The Beauty of the Lord's Voice -- by Pastor Peter Tan
Dear Beloved
The Voice of the Lord is a spiritual voice and can only be receive by our spirit beings. Only spirit can contact Spirit, only soul can contact soul, and only body can contact body. Before the fall, Adam and Eve must have delighted in hearing the voice of God in the Garden but immediately after the fall the same voice that has brought joy and comfort, now brought him fear (Genesis 3:8,10). The Hebrew word 'voice' is the word 'qol' which sometimes has been translated 'sound.' It is possible to hear a sound without necessarily hearing and understanding the voice (Of course, if it is a spiritual sound, only spiritual ears can hear although to the hearer it might sound as if it is just a natural noise).
When Jesus was baptized in water, there was a voice from God that declared Him as His beloved Son but most likely only John saw vision and heard the voice of God (Luke 3:22; John 1:32-33). When a voice answered Jesus as He prayed, some people near Him heard it as a thunder, others heard something without understanding and said that an angel had spoken (John 12:28-29). When Paul was down under a vision on the road to Damascus, He heard the voice and instruction of the Lord but all those around him heard a voice (sound) but did not understand anything (Acts 9:7; 22:9). All these events were supernatural events which affected the surrounding people differently depending on their own spiritual development in God.
1. We are promised the leading of the Holy Spirit everyday (John 14:17-18,26)
The leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives are always there every day. It is never a question as to whether He has spoken but rather whether we can hear and understand Him. Jesus said that His sheep hear His voice (John 10:27). And the Holy Spirit has come to lead us and to guide us into all truth (John 16:13). The anointing that God has given to all believers abides in us, teaching us all things (1 John 2:27). Sometimes we don't understand because we are not tuned to the area to hear what is being communicated. For example, an experienced mother knows what a child's need is and the more experience they are, the more they can differentiate between the whimper for comfort, the cry for nourishment, and the cry of pain and discomfort. An animal lover can differentiate the needs of an animal by its posture, sounds and even eyes. God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, His angels and the Holy Spirit are constantly sending us little leadings of the Holy Spirit that we must tune in to everyday.
2. The promptings, signals and leadings of the Spirit and His angels are not given in a human language. We might in the end hear it in human language but they are given Spirit to spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). For example, when God's voice vibrate in the spiritual realm and is telling a group of His people not to be afraid;
some of them will not hear anything but purely feel a sense of comfort,
some will sense the remembrance of an event in which they had taken great comfort and faith,
some will hear within their inner mind, words of comfort in their own vocabulary (Be not afraid or Be strong, Fear not, I am with you, I am here, you are not alone, etc.),
some will suddenly remember varying Scriptures telling them not to be afraid (Matthew 28:20 – Lo, I am with you; Psalm 23:4 - Though you walk through the shadow of death, you will fear not evil for I am with you; Psalm 91 – He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under His shadow, etc.
Some may ask, why is it that the same voice of comfort produces such different interpretations? This is because we all hear the same voice of comfort in our spirits but our souls and minds translate it into something which we can understand. Understanding this principle of Spirit to spirit communication is important, for it is the key to developing our relationship with God:
a. We all do not perceive exactly in the same way. No one thinks exactly the same way. We all are unique and although we understand and acknowledge that there is Absolute Truth and Reality outside of ourselves, and the principles of those Truths, we all perceive it in our own unique way. Two plus two equals four but a baker will see it as two buns times two makes four buns, an animal lover may see it as two cats plus two cats make four cats, and astronomer may see it as two stars plus two stars makes four, a mathematician might see it as two plus two using a base of ten makes four, etc. We all add our perception to what is being perceived.
b. We are limited by our ability to stretch our perception. Humans normally never hear sound vibrations higher than 20,000 vibrations a second but dogs can. Our inner ear does not have the ability to perceive it. Perception and understand is always a construct from the blocks of knowledge that we already have to build new knowledge. For example, try explaining what snow is to someone who has never seen snow. You would have to use things within the person's life and knowledge to construct new knowledge. You might use coconut meat to illustrate the colour of snow. You might use cold water to illustrate the coldness of snow. You might use sand to illustrate the brittleness of snow, etc. But until you are either able to bring the actual snow itself to the person or a picture of it, there are some limits to what you can communicate. If you had a block of ice, you could chip the block of ice into tiny bits and then fluff it out 'like snow' to convey to the person what snow is like. Yet there are things that the person can only imagine but not experience, for example, the picture of snow covered trees twinkling in the moonlight with snow capped mountains behind them, the joys of building a snowman or making angel shapes in the snow, the beauty of white fluffy snowflakes falling from the sky, etc. When God speaks to us, our spirits hear Him but we are always limited by the extent of the blocks of knowledge within us to construct the gist or sum of what He is trying to say. That is why the more we grow, the more we can grow; and the more we experience, the more we can experience. Ask, seek and knock, and it will open the door for more of God (Matthew 7:7). That is why we need to read the Bible, for they contain the recorded experiences of other people whom God has met and spoken with; and as you understand how and why God speaks to them, you will understand how and why God speaks to us.
c. Our soul limits how much we can know of God by limiting our ability to translate the receptions in our spirit to our conscious mind and understanding. For this reason, we need to renew the soul and the mind though the Word of God (Romans 12:1-2; 1 Peter 1:22). Our soul consists of our mind, our emotions and our will. There are some things which the mind cannot grasp but the emotions can; there are some things which the emotion cannot grasp but the mind can; and there are some things which is completely beyond the emotion and the mind but if we follow our will in the right path, our emotions and our minds with exposure and time will rise to the occasion and be able to fell and know (with training and growth). We learn to count before we learn to multiply and we learn to multiply before we do calculus. We learn to make friends and we learn what friendship love is, we learn to love our families and we learn what family love is; we experienced companionship, joys, sorrows, laughter and tears through life – and finally gain the capacity to enlarge ourselves in our abilities to love and to care for others.
Remember that in every situation you are in, the grace of God has already provided you an answer and a path through (1 Corinthians 10:13). Remember that every situation is an opportunity to learn and grow (Romans 8:28). Remember that there are some areas in life where you have full freedom of choice and some areas where the choice has already been made for you by predecessors or by circumstances but God is always there to show you the right path if your heart is right (Proverbs 3:5, 6).
Understand and learn to interpret every perception in your spirit man, every impression in your heart, every shade of your dream life, every tug of your emotion, every flicker of thought; for within them contains the translation of the Spiritual voice of God arising in your soul consciousness. Be led by the Spirit and you shall indeed be sons and daughters of God (Romans 8:14). A miss is as good as a mile, so don't miss what God is saying to you today and every day.
In Christ's love
Ps Peter Tan
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