How Does God
Speak?
When a spacecraft returns from its orbital flight, there is a blackout period of about four minutes when all communications are broken. This is due to the intense heat generated by the spacecraft's reentry into the earth's atmosphere.
The Bible teaches that man is in a period of spiritual blackout. Spiritually, he is blind. "We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men" (Isaiah 59:10). "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not" (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Spiritually, man is also deaf. "They have ears to hear, and hear not" (Ezekiel 12:2). Jesus went so far as to say: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16:31).
Spiritually, man is even dead. "Who were dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1).
All of this means that the communication between God and man is broken. There is a wonderful world of joy, light, harmony, peace, and satisfaction to which millions of persons are blind and deaf, and even dead. They long for serenity, they search for happiness, but they seem never to find it.
Many give up the search and surrender to pessimism. Often their despondency leads to a frantic round of cocktail parties where vast amounts of alcohol are imbibed. Sometimes it leads them to narcotics. It is all part of man's desperate search to find an escape from the cold realities of a sin-blighted existence. All the while God is there speaking and beckoning.
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The television set may be sitting in your room cold, dark, and lifeless, but this is not the fault of the television industry. They are sending forth programs from many transmitters, and their sending stations are in perfect order. But you must turn the dials of your set; you must tune in on the right channel. God is sending forth His message of love, but you must tune in. You must be willing to listen and to receive His message and then to obey it.
Many persons want to hear what God says just out of curiosity. They want to analyze and dissect it in their own test tubes. To these persons God may remain the great cosmic silence "out there somewhere." He communicates to those who are willing to hear and receive Him and willing to obey Him. Jesus said that we must become humble as little children, and God has most often revealed Himself to the meek and humble — to a shepherd boy like David, to a rough desert man like John the Baptist, to shepherds watching their flocks, to a girl named Mary.
How does God speak? How can a blind man see? How can a deaf man hear?
From the beginning God spoke to man. Adam heard the voice of the Lord in the Garden of Eden. Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel, and God spoke to them. Cain spurned that which was revealed to him, but Abel was obedient to the word of God. Abel's response showed that a man tainted and handicapped by sin could respond to God's overtures. Thus in the very beginning God began by revelation to build a bridge between Himself and man.
Revelation in Nature
God reveals Himself in nature. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.
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Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard" (Psalm 19:1-3). There is a language in nature that speaks of the existence of God. It is the language of order, beauty, perfection, and intelligence. Some time ago a scientist told me that when he gave serious thought to the majestic order of the universe and its obedience to unchanging law, he could not help but believe in God. He had become aware that God was speaking through nature.
God speaks in the certainty and regularity of the seasons; in the precision of the movements of the sun, the moon, and the stars; in the regular coming of night and day; in the balance between man's consumption of life-giving oxygen and its production by the plant life of the earth; and even in the cry of a newborn child with its ever new demonstration of the miracle of life. When my younger son Ned was born, I had the privilege of being in the delivery room with my wife. Just before the moment of his birth, the doctor looked up at me and said: "I have delivered thousands of babies, and I never cease to be amazed at the miracle of birth. How anyone could deny the existence of God after witnessing this, I do not know."
As man's knowledge leaps forward in our generation, it does not mean the discovery of new things, but only the extension of his understanding and his ability to use that which is already there. Man is ever discovering worlds new to him, but old to God. Even a casual study of the statistics of astronomy causes us to stand in awe. The space density of the universe is so great that it is estimated that there are now more than a thousand million galaxies. These galaxies average twenty thousand light years across, and many of them are more than two million light years apart. It is impossible for our minds to take it in. Many astronomers say there may be no limit to the universe. Old theories and ideas about the beginning
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of the universe are being thrown out the window. If a scientist lacks a belief in God, he must be baffled indeed by the mysteries of the universe.
To look into a microscope is to see another universe so small that only the electronic microscopes can even find it. For instance, it is revealed that one single snowflake in a snow storm with millions of other snowflakes is the equivalent of twenty billion electrons. Scientists are learning that the miniature world of a single living cell is as astonishing as man himself.
Thus the Apostle Paul said: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead" (Romans 1:20). God says that we can learn a great deal about Him just by observing nature. Because He has spoken through His universe, all men are without excuse for not believing in Him. This is why the Psalmist said: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (Psalm 14:1).
