Don't Listen to the Voices

Do you hear voices? Before you answer think about it for a bit. I don’t mean voices in your head that are telling you to kill the president or anything, although that would apply too. What I mean is do you hear voices telling you what to do.

I hear voices. I hear the voices of my parents a lot. Stormy had her 7th baby Friday and we kept the other 6 from the time she went into the hospital until late yesterday. Whenever I deal with kids I hear the voices of my parents, the echos of what they said and the things they did are with me. I remember mom cursing me with the mothers curse, “when you grow up i hope you have kids who act just like you do.

I hear the voices of my grandparents who were the primary christian influence of my young life. I hear the voices of the past, the things I have learned and the people I have known but I hear other voices too.

I hear the voices on the radio and on television. People who tell me what happened, what to think about what happened and what i should be doing. If you think about it there are lots of voices in your life telling you what is true and what to believe. They come to you in the form of family and friends, on the radio, the television and over your phone. Not all of the voices agree and sometimes they are directly opposed to each other or to what you may already believe. So how do you know who to listen to and who to ignore?

Advertisers have learned that hearing something over and over makes us more likely to accept it. the commercials you hear, even the ones you hate are slowly changing your viewpoint, usually in the direction chosen by the advertiser. Each Sunday or Wednesday night I try to change your viewpoint or your opinion by preaching and teaching God’s word. Listening to some voices makes us stronger Christians and takes us closer to who we want to be but listening to the wrong voices makes us weaker and takes us further from who we want to be. So which voices are which?

Let me tell you a story. There was a time when the Israelites and the Arameans were at war and both sides were struggling. They had already fought at least two great battles and another battle was looming, our story picks up there.

1 Kings 22:1–28 NASB95

Three years passed without war between Aram and Israel. In the third year Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. Now the king of Israel said to his servants, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we are still doing nothing to take it out of the hand of the king of Aram?” And he said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth-gilead?” And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the Lord.” Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle or shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not yet a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him?” The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.” But Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say so.” Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, “Bring quickly Micaiah son of Imlah.” Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting each on his throne, arrayed in their robes, at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets were prophesying before them. Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made horns of iron for himself and said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘With these you will gore the Arameans until they are consumed.’ ” All the prophets were prophesying thus, saying, “Go up to Ramoth-gilead and prosper, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, “Behold now, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. Please let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably.” But Micaiah said, “As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I shall speak.” When he came to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” And he answered him, “Go up and succeed, and the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” Then the king said to him, “How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” So he said, “I saw all Israel Scattered on the mountains, Like sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace.’ ” Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?” Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. “The Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. “Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “The Lord said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.’ “Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you.” Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, “How did the Spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?” Micaiah said, “Behold, you shall see on that day when you enter an inner room to hide yourself.” Then the king of Israel said, “Take Micaiah and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son; and say, ‘Thus says the king, “Put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water until I return safely.” ’ ” Micaiah said, “If you indeed return safely the Lord has not spoken by me.” And he said, “Listen, all you people.”

By this time Israel and Judah had split kingdoms yet in this war they were together against the Arameans. If you remember the nation of Judah was more faithful to God than the nation of Israel and the king of Judah wanted to call a prophet of God to find out if God was with them in this war or not. The king of Israel did not want to call him because he said that the prophet of God never said anything good to him or about him.

All the other prophets (the ones not from the true God) were predicting victory but the king of Judah wanted to hear from the prophet of God. The prophet of God predicted defeat.

Now all of these prophets claimed to know, they all claimed to represent God, they all said they had the answer. Lets look at these two sides.

On the one side there was a huge group of prophets, the scripture tells us there were about 400 of them. They all told the king what he wanted to hear and they all claimed to speak for god and to know the right answer. When Micah the prophet of God spoke against them one of them struck him and then the king of Israel had him thrown into prison. 400 voices to one voice, it seems as if they would drown him out, and apparently they did because the kings went to war despite Micah’s warning.

On the other side we have one lone man of God, a man whom the king did not like and who had already made the king angry before. He spoke alone and he did not have a great show or make an iron horn to show the kings or anything, he just spoke what God told him to speak. For his trouble he was struck on the face and thrown in prison. His voice was unpopular and unheeded. Not only did the kings refuse to listen to him but they threatened his life and threw him in jail.

What do you think happened? The king who hated the prophet of God and threw him in jail went into the battle in disguise so that no one would target him and he would live through the battle, but he died anyway. The battle was lost and all that the prophet of God had told them turned out to be true. There were literally hundreds of voices speaking against God and against the lone voice of the prophet of God but the truth did not change for all of their hundreds of voices. No matter what the odds were and no matter how many were against him or how many were for him God was still in control and God’s word still proved to be true.

In fact we have a little glimpse of the working of heaven here where God allows a deceiving spirit to trick all of the prophets who were not of God and only the lone Prophet of God gets the right information, only he truly know what is going on. Apparently God intended it that way.

Today we are bombarded by thousands of voices. All of them claiming to know best and all of them urging us to do things their way. We have commercials telling us what to buy, politicians telling us how to vote, preachers and prophets telling us what to believe and a thousand other videos, movies and broadcasts all claiming to know the truth and all urging us to do or believe or buy the way they want us to. So how do we know who to trust? How do we know what is really true?

The stuff I have bought after watching a commercial is not always what the advertisement claimed it was, some commercials lie, they deceive. The politicians I have voted for did not always do what they said they would do, and sometimes even when they did it didn’t work out the way they promised it would. Politicians fail, some of them seem to never even try. I have been told things by people claiming to represent God that just were not true. I have heard false teachers and heretics that claimed the authority of God and spoke things God never said, things God was opposed to. There was a man in Wichita Kansas that claimed to speak for God and stated that God hates Homosexuals and his church protested military funerals who made me cringe every time he spoke because I am a southern baptist and he surely did not speak for me, he did not speak for God, He spoke for himself. There was a man in Texas who claimed to be Jesus and a man who caused his followers to drink poison cool aide all claiming to speak for God, but they did not.

How do you separate the noise from the true voice of God. You start with his word. Make sure that anyone who claims to speak for God begins with the printed word of God. Read you bible and learn who God is, learn about his law and his character. If anyone claims to speak for God by contradicting his word he is a false prophet, if anyone claims to speak for God and says something that is contrary to the character of God as described in the bible that man is a liar, or at the very least they are deceived themselves. There are thousands of voices out there and most of them are contrary to God’s word. It has always been that way and it will continue to be that way until Jesus returns to rule his kingdom.

If you want to listen to the true voice of God you need to compare everything said by every voice, whether it is me or anyone else to the written word of God. Make sure that you are following the right voice. The voice of God will never lead you astray, God will never set you up to fail. If you listen to the other voices in life you will be told what to buy, how to vote, how to live and what to think not because it it true but because it is what they want you to think or what they need you to think. They have something to sell, or they want something from you so they try to persuade you. God is the only one who needs nothing you have, He already has everything. He doesn’t need you or anything from you, he is complete in and of himself. That means that he alone has nothing to gain, he alone has no reason to lie or deceive you, God alone has no ulterior motive, you can trust him. Listen to him. Listen to the voice of God and he will never steer you wrong. God loves you and wants the best for you, he is calling out to you, which voice will you choose to listen to, as for me and my house we will listen to God.