HEARING FROM GOD
VOICE RECOGNITION
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. – John 10:27
It has been over twenty years since I studied engineering formally, yet I still recall the wonder I felt when encountering the characteristics of sound. In particular, I was learning about digital sampling, such as that used to encode audio on a CD, and now used in many other applications. I was impressed on several levels. First, that sound is so dynamic: although it has some parallels with light (frequencies, or pitches, are like hues, and intensity, or loudness, is like brightness, and so on), 
there exists no parallel for a single “frame” of sound. In other words, though we can study a photograph or visual image and see the same instant over and over, one cannot do the same with an “instant” of sound. Second, I appreciated that sound can be so complex: sounds arrive at differing intensities and frequencies, from multiple directions, and are superimposed to produce a continuous change in air pressure at a given location. The sounds of everyday life, let alone musical composition, are richly symphonic, unique to every particular location in space. And third, not so much from class, but by extension, I marveled at the cooperation of the hearing ear, nervous system processing, and mental interpretation that allow one to analyze a cacophony and make sense of it all. To have a conversation in a crowded, bustling room is itself a marvel of biological engineering.
Though my fascination came in the process of sampling sound so as to store and retrieve it, this is little compared to the complexity and speed of today’s processes, in which programs interpret sound for the purpose of comparison and interpretation. More recently, a brief foray into computerized voice recognition algorithms has reawakened my wonder. These must not only identify sound, but parse speech—and not only speech, but a particular individual’s voice. I began to think not only in terms of how a sound is broken down and identified, but in the very nature of voice. A voice might possibly be reduced to its physical characteristics, yet to the hearer it conveys one’s personality, emotion, and volition. So, the last few times I have heard a brother in Christ speak of “hearing from God” or “listening to God,” it stirred my thinking. What is the voice of God, and how do we hear it?
Voices are distinct. How many syllables must a familiar person utter over a scratchy phone connection before we recognize him or her? The human voice is an aesthetically beautiful signature of oneself—like handwriting, the way one walks, dres
ses, decorates, or goes about things in life. It is tailored by a person’s physiological makeup, regional flair, personality, moods, and more. In singing, it offers that uniquely intangible layer that largely defines the sound of a band. We attempt to describe its qualities: brassy, smooth, warm, lilting, pure, raspy, piercing…and soon struggle for adjectives. Yet we distinguish one from another. This uniqueness is also is true of an instrument itself, particularly when coupled with how it is played. The Lord Himself had an audible voice that Adam recognized in the Garden (Genesis 3:10). God spoke audibly throughout the Old Testament, but also in the New: “…suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:17, at Jesus baptism, and again at His transfiguration in Matthew 17:5). Jesus, of course, had his own natural voice while gracing our world as a man; we can only imagine what he actually sounded like in conversation with the disciples about fishing, getting lunch, or finding a place to stay.
Voices are also communicative. Language is powerful as is, yet coupled with the manner in which one speaks, one’s voice can relay conviction, concern, enthusiasm, apprehensiveness, authority, tenderness, sarcasm, and so on. It should be no surprise that God Himself exhibited the full spectrum in our Scriptural encounters with His voice. At one extreme, there is no paucity of references to God’s loudness: “These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice…” (Deuteronomy 5:22); “The LORD thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice” (2 Samuel 22:14); “The voice of the LORD is powerful; The voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon (Psalm 29:4-5); These are only a few references of many, and likewise in the New Testament, hearers were amazed at the authority with which Jesus spoke (Matthew 7:29); “When Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:6); Jesus spoke caustically toward the religious hypocrites, and found occasion to curse a fig tree (Matthew 21:19); And, looking to later events: we see that “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command…” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
By contrast, God also whispers (in this case, for dramatic effect): “After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12). And the same Jesus who told Peter “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23, Mark 8:33) also questioned him lovingly and affirmed his response in the presence of others (Matthew 16:15-19), encouraged him to walk on the water (Matthew 14:29-30), and chided him gently when he doubted (Matthew 14:31). With a gentle question “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” Jesus released the adulterous woman from her guilt, and then gently voiced the command, “go and sin no more” (John 8:10-11).