Revelation in Conscience
God has revealed Himself also in the conscience. Conscience has been described as the light of the soul. What causes this warning light to go on inside me when I do wrong?
Conscience is our gentlest counselor and teacher, our most faithful friend, and sometimes our worst enemy. There are no punishments or rewards comparable to those of the conscience. The Scripture says: "Man's conscience is the lamp of the eternal" (Proverbs 20:27, Moffatt). In other words, conscience is God's lamp within man's breast. In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant said there were just two things
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that filled him with awe — the starry heavens and conscience in the breast of man.
The conscience in it's varying degrees of sensitivity bears a witness to God. Its very existence within us is a reflection of God in the soul of man. Without conscience we would be like rudderless ships at sea and like guided missiles without a guidance system.
Revelation in Scripture
God has revealed Himself also through the Scriptures. God has two textbooks, one the textbook of nature and the other the textbook of revelation. The laws of God revealed in the textbook of nature have never changed; they are what they were since the beginning. They tell us of God's mighty power and majesty.
In the textbook of revelation, the Bible, God has spoken verbally; and this spoken word has survived every scratch of human pen. It has withstood the assaults of skeptics, agnostics, and atheists. It has never bowed its head before its discoveries of science. It remains supreme in its revelation of redemption. The more the archeologist digs and the more the scientist discovers, the greater the confirmation of the truth of the Bible.
The writers of the Bible claim repeatedly that God gave them their material. Two thousand times in the Old Testament they said that God spoke. In the first five books we find such expressions as these:
"The Lord God called unto Adam and said"
"The Lord said unto Noah"
"God spake unto Israel"
"These are the words which the Lord hath commanded"
"God said"
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"The Lord spake saying"
"The Lord commanded"
"The word of the Lord"
Over and over the Old Testament prophets used such expressions as these:
"Hear the word of the Lord"
"Saith the Lord"
"I heard the voice of the Lord saying"
"The word of the Lord came unto me"
"Whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak"
"I have put my words into thy mouth"
"The Word of the Lord came unto me saying"
Either God did speak to these men as they wrote by inspiration, or they were the most consistent liars the earth ever saw. To tell more than two thousand lies on one subject seems incredible, and more than two thousand times the writers of the Bible said that God spoke these words! Either He did just that, or they lied. If they were mistaken in this emphasis, why should we honor their witness at any point?
Jesus quoted frequently from the Old Testament. He never once indicated that He doubted the Scriptures. The Apostles quoted the Scriptures often. The Apostle Peter said: For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21).
Thus God speaks to man through the Scriptures. This is why it is so important to read the Bible for yourself. So many take the Bible second hand, and they have only a caricature of what the Bible says, only vague ideas about its teachings. When I go to university and college campuses, I am amazed to find how ignorant the students are of the real teachings of the Bible. They think they know, but they don't.
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Revelation in Jesus Christ
Finally, God speaks in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. "God . . . hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). The idea that God would some day visit this planet is an ancient truth that is no doubt an oral remnant of the original revelation God gave to Adam of a promised salvation (Genesis 3:15). We find crude references to it in most other religions of the world, indicating that man at some time had heard or sensed that God would visit the earth. However, it was not until the "fulness of the time" when all the conditions were right, when all the prophetic considerations were fulfilled, that God "sent forth his Son, made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4).
On that first Christmas night in Bethlehem, "God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). This manifestation was in the person of Jesus Christ. The Scripture says concerning Christ: "In him all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9). This manifestation of God is by far the most complete revelation God ever gave to the world. If you want to know what God is like, then take a long look at Jesus Christ. In Him were displayed not only the perfections that had been exhibited in the creation — such as wisdom, power, and majesty — but also such perfections as justice, mercy, grace, and love. "The logos was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).
To His disciples Jesus said: "You believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1). This sequence of faith is inevitable. If we believe in what God made and what God said, we will believe in the One whom God sent.
The means of understanding these facts of salvation is faith. We are not always challenged to understand everything, but
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we are told to believe. "But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing, you might have life through his name" (John 20:31).
Every hope we have of God, every prospect we have of eternal life, every anticipation we have of heaven, every possibility we have of a new social order — all must be linked to Jesus Christ. It is as we come to Jesus Christ that the unknown becomes known; and not only that, but as we come to Jesus Christ we experience God Himself. Our limited darkened lives receive the light of the eternal presence of God, and we see that there is another world beyond the confusion, limitation, and frustration of this world.
