"The Voice of God" The voice of God is very powerful.  The first place the voice of God is recorded is in the third verse of the Bible:  “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).  God spoke everything into existence from nothing.  God conferred and agreed with the Persons of the Trinity: the Father, the Son (the Word), and the Holy Ghost, when deciding to create mankind: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26).  We are created three-part beings in the image of our  triune God: we have a spirit, a soul and a body, yet we are one person.  It is through our spirits that God communicates with us and by which we hear His voice.  Adam and Eve experienced God through all of their physical senses before their sin severed their relationship with Him.  They saw Him, walked with Him and talked with Him in the Garden of Eden. Eve heeded the voice of the deceiver, Satan, and Adam heeded the voice of his wife above the voice and instruction of God.  The very next time they heard God’s voice, they hid from Him (Genesis 3:10)  After God confronted them with their disobedience and exiled them from the Garden, the spirit of man died and was separated from the life of God.   Mankind could no longer hear the voice of God unless God allowed them to hear His voice.  Moses was one who God chose to speak to and through him to His people. God appeared to Moses and spoke to him through a burning bush in the wilderness, commissioning him to be His spokesman and to lead the Israelites out of bondage from Egypt to the Promised Land (Exodus 3).   Moses was also instructed by God to tell the people of God’s intention to make them His own special people if they obeyed Him.  Afterwards, the Lord had Moses instruct the people to sanctify themselves for three days, and then He would appear to them and speak to them from the mountain (Exodus 19).   “…On the third day there were thunderings and lightenings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud so that all the people who were in the camp trembled” (verse 16).  When Moses came down from the mountain to speak God’s commandments, the people were afraid and stood far off.  They said to Moses: “You speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die.”  Moses told the people not to fear, that “God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin” (Ex. 20: 9-20).  Well did the Israelites fear, for if unholy man had presumed to approach the mountain to gaze at Holy God, they would have been consumed!  For thousands of years afterwards, God chose to speak to His people through His prophets…until Jesus came to earth. God sent His Son Jesus, Who is the Word of God, to earth so that mankind could see and hear the Father:  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth…For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:14, 17-18).  God’s voice was once again heard audibly when Jesus was baptized: “And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).  Jesus spoke only the words that the Father gave Him to speak (John 12:49).  Jesus reconciled us back to the Father through His death on the cross.  By faith in Jesus, the relationship between God and man is restored and man is able to hear His voice.  After Jesus left the earth, He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer.  Through the Holy Spirit and His Word, we can hear His voice today.  Not only can Christians hear His voice, but God can speak through His people: “But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13: 11).  The Holy Spirit speaks to the hearts of men today, convicting them of sin, righteousness and the judgment to come.  “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness…” (Hebrews 3: 7-8).  To hear the voice of God, we must first surrender our lives to Him and repent.  Salvation through Jesus Christ is the only way to be adopted into His family.  We must still our hearts and shut out all of the clamor and demands of the world.  God is always speaking to us; we can’t hear Him over the din of the television.  Worship Him, talk to Him and read His Word, the Bible.  The God of the Universe will speak to your heart in a small, still voice (1 Kings 19:12) and change your world! “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” –Jesus (John 12:48) “The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.  The Lord is over many waters; the voice of the Lord is powerful.  The voice of the Lord is full of majesty…The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness…the voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, and strips the forest bare.” (Psalm 29: 3-4, 8-9)