Thus, the voice of the Lord, though uniquely His, is delivered according to His various purposes. And His style is part and parcel of His substance. Thus we might also say that a voice can be transformative. After all, we encounter dozens of times in Scripture the command to obey the voice of the Lord, rather than simply his words or commands. A voice doesn’t have to audible at all, only discernable (as a dark example, think of how the voice of Abel’s blood cried out to God after his death, in Genesis 4:10). So, it is unacceptable to excuse our disobedience just because God is not thundering audibly to you or me upon a mountain. The Bible is God’s Word, and also God’s Voice. The major component of hearing from God i
s discerning what God has spoken in Scripture. We are to align not only with what He says, however He says it, but with the spirit behind it—to respond to the Person of God in obeying His desires for us. Just as we might refer to the “voice of the people” in reference to the people’s will or desire, we must think of God’s voice likewise. I suspect that when a brother in Christ “hears from God,” this is most often the simple matter of responding to God’s Word obediently as prompted by God’s Spirit. Sure, God might individually prompt a believer outside of a particular Scripture, yet audibly or not, it will still be in his voice, and the believer familiar with that voice will know it. Just how pressing is an audible word anyway, given what we have today? “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
And yet it is significant that God has spoken audibly, and that we speak out God’s Word to each other, and to unregenerate souls that may not yet recognize His voice otherwise. In “The Breath of Life” I wrote about the mystical animation that comes through breathing—that “spirit” is literally breath, operating in the material realm to sustain a nonmaterial component of life. It is fitting, then, that spirit, or breath, is the means by which vocal cords are activated. The very breath that sustains us is also employed for this marvelous expression of uniqueness and communication. And in a manner more literally than perhaps we realize, when we allow God to speak into our lives, we receive life. Think of God’s voice as spiritual resuscitation or rescue breathing.
A final attribute of voice to examine here is its capacity to be collective. As mentioned earlier, there can be a single voice of the people. When this “people” is the church, that voice can be as harmonious and magnificent as a trained chorus in performance. Responding with “one voice” indicates obedience (Exodus 24:3), or praise and thanksgiving (2 Chronicles 5:13). The collective singing of praise and worship is powerful, for it converges into something greater than the sum or discord of its parts: “But you are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3). And this too, is a voice beyond the audible component, for the praises of the Church are universal—there is a voice of the Bride, in concert with Christ: “And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’” (Revelation 22:17).
In an age in which information (from many voices) flows and is processed in such great volume, and computer programs and devices can even identify voices and follow their commands—how critical therefore that human beings, made in God’s image, can hear and recognize God’s voice, and respond to Him. He has a voice expressed pervasively through His creation, His Word, and His believers. It is a distinct, communicative, transformative, and collective voice. We must hear His voice, and speak it too: “…it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, ‘Speak, LORD, for Your servant hears’…” (1 Samuel 3:9). “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14).
© 2010 Chard Berndt
All Scriptures NKJV.
CREATED TO BE INHABITED
THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE
“Are we alone in the universe?” To many, especially NASA’s scientists, this is the ultimate question. Why is this so pressing, how is it being addressed, and what can we learn from this quest and from God’s Word on the matter?
