The Voice of the Lord

The Voice of the Lord spoke to mankind throughout history. Scripture records at least 500 instances of the Voice speaking to man. Many people do not believe that the Voice still speaks. Many more believe that the Lord never spoke to regular people like you and me; they believe that the Voice only spoke to special people. In fact, my unscientific polling has indicated to me that 40% of all the people I have asked about hearing the Voice admit to hearing a Voice in their head. Yeshua said that many are called. I believe that the 40% of the people who hear the Voice of the Lord are those that are called.

Many of you will ask what I mean by hearing the Voice of the Lord. Let me start with the most normal event. Paul says that faith comes through hearing and hearing by the Word of G-d. The word he uses is rematos in Greek which means an inner word. Romans 10:17. The normal Voice is one that speaks within. It can be a single word, a concept, an idea, or a whole conversation. I saw something yesterday that described how that word helps us to do G-d's will. It allows us who follow obediently to do things we know nothing in advance about doing. It allows us to answer prayers of others when we act as messengers or angelou of G-d. Another way that the Voice speaks to us is through other people and random acts who will raise our conscience to do certain things or to understand what is happening around us. The third, and by far most rare hearing of the Voice is called in Hebrew Bath Kol. Literally, it means daughter of the Voice. I have heard it twice. One cannot resist it. The Voice speaks audibly to the person and because it is the Voice of G-d it sometimes is preceded by a shaking, a wind, or some other event. I became a believer because the Voice spoke to me and said I had no faith.

How does one get the Voice? What is really meant by that question is who is chosen. However, it is hard to think about the fact that only 40% of the people in the world are even called and a much smaller percentage is chosen. It is from this concept of only a few being chosen and there being no way to tell them that we get the concept in Judaism of the Israel of G-d and in Catholicism of the Mystical Body of Christ. While Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor, tells us that if we do not hear the Voice we should go to a church and patiently wait until we hear it, I cannot concur. Many will never hear that Voice. For me, I received the Voice after praying that G-d would speak to me. I firmly believe that G-d inspired me to reverse the agreement that he made with the rest of Israel when they promised to listen to the prophets if G-d would not speak to them again. But for Gentiles, there never was a guarantee of being called and all of Jacob is called.

The Voice is a specific gift that when strong is called the gift of knowledge. That gift allows us to know things in advance of their occurrence, to do things that will save us from harm, to be able to help the Lord as messengers, and finally to have the consolation that comes with having a trusted friend who will tell us the truth.

The Gospel of John goes so far as to talk about our ultimate goal in relationship to the Voice: "But whoever enters through the Gate (Yeshua, John 1:51) is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper (Peter) opens it for him, and the sheep HEAR HIS VOICE, as he CALLS his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize HIS VOICE." 10:2-4. The Voice therefore is an extremely important part of the true believer's life. He comes to rely upon it rather than books and teachers alone. The Voice will certify which teachers to listen to for it says in John 10: "But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the VOICE of strangers." 10:5. When the Voice certifies a teacher, one must be willing to re-examine those teachings and accretions of trauma that make our lives rich and see what should be thrown out and what saved.

The Archangel told us that we should have no other G-ds before Him. Sometimes we make g-ds out of books. Only the mitzvoth in the Torah were written by the hand of G-d and everything else should be seen through a prism, the prism of faith that comes through hearing the rematos of G-d.