The Voice from Heaven by Dave Brueckner
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| Dave has shared gems from the Word of God for many years, in Ireland and in the USA. |
“I, John…..was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet…” Rev. 1:9-10
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ecently, while reading through Revelation, I noticed that heaven is not quiet at all. John made special mention of a time, when heaven was silent for a half hour, because that was an unusual state of affairs. In fact, I read about “a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice” (5:2). John sees ten thousands of angels and hears “in a loud voice they sang” (5:12). Souls under heaven’s altar “called out in a loud voice” (6:10). When Babylon fell, there was a sound in heaven “like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: Hallelujah!” (19:6). I mention a few instances, but you can search for yourself and find many more. Heaven is not a monastic site, where everyone is silently floating around on fluffy white clouds.
Hearing heavenly voices
Though the voice from heaven is loud and clear, it is rarely received, because of the dullness of human hearing. That is why we read repeatedly in chapters two and three, “He that has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Jesus spoke in parables in order to discover the ones, who wanted to fine-tune their receptors to eternal words. Those who lingered, after most of the people left, conversed with him about things they did not digest the first time they heard them from his lips. Biblical hearing does not come cheaply, but must be given time and effort.
In order to grow a garden in winter, you need to provide a greenhouse to accommodate the seed. You have to give it something akin to its native atmosphere - the proper soil, moisture and light, if the seed is to germinate, grow and produce fruit. In order to hear from heaven, its atmosphere must be cultured in our hearts. It must become a place, where the Holy Spirit feels at home and is not grieved. The natural environment must be blocked out.
Why was John able to clearly discern these voices and sounds from another world? The key to his reception of the entire book of Revelation lies in our text: “On the Lord’s day I was in the Spirit.” John did not happen by chance to be in the right place at the right time, but the literal Greek rendering reveals, “I came to be in the Spirit.” He brought himself to a condition, in which he could hear from heaven. On a remote island, he shut out the noise of this present world and turned his eyes and ears heavenward.
Voices from the crowd
In the parable of the sower, the plant is choked by the thorns that crowd it. The demands of the surrounding world never will allow breathing room for the word to receive the necessary nourishment, unless drastic, positive action is taken against it. Twenty or thirty years in the future will find some of us living at the same fruitless spiritual level as today. Jesus instructed us to go into our closets and shut the door. All that clamors for our attention must be silenced and we must open the window of our hearts towards the New Jerusalem, praying, “Our Father who art in heaven…”
David Wilkerson shut off his TV, sold it, and spent much time alone with God. That is what it took for him to hear loudly and clearly from heaven. He tuned to a ministry among the youth in New York City. Teen Challenge and Times Square Church are the results of that call.
John’s sensitivity to the superior and eternal values of heaven spoiled anything that this temporal world might offer him. He wrote in his epistle, “The world and its desires pass away.” In the Revelation, he wrote of the day, when the sounds of the world and its system will be silenced forever: “The music of the harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters … the sound of the millstone … the voice of the bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again.” (Rev. 18:22-23)
Jesus speaks to the individual
It is never enough to be part of the crowd, no matter its proximity to Jesus. In His hometown, Nazareth, Jesus came in the power of the Spirit, bringing the scriptures to life, but his townsmen, not only rejected His word, but also tried to throw him off a cliff. The crowd may lead you to cry, “Crucify Him!” as well as shout, “Hosanna!” Pilate put all reason and justice aside, when he listened to the crowd.
Jesus walked among the multitudes, but His word was to the individual. He speaks to the heart, convicted of its need, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” He knocks on the door of the church, hoping to catch the attention of the individual, hungry for personal contact with heaven. “If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and sup with him and he with Me.” If your spiritual eyes and ears are not tuned to heaven, do something about it immediately.
A voice that cries to heaven
Blind Bartemaeus heard the tumult of a crowd, as he sat begging by the roadside, and informed himself of the circumstances (Mark 10:46-52). When He learned that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, his heart leapt. He was not going to lose an opportunity that might never reoccur, to implore the only help for his condition, of which he had ever heard. His first call to Jesus met with rebuke from those who led the multitude. I wonder, if he considered their assertion that he was being a nuisance and that it was mighty presumptuous of him to think one unworthy beggar should interrupt the Messiah’s activities. Perhaps, he knew about the paralytic who Jesus healed, lowered through the roof, because the crowd prevented his approach through the door or windows. The blind man cries, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Be quiet!” the crowd commands.
Maybe he had heard of the short man, Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree, because the surrounding multitude blocked his vision. Jesus had called to him and went to his house. “He will stop for me also,” thought Bartimaeus. Louder, he shouts, “Jesus!” “Quiet!” the crowd again demands.
Now, he may think about the woman with the issue of blood, who needed to press through the throng in order to touch the hem of His garment and be made whole. Jesus felt that personal touch. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” he cries.
Jesus sends someone with the sweetest words that ever fell on human ears, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you!” Wonder of wonders! The hope of Israel and the world has taken time just for him. After Jesus healed him, he followed in the way and his mind must have been filled with praise, similar to that reflected in a song:
“I love, I love that man from Galilee,
He it was who set me free.
He took away my sin.
Put the Holy Ghost within
And I love, I love that man from Galilee.”
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