For the many naturalists that populate the scientific establishment (particularly in the field of astronomy), the query stems from the belief that we cannot be alone. That is, if the universe has provided 15 billion years in which life evolved here, then surely life must have evolved somewhere else. After all, the universe is estimated to be 150 billion times wider than our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
This search first began by looking for “intelligent” life—presumably the kind that could at least communicate (if not travel) across the great distances of space. The biggest practical effort in this direction has been the SETI project (Search for 
Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which in part aims “to explore…the prevalence of life in the universe.” This ongoing project, initiated by the late, great astronomer Carl Sagan, and popularized by a myriad of movies including the 1997 film Contact (adapted from Sagan’s novel of the same name) now boasts an active institute, complete with a website, radio show, “adopt a scientist” program, education and outreach, and of course, nifty apparel and coffee mugs. As of my last check, 72.9% of its polled website visitors believe that we are not alone, and need to keep looking, whereas a mere 5% believe that we are indeed alone. The difficulty of this as a scientific endeavor, however, is represented by the 22.1% who, believing that we are “probably not” alone, nonetheless recognize that we might never find this out.
This is a problem because they are correct in principle: the nature of science is to present a hypothesis—an assertion which must be reasonably testable (and no, an “educated guess” does not necessarily qualify, contrary to what the textbooks often say). When the hypothesis is stated “we are not alone,” then the only course for discrediting this is to look everywhere, finding nothing. This can never be done. If the hypothesis would be stated instead as “we are indeed alone,” then this would gain strength as a working theory the more we search. But the former is not how it is framed, because the evolutionist must believe that Earth is not the only site of the successful accident that we extremely successful accidents call “life.”
So, since 1979, after much number crunching of astronomical imaging data, with massive computing power (assisted by personal computers who participate in the SETI effort when not being used for local tasks), still no recognizable patterns of intelligent communication have been received. (It is notable that intelligent language can indeed been distinguished from data streams, and that our own DNA does in fact fit this criteria.) That being the case, what is the next avenue for the search? For many, it is to look simply for life—not necessarily intelligent life. This (in their understanding of evolution) carries an increased probability, and has thus motivated the search for bacterial spores on the Moon, Mars, or any habitable world.
And that is the rub—the habitable world: For life to evolve, or even to exist if it were to show up somehow (say, by creation), it must have particular atmospheric and climatic conditions. And so the search has morphed slowly into a quest not so much for life, but for places where life could possibly exist (translated: “have evolved,” which, of course, assumes that life did indeed evolve improbably right here at home.) That has led to the search for extra-solar planets (planets outside our solar system), or “exoplanets.” This is a tricky business, as 1) planets produce no light of their own, 2) they are an enormous distance from us, and 3) any light they might reflect is obscured by the relatively blinding light of other stars, and for certain the very stars they orbit.
So, how are these exoplanets “discovered”? Indirectly, by inference: Typically, an exoplanet is announced when a star has the proper wobble to indicate an orbiting planetary body. And this wobble may be so subtle, or in the fore-aft direction, that its detection must also be inferred using the “Doppler shift” of the star’s light. There are some other methods employed as well, but so far only a handful of the nearly five hundred exoplanets “found” to date have been directly observed, imaged in the very low resolution of just a few pixels. The first, Fomalhaut B, orbiting the star Fomalhaut, was imaged by the Hu
bble Telescope’s Advance Camera for Surveys in 2004, and finally confirmed in 2010 as a gas giant, eight times more massive than Saturn. Of the few directly imaged bodies, there is disagreement as to how many are actually planets, as they may be brown dwarf stars. Of the total, over three hundred are gas giants (like Jupiter), and absolutely none have qualified as “earth-like.” (Though when they are first discovered, this possibility is often stated enthusiastically, and usually written up with hopeful statements about the existence of atmosphere, ice, or water.) The search continues.
