His Big Loud Voice (Part 2)

Cleaned from the live recording. Lightly edited for reading.

His word was with power

(Host reads (Luke 4:31-36): Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum, the man with the unclean devil, and the people astonished at his doctrine.)

So the world wants to see God. They were astonished at Jesus' words, at his doctrine, for his word was with power (Luke 4:32). We're talking about God's big loud voice. They were astonished because it was with power.

You can teach doctrine. You can be a very good apologist. You can be a very great theologian. But nothing happens if it's not with power. Why were they astonished? Because they were now witnessing God-man. The voice of God in flesh.

The first time God spoke, he said, "Let there be" (Genesis 1:3). He didn't give a sermon on creation. He did not say, "If you want to create something, you need to do this and you need to do that." He said, "Let there be." You see, there can be a sermon on creation, and there can be power to create. And this is why they were astonished. Jesus did not just speak. Jesus' words had life in them, power in them to perform what he was talking about.

When we talk about the big loud voice of God, his voice, his words, have the power to bring to pass what he is speaking or communicating about. So if he's talking about healing, he doesn't give a big long message on healing, a wonderful message on how you can be healed if you believe in God, if you have faith in God, ten steps to receiving your healing. While he was speaking, people were healed. He would say things like, "Pick up your bed and walk" (John 5:8).

The very words that he spoke gave life and strength to the person. If you're saying to a crippled person, "Pick up your bed," your words have to have power. If they're crippled, how are they going to pick up their bed? How are they going to walk? It means when he gave that command, when he spoke with authority and power, dunamis flowed. Scripture talks about "the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3).

So when we're talking about his big loud voice, many times his voice can be heard through walking, talking human beings.

(Host shares a reflection on Balaam and the donkey (Numbers 22:28-30), asking whether the donkey spoke in a human language or whether Balaam, as a prophet, was interpreting.)

Creation speaks

There are so many layers of truth there. One, creation speaks. In Romans 8 it talks about creation crying out for the sons of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19). Jesus said if they try to silence the little people, even the rocks will cry out (Luke 19:40). Scientists, astronomers, also detect that even planets give off a sound.

And it's interesting when the Bible talks about tongues, or the interpretation of tongues or languages, which tongue it is. In 1 Corinthians it talks about the tongues of men and of angels (1 Corinthians 13:1). Celestial. You asked whether the donkey was talking or not. Whatever language or dialect, God made him understand. Go back to Genesis, where it talks about the animals and the serpent (Genesis 3:1). How did Eve understand?

Now let me get into a little meat based on what you said. When someone plays a song, right away the one listening can see what it's saying. Somebody understands what songs say. So it goes back again: when we're talking about the loud voice of God, it can be imagery. It's not necessarily audible.

(Host connects this to metaphysics: words form knowledge, knowledge forms transformation, and light and sound as energy coming from God as the source.)

Yes, science is now catching up with a lot of things. Habakkuk said, "I will stand and watch to see what he will say" (Habakkuk 2:1). He was trying to see what God wanted to say.

A look can be loud

There is a psalm that mentions standing before a king. Before a king, a president, a monarch, a lot is spoken, but not by the tongue. Just look at your own mother. I remember my mother, when she was alive. If she turned, or even my wife turned, and gave me a look, you don't have to say anything. You already know what they're trying to say. And that comes from spending time with a person.

I remember when Nehemiah went before the king. The king said, "What's wrong with you? I've never seen you like this before" (Nehemiah 2:2). Many times it was hard, because you could not go into the presence of a king sad. You had to be happy.

So going back again, when you talk about a big loud voice, your wife or your mother or somebody can shout at you with just their eyes, just their facial expression, and you feel this loud voice. There's no mistaking what they're trying to express. So with God, not everything is spoken out loud. Look at the stars and the moon and different things in creation. Creation displays the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). How are they doing it?

Not every "they" is to be celebrated

(Host reads the next verses: "And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him" (Luke 4:33-35).)

So we see two things going on here. We see more than one speaking. A man was speaking, but he was saying, "Have you come to destroy us before the time?" (Matthew 8:29)

I'm saying this to say that not everything that calls itself "they" or "we" is something to be celebrated. There was nothing this man wanted to celebrate about his life there. The Bible says clearly he was possessed.

