We can identify His voice because we know Him, i.e. His nature. A person's character is reflected in his or her voice. Jesus is a "good shepherd" and so His voice will be good (Jn.10:14). We cannot know the voice of God if we are unclear about His character. When you hear an angry preacher, don't mistake that for the voice of the good shepherd. Under the New Covenant, God has sworn that He will not be angry with His people again (Isa.54:9&10). God's anger toward us, due to our sin, was fully discharged at the Cross. The Middle Eastern shepherd, in contrast to the Western shepherd leads his sheep. He doesn't drive them. I heard a story once about a man from the West who was so fascinated by this fact that when he was on holiday in Israel he stayed in an agricultural town where he waited to witness a shepherd leading his sheep. Eventually, he heard a commotion in the main street. It was a flock of sheep heading his way. But to his deep disappointment the sheep were not being led by a shepherd, but driven by a man. To add to his sense of surprise the man driving them was even quite brutal. He yelled at the sheep, beat some with a stick and even picked one or two up by the hind legs and threw them forward to get them moving faster. A bystander, noticing the look of shock on the face of the tourist asked, "What's wrong?" "I wasn't expecting this spectacle," the visitor replied. "I was under the impression that in this country a shepherd doesn't drive his sheep like this man is doing, but he leads them." "Oh, he's not the shepherd," said the man. "He's the butcher!" 2) If We Cannot Hear The Voice Of God We May Have Come Under The Influence Of Strangers The thing which most confuses the Church concerning the voice of God is the way in which God is misrepresented by "strangers" (Jn.10:5), "thieves and robbers" (Jn.10:1,8&10), and "hirelings" (Jn.10:12&13). A stranger will minister in a way that is foreign to the nature of God, because he doesn't really know Him. The self-appointed leaders in the day of Jesus used intimidation to control God's people. We see an example of this in the previous chapter, after Jesus had healed a man born blind. Threatened by Jesus' popularity the Pharisees used fear-manipulation in an attempt to silence both the previously blind man's parents (Jn.9:18-22) and the man himself (Jn.9:34). When the man discovered the true Shepherd, he no longer listened to the voice of strangers. 3) To Hear The Voice Of God We Need To Listen As A Son If we don't understand our identity as sons of God we will hear everything as a servant, and what we hear will not really be what God is saying. Much of the Church is powerless today because we cannot hear His voice with our servant mindset. God is speaking to us as sons and heirs, but many are listening as servants. The servant frame of mind belongs to the Old Covenant, which is characterized by conditional commandments and warnings. The character of the New Covenant is that of promises. For example, under the Old Covenant, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," is a commandment. Under the New Covenant it is a promise. He Who has begun a good work in us will perfect it! Many voices in Christianity are telling us to do a whole bunch of stuff in order to get a response from God. The message is that to get God to bless us, we must "pay the price" or "meet the conditions." This is not the voice of God. Everything you will ever receive from God is already paid for. When we were made righteous we became members of the family of God and are now entitled to all the privileges of our Father's household.
