He Spoke

"God spoke and spoke and spoke. He could be heard."

IN THE BEGINNING, when God created adam, male and female, He spoke to them. After they sinned, once again, He spoke to them. He spoke to their son Cain, after he killed his brother, Abel. He spoke to Noah about the violence on the earth and building a boat to save his family. After the flood, when Noah’s household left the ark, God spoke to him and accepted his sacrifice.

He spoke to a man named Job, at length. He called on Abram to leave Ur and travel to a land he did not know. He spoke to him in that land and promised him his descendants would inherit it one day. He renamed him Abraham and renamed his wife, Sarah. He spoke to Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar, who was not a Jew and told her to name her son, Ishmael. He asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac then sent a ram to replace Isaac after seeing Abraham’s obedience.

God spoke to Isaac. He spoke to Isaac’s son Jacob. He spoke to Jacob’s son, Joseph many times, repeating to each generation His promise to Abraham, that they would inherit Canaan. God spoke to a man named Moses and called him to deliver Abraham’s descendants from Egypt. He spoke LOUDLY to Pharaoh, who ignored him, choosing to worship the gods of Egypt.

Now, enter the prophets. God spoke to many men the word of the Lord over Israel, going so far as to chase down Elijah in a cave and show Isaiah the throne room of heaven. God spoke to Daniel, a boy taken into slavery in Babylon. He spoke to Ezra the priest and Nehemiah about the rebuilding of Jerusalem. And I’ve skipped past a string of women, the judge Deborah, Queen Esther, Rahab.

We are under a New Covenant. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives inside our recreated spirit man, and He speaks to us. We can go boldly into the throne room to find grace in our hour of need. God speaks clearly to us, and we can speak face-to-face with Him. But, looking back at the Old Covenant, which God Himself instituted, God kept speaking time and time again. People knew where to find Him to hear His voice or there’d be no Old Testament stories to read, just a lot of judgment.

But God spoke to His people, to His prophets, to His enemies. Sometimes they listened. Sometimes they didn’t.

He spoke to David, a shepherd boy out guarding sheep. He spoke to David’s son, Solomon in a night vision, asking him the most important question of his life. God spoke to King Nebuchadnezzar, a Babylonian, through a hand which appeared on the wall. God spoke to King Hezekiah about his health. He showed up in the midst of a raging furnace, and the three Hebrew boys emerged, not smelling like smoke. He spoke to King Cyrus, a foreign king about funding the rebuilding of the temple.

And one day, many years later, He spoke to Zechariah about his son, John. He spoke to a virgin named Mary about carrying His only begotten Son, and He spoke to Joseph, her espoused husband so that he would take her as his wife. God spoke to three wise men from the east, telling them in a dream not to go back via King Herod. He spoke to John the Baptizer, who Jesus called the greatest prophet to ever live.

Jesus took the thief with Him to Paradise, a place reserved for those who’d died before He rose again having defeated the devil. A great gulf stood between it, called Abraham’s bosom, and the torments of Hades. God had a place for people to stay until redemption was made available. Old Covenant people made righteous by faith went to Paradise.

God spoke and spoke and spoke. He could be heard. He could be sought and would be found. Before redemption, before Jesus’ birth, before His death and Resurrection, God spoke.

“And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40)

When we all get to heaven, the place Jesus went to prepare for us, we’ll see many men and women there who were made righteous before Jesus lived on earth. Because nothing is impossible with God. Nothing. He’s prophesied through a donkey, through a false prophet, through a man who spent three nights in the belly of a whale. He prophesied through Ezekiel, who laid on one side staring at a diorama of Jerusalem for a year. God prophesied the death of His Son through Caiaphas the high priest, who despised Jesus and wanted Him dead.

Looking back, He sent the prophet to a widow and her son during a time of famine. He heard the woman, Hannah’s cries for a child, and gave her Samuel. He gave a barren woman a son, and when her son died of heat stroke, she marched right back to the prophet and had him raised back to life again. No word of God was void of power under the Old Covenant, to men and women covenanted to it, or to those who were not. A harlot saved a group of spies and became the only home on the wall of Jericho to survive its destruction.

God loves people. He’s always loved people. He’s always rescued people. He’s always forgiven sin. He’s always healed the body and the mind. He did so for Jews and Gentiles, men and women, shepherds, priests, widows. Anyone who’d believe. The just shall live by faith in Habakkuk. The just shall live by faith in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, too. To David, the Lord is our Shepherd. Then Jesus came and became the Good Shepherd of the sheep.

God spoke. God saved. God redeemed. The same God who did all those miracles in Genesis to Malachi, lived the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, then poured out His Spirit in Acts, and formed the church from a ragtag group of bold fishermen and a Pharisee, who until Jesus spoke in a bright light on the way to Damascus, was intent on killing Christians.

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8 KJV)

Jesus spoke, and He is speaking. He is. We must know who He is first. But He was, to those who needed to hear Him in times past, and He is to come, the future in His grasp. He was faithful to those under the Old Covenant. He is faithful to those who are in the New Covenant. The Father’s love for us has provided salvation through His grace. He is with us always, forever. We can call on Him and know He will answer time and time again. But though the way to the Father is made through His blood and unity with God is ours, He is the same as He was yesterday, as He is today, as He will be forever.

Always speaking to those who would hear Him, so that He could be the God of men, who loved them enough from the very beginning, to promise Himself as their victory, no matter the cost it would take.

“As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.” (Hebrews 12:1 TPT)

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com