Every time I hear people saying, "Address me in the plural," it brings me back to the Bible. Every time you read your Bible, every time we deal with deliverance cases, you see multiple personalities coming out. This is not somebody playing with imaginary friends. This man had real beings, real entities, living inside of him, but they weren't his friends.

And they were speaking loudly, which means they had a voice. They seek a human to express their voice in a way that humans can understand and communicate. That's why the Father sent Jesus. That's a whole different message there. But they spoke. There are a lot of voices speaking, and they can be loud. They're speaking loudly, but it's not God. And you must be able to discern whose voice it is.

He knew the voice of the Father

The reason Jesus was able to discern whose voice it was is because he knew the voice of the Father. If we go back earlier in that chapter, when he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness and Satan came to tempt him (Luke 4:1-4), he said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).

This is so important. When the enemy said, "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread," he said, "It is written." My Father left me instructions. He left the world instructions. Man shall not live by bread alone.

Which means he understood the voice of God. He knew where to go to hear the voice of God. He was acquainted with the voice of God. So when he heard the voice of the enemy, he was able to say, "No, no, no. This is not my Father. This is a different voice. This is the voice of the enemy."

No one knows the Father except the one who came out of the bosom of the Father. Only he can reveal the Father to you (John 1:18). He came from a place of close proximity and intimacy with the Father.

(Host adds that Jesus is the firstfruit of many who will be born of the Spirit, so the same lineage carries down to believers: "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me" (John 10:27). "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Romans 8:14).)

What I was trying to show there is the distinction. In the wilderness he had his own experience with Satan. He defeated him, overcame him. Satan fled, and Jesus was ministered to by angels (Matthew 4:11). Now, coming out later, when he met this man, he was able to distinguish between the voices.

The first thing, the entities within the man recognized him. They recognized the voice. They recognized this voice of authority. They spoke loud, but they understood there was one with a louder voice. And when I talk about louder, I'm talking in the context of power. A voice that can influence, move, change, rearrange the cosmos.

"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Hebrews 11:3). So we understand this big loud voice is powerful. That's why they marveled. His doctrine, his teaching, was with power. And that's what Paul said: "I did not come to you with excellency of speech or man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). For the kingdom of God is a kingdom of power (1 Corinthians 4:20).

We need to hear God's voice. We need to speak God's voice. But it needs to be loud. There must be transformation, change. Something must happen.

People talk about a big bang theory. It wasn't a big bang. Or if you want to say it was a big bang, it was his loud voice. His big loud voice. His big banging voice. He spoke, and there was.

If you notice with Jesus, when he went to raise Lazarus, he said, "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11:43). If he didn't give a name, what would have happened?

(Host notes that Jesus said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me," and spoke aloud for the sake of the people standing by (John 11:41-42).)

Life and death in the tongue

Ezekiel saw the valley of dry bones, but nothing happened until he spoke (Ezekiel 37:1-10). Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those that love it will eat the fruit thereof (Proverbs 18:21). Choose life, says the Lord (Deuteronomy 30:19).

That is an aspect of releasing the word into all the realms. Now the mechanism behind that word, we could get into. A good word, a timely word, is like medicine (Proverbs 17:22). But certain words do what? Dry up the bones.

(Host asks whether the word you receive also affects the word you speak.)

What you feed yourself will normally affect your health.

(Host reads (Matthew 8:5-13), the centurion who said, "Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.")

He released the word there, and it took place. The servant was healed in that very hour.

Read Proverbs 15:23. "A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!" (Proverbs 15:23)

What comes out of your mouth can determine what you have, how your life is. He got joy by what came out of his mouth. Some people are reaping the fruits that they've sown with their mouth.

Even in Numbers, the children of Israel started murmuring. And I'm trying not to go to so many places. Forgive us, sometimes we'll have to tie some of these up. But when God asked them to go spy out the land, Moses sent the twelve and ten came back with a bad report (Numbers 13). And they started to complain with their mouths. "Did God bring us into this wilderness to kill us? We were better off in Egypt." They started to say all kinds of negative things. God said, "As ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you" (Numbers 14:28). I will answer them according to their own words. And they died in the wilderness. They prophesied over their own lives.

