What is the Voice of God Like?

Yesterday, I asserted that the sound of the shofar is that which is like the Voice of God and provided Scriptural references in support of that statement.

But, once again, I have to ask the question, “What is the Voice of God like?”

If we go to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis we see in verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20,  and 24 that it is written, “And then God said….”. But seven times, the number seven indicating complete perfection, whatever God said was manifested or came into being, out of nothing but the sound of His Voice! When God spoke creation (time, matter, and space) into existence, He established Himself as the ruling force over His creation. God is sovereign over EVERYTHING that we see, know, or can’t see and don’t know.

God’s voice is POWERFUL and CREATIVE!

But in Genesis 1:26, when God spoke, something changed. This is the eighth time that God’s voice is recorded. Eight is the number of new beginnings. The mode of operation changed. The manner in which God created changed. The first seven times God spoke, He merely spoke and what ever He said came into being. However, in verse 26 God said:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish in the sea  and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon  the earth.” Genesis 1:26 (NASB95 emphasis is my own)

Do you see the change? God has gone from speaking creation into existence to making man!

Genesis 2:7 describes the action.

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man  became a living being. Genesis 2:7 (NASB95 emphasis is my own)

Notice that God formed man of dust from the ground. God fashioned, molded, man from the dust as a potter would fashion a clay vessel by hand. But that wasn’t good enough. The man was just a shell or form of a man. But God breathed a breath of life into the nostrils of the form of man and man became a living being.

All of this tells me that God’s Voice is POWERFUL and CREATIVE. His breath is INTIMATE and LIFE GIVING!

So, why is that important?

The sound of the shofar is that which is like the Voice of God. God’s voice is powerful and creative! God’s breath is intimate and life giving! What passes through the shofar to create sound which is like the voice of God?

The life-giving breath of God which is an intimate means of communication with God! Do you see the correlation between sound, the voice, power, creativity, intimacy, and life that is in the sound of a shofar?

God’s Voice is also commanding and authoritative. Consider Joshua as he marched around Jericho seven times on the seventh day. Seven priests sounded seven ram’s horn shofars and the army of Israel gave a great shout! It is recorded that the great walls about the city of Jericho fell. Now, did seven men blowing on seven horns and a shout knock down those impenetrable walls?  No, they didn’t. However, the sounding of the trumpets summonsed the Captain of the hosts of the LORD and the angelic armies of God and they obliterated those walls! The shout was merely the shout of victory recognized before it manifested. Again, the sound of the shofar, that which is like the voice of God, sounds by the passing of God’s life-giving breath through an instrument and the power of God is manifested in the natural by supernatural means. That is, when God instructs one to do so.

The shofar cannot be wielded according to the will of man and be expected to accomplish anything! But Joshua had been given a battle plan. The battle plan didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to make sense. Joshua obeyed God’s instruction to the letter. When he did that, Joshua EXPECTED God to be faithful to HIS word! There was never any doubt.

To sound a biblical trumpet without instruction or precedent or sensitivity to Holy Spirit of the Living God, is just making noise. A shofar is nothing more than the horn of a dead animal and the man blowing into it is nothing more than a man.

However, when the shofar is sounded by one who was chosen by God, outfitted and anointed of the Holy Spirit, trained by God’s Word and His Spirit then you do well to EXPECT the miraculous!

Alas, here I am getting ahead of myself again. I’ll stop for now. Come again tomorrow and I’ll explain what the word “Shofar” in the Bible actually means.

I am The Old Watchman, Ezekiel. Shalom!