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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/allan-christopherson/the-voice-of-god/
Now, we give everybody a very hearty welcome. We appreciate your presence and trust that the meeting tonight will be a help to you. I will just say that the night that I was awakened and saved three nights later, I went to a gospel meeting just an ordinary Sunday night.
And I say this for the benefit of my dear boys and girls here. Down deep, I know you'd like to be saved. Down deep, you want this. But for your own good and benefit, I remember going to this meeting when I was a boy of 18 years of age.
I had no thoughts whatsoever about salvation. I was just carefree. But that night, God spoke to me. And three days later, I was saved. So tonight, dear children, this is not a series of gospel meetings that we are normally people are in, but you could be saved tonight.
And I was just thinking as this afternoon's ministry that I'm thinking of two men in Iowa that were saved the first or were saved on a conference night and had no conviction of sin before that. But that particular Saturday night, God reached them.
So perhaps this is your night. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank Thee that there is marvelous joy in Thy great salvation. Truly, now none but Christ can satisfy. We thank Thee for everyone who can sing this with melody in the heart and joy in the soul to realize of a truth that they too, we too, can have the enjoyment of Christ filling the heart.
We thank Thee for a happy day when Jesus washed our sins away. We thank Thee that the door to heaven is still open, that none need perish, but that all should come to repentance. And we are looking in the faces tonight of boys and girls, perhaps a six-year-old, perhaps a 16-year-old.
And Thou art able, O God, to bring eternal matters to these young hearts in a very real way tonight. So, Lord, draw near to us in this school. Draw near to us in all our weakness, in all our inability to create an anxious thought that the power of God will be heard and the voice of God will be sensed.
Hear us in our requests. Bless Thy good word wherever spoken. Other conferences are being held this weekend. And so we pray that Thou will yet speak in those particular conferences also. Thankful for a good day today and for a measure in which we heard the shepherd's voice.
Hear us, O Father, and draw near to us again just one more time, even this evening hour, giving thanks in the Savior's name. Amen. The book of Job, please, chapter 33. I appreciate the opportunity and the privilege to try and be a help to some here, to share the meeting with our brother Oliver.
Job chapter 33, reading it, verse 8. Surely Thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of Thy words. There is something wonderful about voices. It's the voices that oftentimes we're looking forward to hearing.
Anybody that has been away from home any length of time is aware that there are voices that they are going to miss. And until the phone rings, that there is a voice that they want to hear. A young man just one, two weeks ago, tomorrow night it will be, he left the state of Wisconsin and he boarded a plane and he flew to Germany for nine months.
I happen to know those parents very well, and they're thinking already of how their son is going to be getting along of the nine months in a far-off country. The boy's not saved. He has no Savior, and he too is going to be in a distant land.
And those parents, they're going to be very happy when he gets on the phone and they hear his voice. How is everything going? Is everything well? Is everything just the way it should be? And what comforting and soothing words it's going to be, that everything is fine.
I would like to speak to you tonight about the voice of God, because there is something wonderful that I do believe men and women do not cherish. There are multitudes of people, and God is trying to get their attention.
And in trying to get their attention, there's oftentimes the things that crosses their pathway. So when we think of a tragedy, when we think of something that unexpectedly comes in, they immediately say, well, what is God, as they look up, what is God trying to do?
God is not fair, and God is trying to hurt me, and God is not right, and God isn't this and God isn't that. And all the time, all the time, God is to get their attention. And regardless of what it might be, that's why the voice was heard in the Garden of Eden, that there was a God that wanted Adam's attention, and finally, he did get his attention.
So in this particular passage, I simply see that there is a voice of examination. There is a voice of salvation, and I want to look at, just for a few minutes, the voice of anticipation. We have in this modern age of communication, all these various ways to communicate.
You don't have to even have good language, don't even have to have good English, don't even have to be able to know how to spell right, and we can communicate. You can take those forms of communication fine, and I enjoy some of them myself, but I want to hear the voice.
And when I hear the voice, I just want to enter into that person that I'm talking to. I want to hear all, I want to get the full impact of what that person is trying to say, because there is nothing like a voice that would bring joy and tidings to the heart.
We live, there is a voice of God that was heard in the Garden, and Adam and Eve was aware of that. They were aware that there was the Lord God's voice that was walking in the cool of the day, and finally, that there was a voice that came forth, Adam, where art thou?
And there was a voice that he heard. He recognized who the voice was. There was, he didn't have to tell Adam once or over twice that there was God that was seeking and God that was searching. Tonight young girl, tonight young boy, God wants to get your attention.
He has brought you into the Garden. He has brought you into the Garden of tremendous, tremendous gardens that He has placed you in. There is the Garden that I couldn't help but think of, of the Garden of Comfort.
The Garden of Comfort. You don't know what it is. There's not a soul here that knows what it is to go to bed at night with a stomach that's growling because of starvation, because of hunger. You go to bed at night and you think, oh, I wish I hadn't had that third dip of ice cream.
And there's, there's, there's groanings, and there's the comfort that you have in the home. All kinds of comforts that you have. It's, it's totally, it's totally bizarre for young people to have not their own room nowadays.
And if you go and slip into, into another country, you have children that are together. Sometimes a whole family are together in one little, one little shack the size of your garage and mine. You are in a Garden of Comforts and those comforts are second to none.
And if you're not in the Garden of Comforts, then you're in the Garden of Care. My, the care and love that you, that others have for you. Did you know, dear girl, tonight that there's people in Iowa, there's people in Minnesota, there's people on the East Coast tonight that's praying for your salvation.
Did you know, dear boy, that your name has been taken to heaven in the throne of grace on behalf of you not saved. Do you have the care and the love and the concern from others? And you have been brought into the Garden of Prayers.
