St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian” (1 Corinthians 14:10-11).
What the apostle is saying is that in a world in which voices become a multiplicity of cacophonies, a Babel of indecipherable high decibel noises, an ear-splitting Niagara of falling words, those of us who are subjected to this unrelenting thunder of voices beating incessantly on our eardrums, are in-undated. Our circuits are burning out from overload.
It’s like pouring an ocean of water into, and then onto, an admittedly thirsty hen; or an Everest of soil into, and then onto, a flower pot. It’s not the roar of a nuclear bomb we need to hear. It’s the simple syllabled sound of a message that can bring us to life-giving decision, direction and destiny. That’s the voice the world craves and needs to hear.
It seems that we’re hearing, as Paul stated, “all kinds of voices in the world,” and from all sides. They’re coming from the downside, from beneath. The Devil and his array of demons are speaking out. Flip Wilson’s “The Devil made me do it” is indeed more than a comedian’s line (Isaiah 29:4).
The ancient Hebrew prophet warned us that there is an occult world of speaking spirits. He cautioned us not to heed the “voice (of) one that hath a familiar — that is, a demonic — spirit.” As the Apostle Paul in the New Testament alerted us to the fact that Satan can pose as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), so the Psalmist (Psalms 58:4-5) urged us not to “hearken to the voice of charmers, charming ever so wisely.” Moses spoke of “the voice of swearing” (Leviticus 5:1) and Apostle Peter of how the “dumb (donkey spoke to Balaam) with (a) man’s voice” (2 Peter 2:16).
It was revealed through a British TV documentary what had incited Beatle John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman. He confided, “This voice in my head (kept) saying, ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!'” So heeding the voice, he snapped a .38 caliber pistol from his pocket and pumped five bullets into Lennon’s back.
Much of the New Age Movement is built on the notion that channelers can bring up the voices of the dead, some of whom purport to have lived as human beings on the earth as many as 35,000 years ago. We read feature and cover stories in The New York Times and Time magazine telling us that as many as a hundred million North Americans currently take their smorgasbord pickups from the New Age tables of ESP, reincarnation, astrology, clairvoyance, palmistry, crystal ball gazing and fortune telling. They tell of Shirley MacLaine who assures her 1,200 seminarians, at $300 per head in Hilton Hotel ballrooms, that “ecstasy (for you is based on) complete surrender and trust in me as your channeling voice. Just remember I am the co-creator of the universe … see me as God.”
If you make it to a New Age Harmonic Convergence, you may hear New Zealander Merilte Rowe, claiming to be the voice of Soli. He’ll tell you, “You are God. You are, each and everyone, part of the Second Coming.” Or you may meet Jack Pursel who assures you he “speaks with the voice of Lazarus.” And claiming to have a 2,000-year-old accumulation of wisdom, he’ll answer your question, “Is the world about to end?” with the reply, “No, this is the beginning!”
Man has escalated into that levitation Age of Aquarius. It’s all a recrudescence of ancient Babylonian religion. Isaiah left no doubt that the judgment of God falls heavily on “the astrologers, the stargazers (and) the monthly prognosticators” who rest their directions on mediums who draw their guidance from the voices of “sorcerers” and “enchantments” (Isaiah 47:12-13). Millions are turning from Christianity on the one hand and secular humanism on the other to the downside voices of New Agers.
Thank God, the Bible believer listens for the upside voice of God. You see, it was the voice of God’s Son, Jesus the Christ, which implemented creation. Exclaimed King David, “The Most High uttered His voice (and) the channels of (the) foundations of the world were discovered.” Christ was the Creator Channeler, not a New Ager. But He also can speak in judgment. Declares the Psalmist (Psalms 46:6), “(The Lord) uttered His voice; the earth melted.” In Genesis 3, we read that when Adam and Eve in Eden succumbed to sin, “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.”