Words produce results

(Host reads (Luke 4:35): "And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.")

Jesus' word had power. This is one of the things we're pointing to when we talk about the big loud voice of God. It produces results.

When somebody is shouting at you, they're trying to produce fear, intimidation. They want results. What's the result? You being timid, intimidated, fearful. When a coach shouts at you, when a drill master shouts at you, they're trying to stimulate you, get the adrenaline pumping so you can be psyched up. They're trying to produce a result. Words produce results. We need to understand this.

That's why Jesus said every idle word we speak, we'll have to give an account of it (Matthew 12:36). When it talks about God, not even the dot over the "i" of his word will fall to the ground (Matthew 5:18). He honors his word above his name (Psalm 138:2). And he created us in his image and in his likeness (Genesis 1:26). Let your yes be yes and your no be no; anything more comes from evil (Matthew 5:37).

I'm saying this to show how important, how powerful God's word is. And if he created us in his image and in his likeness, it means there is power, there is effect, when we speak. When God spoke, what he said came into reality. And he says to us, life and death are in your mouth also. What you speak will come to reality.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7). What he thinks causes him to become that, because words are expressed thoughts. Audible thoughts. It's not what goes into a man, but what comes out (Matthew 15:11).

So we're talking in the context of the spoken word. Even God's audible voice, his loud voice, produces results. And the voices of his offspring, of his creation, also produce results.

Masterful surgery

"When the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him and hurt him not." That means devils have the capacity to hurt the people they come out of. And it had to be that Jesus performed masterful surgery. The power wasn't just exuded. The power had a level of mastery and control, so that when these persons were healed, they had a totality of healing. When he spoke, there was no capacity left behind to hurt him.

Usually when you see deliverance, when demons recognize that they're going to be disembodied, that there's a greater power in the room and they will be driven out of that body, because they hate humans so badly, they violently throw them to the floor and move them around in a way to hurt them physically.

I was speaking to someone during the week, an apostle friend of mine, Apostle Jonathan , and he was telling a story. In his younger days, somebody who was leaving his hometown village came to catch a train, but he missed it. There was no way out and it was late. One of his disciples, a member of the church, said to the man, "You can stay the night." But he recognized it was a fetish priest, an obeah man. Suffice it to say that before the night was out, the man was delivered.

And the man was excited, because he had given his life to serve evil spirits, to do their bidding, but they tormented him. He was showing them the cuts on his hands. These cuts weren't inflicted naturally. They were inflicted supernaturally.

So when I talk about "he came out and did no harm," many times the enemy inflicts physical harm, not just psychological and emotional harm. We've dealt with people where, when the enemy is finished with them, they're like babes in their thinking. They're so demoralized, so destroyed. Some persons have internal organs damaged. We have cases where they really inflict physical damage by tossing people around before they come out, because the truth is they don't like you. They don't like human beings.

And that's what this fetish priest, this obeah man, recognized. He was glad for the deliverance from those tormentors, because he was serving them, but they weren't good masters. Satan is never a good master, and neither is his team.

What a word is this

"And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out" (Luke 4:36). We can wrap up on that note this morning.

So this word is not like other words. We've seen people shout, scream, try to negotiate with spirits, pay people, go through all kinds of things. But the words that come out of a Christian's mouth, like our Master and our Lord Jesus Christ, are different.

Think about the sons of Sceva in the book of Acts (Acts 19:13-16). It's like some of the horror movies, where they throw the holy water, they put up a cross. But the power is not in the physical cross or the water. The power is effective based on the vessel it is coming out of. The vessel that releases the word determines the potency and the quality of the word.

In Acts 19 they said, "We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches." But the demons recognized there wasn't any power. These words did not move them. He said, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" (Acts 19:15)

Jesus I know. I've encountered him. When he spoke, we fled. His voice terrorized us. That legion, thousands of them, said, "Have you come to torment us before the time?" (Matthew 8:29) He just said, "Come out," and his words drove fear into them.

