Voices II

John 10:^{4-5, & 27} “After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice.  They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice… My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

We will pick up today’s devotional from where we stopped yesterday. We said that out of the multitude of voices in the world, we will zero in on twelve and we highlighted four yesterday. First is the voice of God. Second is the voice of parents. The third is the voice of friends, and the fourth is the voice of adversaries. The fifth voice we will be looking at is the voice of the Bible. God wants us to read His Word because in reading the Bible, we can get to a point when God’s Word begins to speak to us. Then we begin to hear the voice of God through the Bible. We deliberately separated the voice of the Bible from the voice of God because the voice of God can happen independently of the voice of the Bible.

God can tell you things that the Bible can never tell you. You would not see the answer to the question of whether you should travel tomorrow or not in the Bible. Should I marry Mr. X or Lady D? You can check the Bible from Revelation to Song of Solomon, and you would not find it there. But the voice of God can tell you who to marry or whether you should travel or not. You and I have to learn to listen to the voice of the Bible. The truth is that when you get the voice of the Bible, that is the surest way to hear the voice of God. If you imbibe the Word so much that it speaks to you, you can be sure you are accurate hundred percent of the time.

The sixth is the voice of the flesh. The flesh also speaks to you. A young man has been admiring a lady in church. He spends so much time looking at her social media pages. Then he has a dream where he sees this same lady in a wedding gown. That is usually the dream, isn’t it? And in the dream, he sees the lady walking down the aisle only to realize that he is the groom. Then he goes to his Pastor and claims he has heard God’s voice. Really? I am not saying it is not God’s voice. But I am saying that whenever you hear a voice, it could be one of these twelve voices or others that we have not even looked at. The seventh is the voice of the devil. Jesus heard the voice of the devil clearly. The devil said to Jesus, “if you are the Son of God command these stones to become bread.” That was the voice of the devil. Jesus answered and said, “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Please read Matthew 4:1-11].

Jesus countered the voice of the devil with the voice of the Bible. When you hear the voice of the devil, you counter it with the Word of God. What does the Word say when the devil says xyz? Find out what the Bible says and speak it. Eight is the voice of Prophets. I know the prophetic has been abused heavily. People have merchandised and commercialized the office of the prophet. Fake prophecies have become the order of the day, unfortunately. But the truth is that God still speaks through people, God still speaks through Prophets.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are my Shepherd and I am Your sheep; I recognize Your voice and I follow You. I will not follow any other voice, in Jesus Name. Amen!