Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (KJV)
Romans 10:18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. (KJV)
Around two thousand years ago a lone figure hanging on a tree in
Jerusalem
at the top of a hill called
Golgotha
cried in a loud voice "IT IS FINISHED." The crowd that gathered around this man was small and inconsequential. It was a scene that was repeated often in that day. Others had cried out as they ended their lives, some in agony and despair, and others in defiance of their situation. All the former cries had gone forth uneventful and only affected those who gathered to hear their last words. Still, when the last echo of the words of Jesus died out it was plain to all who were present that this cry was more than mere words of despair. The words had the sound of victory wrapped around them and they cut into the hearts of both soldier and believer, sinner and saint. There was not the slightest sound of defeat within this cry. Every one of the people present were transfixed by the sheer power of the moment as gooseflesh popped up and hair stood on end. Electricity filled the air and each heart
was filled with dreadful wonder. At the selfsame instant inside the temple, out of the audio range of this man's voice, the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the
Holy Place
tore from top to bottom. The veil of a fleshy priesthood ministry was rent, signifying the finish of the ministry of condemnation and the start of a ministry of reconciliation and grace. Back at
Golgotha
and in other parts of the city, the earth quaked and rocks were rent and broken. Darkness filled the sky and when quiet finally came about it was deafening in its silence. The centurion that was ordered to watch over Jesus until his death and report to Pilate walked over to Jesus to see if he was dead. Shaken and moved in a way that defied his former beliefs and stature of Roman authority, this soldier turned to the others and declared, "Truly, this man was the Son of God!". Unbeknownst to him, the proper declaration would have been, "This man IS the Son of God!", for three days later this man rose from the grave and led captive into captivity. He is now seated at the right hand of Power and lives as King of kings and Lord of lords. All these events took place in a localized area made up of a few square miles. Naturally, when miraculous events such as these occur there is a movement amongst the general population and a band of people join themselves to the doctrine and cause of the martyr. Many other religious leaders were treated badly by the Romans and Jews and as a result they obtained a cult following that continued for a while and then quietly died out. When Gamaliel was approached in the Sanhedrin about what to do with the Apostles of Jesus preaching in the area, he brought this fact out as a test of whether the followers of this man were really divinely inspired, or just involved in a fad movement. If it is of man, it will go away. If it is of God, it will remain. Well, as you and I can testify, it certainly remained! For two millenniums now it has remained in the earth, turning mankind back to God and preaching the Good News of His Kingdom. To be sure, there were times when the message was muddled by the actions of a carnal Church and leadership, and it waned often, but in the end it stood Gamaliel's test and remained. When the message went through gross misrepresentation periods and seemed hopelessly locked up within the private chambers of the privileged scholars and priests of former centuries the SOUND of the message continued to reverberate throughout the Church ages. If this Good News was in Word only, it would never have survived the onslaught of faulty translations and the scheming plots of clergy. However, the Word had a sound to it that spoke volumes where volumes were not attainable. In the early centuries and on up to Martin Luther, the Gospel was in the hands of a few. These were the ones that were educated and schooled in the mystery shrouded institutions of the religious leadership, that kept back Truth as a commodity dangerous to the ordinary layman and only whispered about in their bull sessions amongst their own kind. Indeed, if the Truth is to be told, it has not changed very much today! We still have Ministry that think the average Christian cannot handle the Truth of Reconciliation and a "raptureless" message of Christ in you. How presumptuous we are when it comes to Truth and whom can handle it! I have news for those that cannot bring themselves to minister the whole truth and nothing but the truth, God please help them. The Word of God is not bound! It is not bound by our preaching it in an audible voice from the pulpit. The SOUND of it has gone out into the whole earth and the Word of it will follow. Whether we obey God or not, it has already imbedded itself within the fabric of creation's being and the day will come when ALL will know the Truth and that Truth will sit them free. When Jesus cried "It Is Finished", His words had a vibration to them that went beyond the scale of tones heard by the human ear. His natural voice died out in a matter of seconds, but the Spirit of His words have never left the earth. They continue to this day, and the proof of this is the number of "centurions" that are still denying their natures and declaring "Truly this man IS the Son of God!". I believe that if an individual had an experience of conversion and was put out of reach of the Bible and preachers and revisited after a period of time we would hear them speak the same Word that has come to us concerning God's restoration of mankind and His abiding Kingdom. I don't believe they would minister the word of eternal damnation and escape by way of rapture. Why? Because the SOUND of Truth will lead them eventually into all Truth. Paul the Apostle experienced this as he was not amongst the other apostles while having Truth revealed to him by revelation. Yet, when he did get with the apostles they were amazed at his continuity of the Faith they heard from Jesus. The real amazing thing about this was that Paul, although he never knew the man Jesus after the flesh and never HEARD Him speak one word while in an earthly form, HEARD something greater than the original Apostles, concerning the Gentiles. Namely, that Christ tore down the wall of partition and grafted the Gentiles into His redemptive plan, Oh hallelujah! Paul HEARD more than a message, he HEARD the Sound of the Message. The Message the Apostles heard was that Jesus would save
Israel
. The Sound of the Message that Paul heard was that
Israel
was more than a Nation of people. It was now, since Jesus Christ, all men everywhere. Jew and Greek, bond and free, male and female, white and dark. He did away with tribes and tongues and any other stigma of class and privilege and made us, who once were strangers afar off, heirs to the Promise and Sons of His substance. Whereas the Message of the Apostles was tainted by their religious upbringing, the Sound of the Message came to Paul without the trappings of religiosity. Paul never handled the Word of God as the other Apostles. The Word of God handled Paul!
