Which Voice?
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Isaiah 53:1 (NKJV)
And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.” Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:25-33 (NKJV)
In every situation, there are two voices at play: the voice of Truth and the voice of the enemy.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6 (NKJV) emphasis mine
Jesus told us that He Himself is the Truth. He also is known as the Word (John 1:1). Therefore, His Word is truth. We can trust and believe every word of it.
Every circumstance carries a conversation. There are always voices speaking to us in the spirit realm and in the natural. Which voice will we pay attention to? Which report will we believe?
The voice of Truth, the voice of the Lord, always tells us we are winners. The voice of the enemy tells us to look at natural things and to believe that we will never win. He points out the problems of the past and tries to tell us it will never change. He says things like, “You’ll always be sick- this disease is incurable.” He tells us that we will always be poor and oppressed. He always speaks our defeat and tries to keep our eyes on the things we currently see. His report is one of never enough and never victorious. But that is a lie because he always lies. As a matter of fact, he will never tell the truth. If he told the truth, he would have to agree with God, who is the Truth, and he’ll never do that.
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. John 8:44 (NKJV) emphasis mine
The enemy is always telling lies. We can be sure of that. Therefore, we can believe the opposite of what he says. When he tells us that we’ll never amount to anything, we can know for sure that we are the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath (Deuteronomy 28:13). When he says we will never be healed, we can rest assured that God sent His Word and healed us (Psalm 107:20). When he tells us that our bank account will always be in the red, we can bank on the truth that we have been given the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18) and that wealth and riches are in our house (Psalm 112:3). While the enemy points out natural “facts,” God is telling us that He is bigger than what we see, hear, smell, taste, or feel.
The enemy knows that he has to speak loud in order to get our attention. He is always trying to shout his lies and bombard us with his deception to distract us. When Moses sent 12 men to spy out the Promised Land, ten of them brought back and evil report. Only two of them spoke the truth of what God had said. That’s ten to two. Ten voices are louder than two. The Israelites believed the louder report and they paid dearly for it. We must press past the noise and commotion of the devil to hear the still, small voice of God.
We can know what is true by knowing what the Word of God says. We can also know by the discernment God has given us. We can know in our spirits if a thought or word is from God or the enemy. That which is from God gives us peace, but the enemy’s lies will produce dread and unease. Worry is from the devil, but hope comes from God.
Today and every day we must make a choice about which voice we will heed. Will we believe the fear-inducing, negative report of satan, or will we believe the faith-filled, positive report of the Lord? The voices are speaking. Which one will you believe and act upon?
