When God Speaks
You and I live in a day of modern technology and communication. The computer and cell phone have changed the way we live. Social media impacts all of our lives in one-way or another. I grew up in a different era. We lived on a farm. We were excited when we got black and white TV and also when we got a landline phone. The phone was interesting because we had a switchboard operator and were connected to a party line, which included at least five to six different families. In the late sixties and early seventies, there was a popular TV show, Laugh-In. One of my favorite skits on the show involved Lily Tomlin who played the part of Earnestine the switchboard operator. I still laugh today when I think about segments of her portrayal. I can relate to those skits in a personal way.
What a contrast to modern forms of communication: cell phones, face book, twitter, instagram, snapchat and the list goes on and seems to expand by leaps and bounds on a daily basis. The Bible contains many examples of how God communicates with man. One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is Isaiah Chapter 6. The text reads:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3 And one cried to the other and said, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”
4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out and the house was filled with smoke.
5 Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of Hosts.
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken from the tongs of the altar.
7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said, “Behold this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.”
8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
When God speaks, He transcends time and space as we know it. Sometimes he speaks to us through His Word, sometimes through other people, sometimes through a dream or vision, sometimes through His creation, a beautiful sunrise or sunset. Something, in the moment, goes beyond the natural and becomes within us, supernatural. That is what the Bible communicates to us, over and over, throughout the Book. The supreme revelation of God was through His Son, Jesus the Christ.
The Writer of Hebrews states in chapter 1
1 God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets
2 Has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds…
The people who were in the hearing of Isaiah’s voice, we are told, kept on hearing and did not understand; kept on seeing, but did not perceive: a sad commentary on the whole generation of people. Jesus said the same ting during His generation when He spoke in Matthew 13:14-15:
14 And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, Hearing you will hear and not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive;
15 For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn, so that I should heal them.
When we look at the way in which God speaks to us today, it will always transcend our own methods of communication whether we are relating to a switchboard operator or using modern technology. God goes beyond that which we know in the natural. Our methods of communication may change through time; however, our God remains the same yesterday, today and forever. When He speaks, He speaks into our heart, our spirit and our innermost being. In our day in age, those things that entertain us captivate us: probably no different than times past. We must ask then, are we plugged into the things that entertain us, or are we plugged into God who is ultimately the only one who can fulfill us? May the Lord open each of our hearts, eyes and ears that we may truly “hear” what He is speaking to each of us today!