It is a fact that anyone disciplined in hearing the true Sound of the Spirit can tell when they are hearing clear, articulate sound of Spirit, or garbled, screeching sounds of flesh. This is both a blessing and a curse. It means that you can no longer be as comfortable around the fleshly noise of off-the-mark preaching as you were when your ear was undeveloped in hearing the sound. Now that you have an ear, that which was tolerable through deafness is a pain in the ear, so to speak! The sound of flesh grates on your nerves and causes you to fervently pray for your cause of discomfort to come into a pure transmission of life.
Deafness can be a blessing, and in fact, our natural man tunes out noises everyday that if paid attention to would drive us insane. We are deluged with sounds of cars, airplanes, motors, sirens, honking, insects, frogs, birds, etc., etc.. Chirpings, howlings, roarings, screamings are going on around us constantly. Yet, we are not aware of most of it until it is brought to our attention by some means. I find it strange that I can go all day long besieged by noise, but when I go to bed at night to sleep I must have quiet! My biggest adversary in trying to sleep is the ticking of a clock. I t drives me up the wall to hear the tick, tick, tick of a clock and I have banished any such clock from my bedroom. Charlotte thought I was exaggerating on my ability to hear the slightest tick of our clock until that was all I could hear and it eventually became a bass drum in my ear. So, after removing all clocks form our bedroom, one night she snuck one in and hid it. After the lights were out and we had laid in bed for around 5 minutes, she was amazed when I leaped out of bed and found the culprit!
I have often thought about the 30 minutes of silence in heaven we read about in Revelations. I used to wonder what was silenced and why. Now, I just look forward to the silence, knowing that when all else is still, God can finally speak.
As many of us know, there are frequencies of sound all around us and we are unable to receive their signals unless we have a receiver set to the proper frequency. Radio waves, television signals are passing through us always, and yet, unless our radio our television is turned on, we are oblivious to it all. So it is in the spirit. We, who have been regenerated, hear things and see things that are not heard and seen to the natural man. Therefore, the admonition of the Apostle John throughout the book of Revelations, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Church". The Spirit is saying something all the time! But only those that have an ear that is set to the right frequency will be aware of it. This answers the question so many people ask about this Word of life. If it is true, why haven't more people heard about it? The answer is that the Church has always had a problem hearing the voice of God. It is the history of God's dealings with His people that the majority are out of sync and He always moves in the Minority. Indeed, if I were in a major denomination of the religious system, and I read the Bible, and knew the history of God's dealings with the Church world, I would be very nervous and seeking out a smaller, but more receptive group that was hearing the Sound of the Spirit. The Lord has never moved amongst the large groups, but has always separated a small remnant unto Himself. God has never been reliant on numbers of people to get the job done. All He wants is a obedient people who know the Sound!
In dealing with the subject of Sound we are dealing with transmitters and receivers. To get a clear, articulate sound, you must have BOTH vehicles free of static and noise. When John heard a trumpet talking to him, (Rev. 4:1) it was a sound with an articulation. In Heb. 12:19, the writer uses the Greek word ECHOS meaning " a loud or confused noise; a roar." This is the sound we are NOT come unto. This is the sound the Israelites ran from and commissioned Moses to hear and translate for them. The sound John heard was one with language and instruction. In the 10th Chapter of Numbers God instructs Moses to make two silver trumpets of a whole piece to be used in the assembling of the camps and in their journeys. Everyone in the camps had to know the varying blasts of trumpets to gather or move out in harmony. So it is today. We will never have total harmony amongst God's people until we receive instructions on hearing the Sound of His will for us.
A Ministry of Life is being processed by God at this very minute to allow Him to Sound through them. The Voice of the Lord must pass through our lips without the static and interference of our carnal minds. We have been schooled in the Scriptures and in oral presentation of our beliefs, but we are ignorant when it comes to learning to yield to His Spirit and develop a sound that will speak to every man on every level of understanding. This is how God is going to invade the Denominational ranks and draw them out of Babylon. They are going to hear a sound! Don't even try to compete with the religious system on the level of ability. You will lose. We don't need greater singers or more powerful orators who can preach to us until our socks roll up and down like Venetian blinds! We are going to have to tap into a Life source that Pentecostal and Charismatic groups have never experienced. We cannot afford to get into a war of finances and natural ability. The only way we can hope to rescue the prisoners of sensationalism and personality is to allow the same voice that came forth from Jesus come forth in us. If we do, then they will say of us, "Never have a people spoke like this people". Our Word must have substance and that substance must be the pure, undefiled Life of Jesus Christ, without gimmicks, mirrors, or smoke.
Have you ever heard the same Word ministered out of two preachers and one was anointed with life and the other was just a dead letter? This happens all the time and is brought to our attention to teach us to be sure if we speak, then make sure you speak as the Lord in the earth. The pressure is on for the Priests of this day to raise their ministries to another level. We could all preach a good sermon but I challenge you to lose yourself in Him and move out of your defined parameters of preaching. One way the Lord is getting the Ministry to move out in new waters is by moving on the congregation in such a way, that most of them know more about the moving of the Spirit than the Minister! Although the minister may be more schooled in the Scriptures, the people he has been ministering to have been face to face with the Lord and now are demanding something more than just a good message. As the little old lady used to ask in the TV commercial, "Where's the Beef?". The "Beef" is in the Sound of the Spirit of Life blasting forth from the Corporate Man. Open your mouth and He will fill it! Not only with Words, but also with the Sound of His Substance.
By Bob Torango