So here in Acts 19 the demon is saying, Jesus I know. When he speaks there is power. And Paul I know. When he speaks there is power. Hell is in disarray. The kingdom of darkness truly suffers violence when these men speak. They do damage in our kingdom. But when you spoke just now, your voice did not. There was nothing behind your voice to amplify it. You spoke, but we don't recognize the authority of this voice. There's no privilege. There's no power. There's no right, no keys behind it. There is no backing.

The authority behind the voice

When the policeman says "Halt," many times we don't like it, and you feel as though you could come out and boss him around. He might have a small voice or a squeaky voice, but you understand his voice carries weight because of the authority behind him. If he says stop and you try to ignore the authority behind him, the authority that gives him the right to do what he's doing, it can be backed up by power, by force.

And it's just like with diplomacy. They try to find common ground. "How can we sort this out?" Then the word is verbalized, articulated, and tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of men put down their arms and stop fighting, all because of a few words. The power behind the words.

Jesus doesn't only have powerful words. The scripture talks about the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3). His power carries a voice. His power is articulated. It speaks for itself.

(Host adds that Jesus is the Word, and the Father and the Holy Spirit bear witness of him.)

He said, "If you don't believe me, believe the works that I do" (John 10:38). It speaks for itself.

Do your words carry power?

I want to close there by asking you this question. Do your words carry power? Your answer should always be yes. But who is backing those words?

That's for Christians who understand the power of the tongue and of words, because God has placed us as the authority on this earth. So if you articulate, verbalize, thoughts that did not originate from God or from his kingdom, but from the kingdom of darkness, it means you're bringing to life dark stuff, dark energy, dark manifestations.

So it's very important. It comes back to who is speaking in your ear. As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27:17). Whoever is speaking into your life can be sowing life or death. It can be originating from the kingdom of light or from the kingdom of darkness. And they produce a different harvest. Darkness and light. Different soil.

(Host reflects on Satan masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) and falling like lightning (Luke 10:18), and on false light versus true light.)

That's why I'm trying to say there are some things that look like light. There's some religion that looks as though it brings light and life, but it actually produces death. There are some teachings that look as though they bring life and light, but they actually produce death and darkness. And that's why it's important we talk about the source.

Satan cannot create

Let me put it this way. Satan cannot create. God creates. And he made us in his image and his likeness and gave us dominion. He called Adam and said, "Name the animals" (Genesis 2:19-20). Which means when you open your mouth and speak, what you say will determine their characteristics and purpose.

So what is happening there with his words? God was saying, let me give you a taste of how to shape creation. I created them physically, but psychologically, emotionally, their nature, I want you to play a part in what they will be.

The mind itself. You imagine it, even these infrastructures. You draw a plan, you conceptualize it, then you bring it into reality. It comes back to us having dominion, and in terms of image and likeness, he gave us that ability. In the realm of the spirit you can conceptualize things with your mind and bring them into reality with your words, and what is in the spirit will manifest in the natural.

So it's very serious that we don't allow the voices of the enemy, the voices of demons, to whisper in our minds and cause us to bring things into existence with our mouths. That's why Jesus refused to turn the stones into bread (Matthew 4:3-4).

Facts, not truth

Demons can give you facts, but they can't give you truth. Let me say that again. Demons can give you facts, but they can't give you truth.

I remember the other day somebody was mentioning that they talk to demons and the demons tell them some stuff, and I laughed, and they got angry. I wasn't laughing because the demons weren't powerful. I was smiling because they were actually believing the demons' truth. Jesus said Satan is the father of lies and there is no truth in him (John 8:44). So how can Satan give you truth, speak truth, through deliverance? He can give you facts, but not truth.

The one true light

(Host asks about light and source.)

There is only one true light, as in John. Read John chapter 1.

(Host reads (John 1:1-9).)

"That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). Jesus is the true light which lights every man that comes into the world. So if you're not receiving your light from Jesus, you're receiving it from a false source. Every other source is false, because there's only one true light.

(Host closes, encourages viewers to send questions for the next Beyond the Surface, and asks the Apostle for a declaration.)

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace (Numbers 6:24-26), in Jesus' name. Amen.