In Exodus, we read that “God answered (Moses) by voice (Exodus 19:19). And Moses warned Israel, if you don’t heed God’s voice, you’ll “perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:20). Isaiah recounted how, in the Temple, the pivotal pillars and “posts moved at the voice of (God), the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me” (Isaiah 6:4-8). Hebrews 1 tells us the “God who … spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
When Jesus took Peter, James and John, and they were joined by Moses and Elijah in the Mount of Transfiguration, suddenly the heavens opened and “Behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him” (Matthew 17:5). Sixty-five years later, John was exiled by Roman Emperor Domitian to the Isle of Patmos when in the Revelation of Jesus Christ he writes, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and what thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches” (Revelation 1:10-11). It was John who assured us that Jesus Christ’s “name is called the Word of God” (Revelation 19:13).
Mark Twain once observed, “Public opinion (is) held in reverence (to the extent that) some think it is the voice of God.” No, Jesus Christ is the voice of God. The Medieval philosopher Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne in 800 A.D., “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” No, the Word of God is the voice of God. William Blake urged two centuries ago, “Hear the voice of the Holy Word.” It’s what moderns most need.
Another direction from which the voice of God is confirmed to the believer is from the Holy Spirit’s voice inside. Apostle Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, went to the Gentiles with the Gospel because “there came a voice (saying) Rise, Peter” (Acts 10:13).
A century-and-a-half ago, Julia Crawford exclaimed, “Thou voice of my heart”; and later Sigmund Freud, on his seventieth birthday, “The voice of the intellect … does not rest until it has gained a hearing.” Poet Shelley lyricized of “love(‘s) voice.”
But these voices can often be deviant and deceive. Even Elijah got his signals mixed, when he was swept by a hurricane, shaken by an earthquake, and nearly scorched by a fire. But the Spirit of “the Lord was not in the wind (nor) in the earthquake (nor) in the fire (but in the) still small voice” (see 1 Kings 19:11-12). That voice, exhorted Moses (Exodus 23:20-21), is “to keep thee in the way. Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not.” “Yes,” at all times, “carefully hearken (to) the voice” (Deuteronomy 15:5).
There’s a marvelous promise in Isaiah 50:10 where the prophet asks, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” You do that through prayer. Implored a desperate David, “Lord, I cry unto thee. (Please) give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee” (Psalms 141:1). The assurance that the Lord did, is in the 31st Psalm: “Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee” (Psalms 31:22).
The eighteenth century German, Johann Friedrich Von Schiller got it right when he observed, ‘What the inner voice says will not disappoint the hoping soul.”
Which leads us to refer to the voice from the far side, from beyond. “The hour is coming,” assured Jesus, “when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:25). And not only the dead, but those of us who at Christ’s coming may be alive and remain. Wrote St. Paul to the Thessalonians, “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18). What a comfort!
T.S. Eliot wrote of how life here treats the masses, “There is no end of it, the voiceless waiting.” In heaven, Christ will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Promised the Lord through ProphetIsaiah 65:19, “The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.” As for down here, Jeremiah, whose nickname was “the weeping prophet,” tells us, “Refrain thy voice from weeping … for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:16). From that far side, one day will come the voice of Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life. To you Jesus promises, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (John 10:27-28).
So we’re hearing all these voices — voices not only from the downside, the upside, the inside, and the far side, but from the outside — calling people to decide for Christ. “Behold I stand at the (heart’s) door and knock” promises Jesus Christ. “If any … hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20). Have you heard the voice of Jesus knocking at your heart’s door? If you hear His voice now, ask Him without delay to come into your life.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lyricized, “On the ocean of life we pass … only a look and a voice; then darkness again, and a silence.” Three times in Holy Scripture we read, “Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart” (Psalms 95:7; Hebrews 3:7-15).
Be cautioned that the same sun that melts the snow, hardens the brick. Hear now those words sung around the world, “I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Come unto Me and rest’.”
If you hear His voice now, pray this prayer after me, “God be merciful to me a sinner, and save me now for Christ’s sake. I thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming into my life!”

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