make the message clear. By nature, our desires are likely to run amok. We think we know what we want, but we do not always know what we need. A minister's function within the church is to lead us from what we want to what we need. A brief article excerpted from an old Fortune magazine article chided church pastors for following rather than leading their flocks. The result, it said, was a vicious, downward spiral of spiritual disillusionment in the congregates. The following quotation from that article is quite insightful: There is only one way out of the spiral. The way out is the sound of a voice. Not our voice, but a voice coming from something not ourselves, in the existence of which we cannot disbelieve. It is the earthly task of the pastors to hear this voice, to cause us to hear it, and to tell us what it says. This statement is backed up by Romans 10:13-17: For "whoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved." How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, "Lord, who has believed our report?" So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. How can people call on God if they never heard of Him and do not know Him? Paul answers that they cannot hear without a preacher. A preacher cannot go unless he is sent, commissioned as an ambassador with a message revealed to him. Paul's summary is that faith—saving faith—arises from this combination of acts after the message is heard and believed. Faith comes by hearing the Voice of God spoken through a duly ordained messenger of God. This, in effect, means that only He who sends the message can designate who bears it! In addition, Paul is not simply describing the beginning of faith, but its beginning and all of the progress made by faith throughout a person's conversion. The very strength of faith is by hearing and believing. Salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). Faith is the key that opens the door of salvation, but only to those who will hear and believe and redirect their lives accordingly. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

1 Corinthians 14:33  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) God continuously, from the beginning of the Book on, reveals Himself working through one man at a time. Does God send two or three or five ambassadors speaking somewhat different things to the same country at the same time? That would be confusion, and "God is not the author of confusion" (I Corinthians 14:33). He avoids confusion by speaking through one voice, and we need to understand that. We need to believe it and make it a part of the operation of our lives. When we become confused about the voice God is speaking through, the church tends to blow apart, and people go their own way. To restore the holiness of His name and to guarantee that we enter into His Kingdom, God leads us into groups where we can continue to be sustained until we learn this bitter but very vital lesson and submit to Him by following the voice that He sent into this world to restore and preach the doctrine to which He wants us to conform. He does this so that we will be transformed into the image that He wants by our making right and holy choices. What kind of leadership would it show God to have if He spoke in a confused tongue, as it were, having two or more men in the same area saying different things about the path to the Kingdom of God? Doctrine is that recipe that will form the correct product in the end—if it is believed and applied in our lives through the choices we make. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 2): God's Pattern of Leadership

Hebrews 12:25-29  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Listen! Hear Him! Believe what He says! The author of Hebrews has presented us with the facts that Christ is greater than angels, greater than Moses and greater than Aaron; that the New Covenant is superior in every way to the Old Covenant. He addresses this presentation to Christians who stand, not before a physical mountain in the Sinai, but a spiritual Mount Zion in heaven. Nevertheless, we still have the potential to refuse to hear, even as our spiritual ancestors who had just come out of Egypt did not hear. Now, they knew—they knew—that it was the voice of God that they heard, and they refused to hear because they believed they could not endure what He commanded! Do we see the parallel? It is possible for Christians to cherish their own will—which they know to be diametrically opposed to the will and purpose of God—and to stick to their own desires, thus stifling the voice of the Almighty God Himself! And thus, we can wrench ourselves away from the voice because we feel uncomfortable going against our resolve. John W. Ritenbaugh Unity (Part 4)

Revelation 6:1  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) There are a number of verses where the voice of God is connected to or described as thundering: Job 37:4-5: After it a voice roars; He thunders with His majestic voice, and He does not restrain them when His voice is heard. God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend. Psalm 18:13: The LORD thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered His voice. . . . Psalm 29:2-4: Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LORD is over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. Revelation 14:2: And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. Revelation 19:6: And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!   John W. Ritenbaugh Revelation 10 and the Laodicean Church

Revelation 14:1-2  (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up) Although it does not specifically say so, the wording strongly indicates that the voice mentioned here is that of the Father speaking at another pivotal time in world history: the day His Firstborn stands upon Mount Zion to meet His newly born brothers and sisters. At the time this voice from heaven is heard, Jesus Christ—the Word of God and the Lord or Yahweh of the Old Testament—is on earth on Mount Zion. Other biblical passages describe the voice of God in remarkably similar language to verse 2. Notice this verse in comparison to Ezekiel 43:2 and Revelation 1:15: u And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the sound of many waters. . . . u His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. . . . Now consider Job 40:9; Psalm 29:3; 77:18; and 104:7: u Have you an arm like God? Or can you thunder with a voice like His? u The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders. . . . u The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind. . . . u At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. Finally, note Isaiah 30:31-32: u For through the voice of the LORD Assyria will be beaten down. . . . It will be with tambourines and harps. . . . These proofs seem fairly conclusive that it is the Father's voice described in Revelation 14:2. John Plunkett The Voice of God

 

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