One might wonder, though, why evolving life requires an earth-like planet at all. Some scientists, for instance, assert that perhaps we are too Earth-centric (okay, but it’s sort of tough not to be…). That’s a reasonable assertion if one believes that our Earth was not designed for life at all, but it just happened. Given this assumption, why wouldn’t life emerge in different modes or forms, under different conditions? Yet the evolutionist must face the fact that our univ
erse is governed by physical parameters affecting the very chemistry needed for any form of life we might envision. These constraints (a marking characteristic of design, by the way) make it such that the only foreign types of life that might be reasonably imagined are silicon-based forms rather than carbon-based forms. And curiously, those forms did not emerge here, on a planet with plentiful silicon and all the other ideal conditions. And whether silicon- or carbon-based, experts can only envision systems of metabolism (the capture and use of energy) that require an Earth-like atmosphere, with an Earth-like exposure to the sun, Earth-like temperatures, and Earth-like resources. So, Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” (mentioned in my “Great and Small” essay) might seem a lonely place to live, but it’s the only place to live, and as such, most scientists default to the Earth-like planet search. The object of the search, in fact, has often been called “the Goldilocks planet” (not too hot, not too cold…not too massive, not too small…). The irony in all this is that if we are indeed alone in the universe, then we must not be alone at all, because Someone must have singled us out in a creative, purposeful act.
Extraterrestrial life is a glamorous concept, and theists (theistic evolutionists in particular) might also like to believe that God created distant worlds housing additional life, or even other souls like us. And He certainly could have. But what God could have done is not what God said He did in His Word. First, we must recognize that the Bible is entirely Earth-centric in its view of the universe’s creation and purpose. When Scripture recounts the creation, it refers to “the heavens and the earth” as a dichotomy, using that phrasing 91 times. There is the Earth, and there is all else. This is further emphasized by something that theistic evolutionists seem to easily overlook: that Earth was created first, including ocean, land mass, and plant life, prior to the creation of “sun, moon, and stars” (“stars” meaning “luminaries”, and presumably including planets) on Day 4. If the creation account was simply an allegorical tale of God’s drawn-out, ongoing evolutionary process of creation, then this numerical ordering in Genesis 1 would be completely misleading.
Second, we note that when God declared satisfaction with his finished product in Genesis 2:3, there had been no mention of life other than that which has been created in the waters, skies, and land of Earth—a striking oversight if other civilizations were in the plans. And when we read of the great flood of Noah’s time, we find that it was purposed to destroy “all life” without qualification (Genesis 6:17, 9:11,15,17). In fact, other beings of an entirely different ilk are in fact mentioned in other places in Scripture: angels, seraphim, and cherubim, who are not of this physical creation at all. So it is not as if God is omitting secretive information about created beings.
So it appears—from Scripture, not from what some wish that God might have done—that Earth is the chosen, designed, unique place of habitation for us, as well as for all other life in the natural realm. Consider three other passages that speak to this emphasis:
For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:18)
I have made the earth, And created man on it. I—My hands—stretched out the heavens, And all their host I have commanded. (Isaiah 45:12)
The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S; But the earth He has given to the children of men. (Psalm 115:16)
In further support of the dichotomy between the heavens and the Earth, we might also expand upon the dominion emphasis in the previous verse. If God has made man uniquely, and given us this world, then it follows that he would give Adam the opportunity to name its creatures (Genesis 2:19-20). And if there exist no other like worlds with inhabitants, then it follows also that He would name the rest: “He counts the numbers of the stars: He calls them all by name” (Psalm 147:4). To state this without qualification would be a disservice to any other races created on any other worlds. “Other Adams” and other habitations are never alluded to in any fashion in Scripture. And this is not because we would somehow be unable to bear such a truth; if such habitations existed, I think to the contrary that God would have referenced their worlds as illustrations or motivations for his purposes here.
So what do we learn from this quest of today’s astronomers? Perhaps we are reminded not only that the suppression of God produces desperation for validation, but also that many of us recognize the need for something beyond us. With the search for extraterrestrial life, there is a vague underlying hope that either 1) something marvelous and superior could augment or rescue our struggling humanity, or 2) we might find ourselves at least one other frail civilization, thereby diminishing the emptiness of living alone in the cold, dark, vast cosmos.
The search for extraterrestrial life is much more than an unpromising scientific endeavor or popular curiosity; it is a search for meaning itself. Yet the answer is found right here:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
© 2010 Chard Berndt
All Scriptures NKJV.