The Garden, the Garden of Love. You can buy anything you want, can't you? Anything you want that your parents will allow. You've got the Garden of Cash and $5 bill nowadays doesn't mean much. We've been giving $5 bills to some of our boys and girls in the Marion Sunday School on their birthday.
Some of them are going on 10 years of age. My wife says to me the other day, she says, you know, a $5 bill to a 10-year-old doesn't mean much, so much money. We live in a Garden of Cash when men and women are money in abundance.
You live in a Garden, friend, of Christians. I thank God that I was brought up in a Garden of Christians. I thank God that there were Christians all around me. There were Christians to the north in every direction that there was Christians that I was surrounded with.
I knew the cars of the Christians. I even kept up on track as to who the cars of the preachers were. And though, as a result, there were Christians that was all around me, I was surrounded. We had them on Sunday night after gospel meeting.
My mom and dad were not saved. They was Christians were in our home. They were in our home constantly. She knew what it was to cook and to bake for the Christians because they're stopping after Sunday night.
Some of you here tonight, you're in all of these gardens. The Garden of surrounded with love, Christians, cash, and comfort. And if you was to die tonight, guess where you would be? Can it be? You mean to tell me surrounded and planted in these gardens and you mean to tell me a boy would meet death and out into eternity he would go in the darkness and blackness?
Forever? But in the gardens, there was the voice of examination. There was a voice of examination to the jailer one day. And that jailer knew what it was to be shaken because he had the responsibility of all those jailbirds in that cell, in those cells.
And this dear man, he had to, in order for God to get his attention, there had to be an earthquake. I pray that there will not be any earthquakes in your life, friend, lest you too will come into a situation where that the earthquake would leave, would take you into the great beyond.
Yet at the same time, it'd be far better to come into an earthquake, that there will be the garden of examination as a result, as a result of that earthquake. Just comes to my mind now, dear Al Bean. Al Bean in the Antioch Assembly in Iowa, he walks with a limp and he prays every Sunday morning and one day he took his shirt off, stripped down to the waist and I looked at a man's chest that looked like a railroad track.
Because that dear man, many years before, on the drug speed, driving his Corvette, hitting an adjacent gravel road, flying through the air, thinking that he was going through the air, he says, I thought I was a goner for sure.
Landing on that car, upside down, blood spewing out of every portion of his body. First one there was a nurse from the Cedar Falls Assembly, nursed him up, called the ambulance, got him back together again.
And today, Al Bean will tell you this, if it hadn't been for that earthquake, I would never have gotten saved. How many perhaps even sitting here, if it hadn't been an earthquake, if it hadn't been for an earthquake, you might not have got to Christ.
Oh friend, I pray that God will not send an earthquake. But thus, it could be, it could be a most painful thing. The voice of examination. My brother got a new car years ago, and he said to me, Al, give me a call, and he says, I'll take you a ride in my new car.
And we got into the car, and those were the days of the tape decks. And he had just gotten several new tapes, and he says to me, pick up a tape and let's have some music as we're going down the road. And I says, Tommy, I have no idea what type of music you like, why don't you put one in?
No, he says, you pick one up, and so Johnny Cash, whose tape is right there, I remember listening to Johnny Cash as a young man, so I picked up the tape. I'm talking about the voice now, and I picked up that tape, and I didn't know what song that Johnny Cash was singing, and I put that tape in the tape deck and hit the tape.
And here's the words that came through those speakers. I cranked up the music a little bit louder as I was driving and as he was driving, and I wanted to get the full impact for his benefit, not knowing what was coming.
And just as I hit that tape, these are the words. I fell in a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down, and the flames rose up higher. I fell in a ring of fire. And like it was just this afternoon, I could still see Tommy hitting that tape deck, slowly taking that tape and dumping it in the tape box, and it seemed like we must have gone for miles before either one of us said anything.
Do you know what Tommy heard right then? Tommy heard the voice of examination, because Tommy wasn't saved. And I knew that Tommy was wondering. Tommy wanted God's salvation. Oh, friend, there is something wonderful about the voice of examination.
There's something wonderful about being brought face to face with these realities. It's easy to come and go. It's easy to be like a door in its hinge. It's easy to be like that little leaf that I watched and that you have watched, and it goes into the little creek, and it goes right down the stream and over the precipice and down over into the next stream.
It's easy to come and go. You just go with the flow. But friend, we want you to hear tonight, not the voice of man, but we want you to hear the voice of God, because you need God's salvation, dear girl.
You need to be saved, young man. This world is fast ripening for judgment. And because this world is fast ripening for judgment, I would dare say that we're living in the last day of the last days. And because we are, there is a moment that we are all looking forward to.
Midst the darkness, storm, and sorrow, one bright gleam I see, while I know the blessed morrow, Christ will come for me. If he was to come tonight, dear girl, you hug your mommy real, real tight tonight.
You give her a kiss on both cheeks. And you thank her for bringing you into a Christian home. Because if the Lord came tonight, Mr. Oliver will have been your last speaker that you heard. And it's all over.
The voice of examination. How critical. How important. There's a voice of salvation. There's a voice of salvation. The voice of examination was in a garden. The voice of salvation was at a grave. Because Lazarus heard his voice.
Again, the Savior says, Lazarus, come forth. And there's a voice of salvation. The voice of salvation, friend, can be heard tonight. I am sure Mr. Oliver is going to preach Christ at the end. I am sure he's going to direct you to the wounded man at Calvary.
Fairest of all, the earth beside, fullness divine in him I see, wonderful man of Calvary. The voice of salvation, because the voice of salvation is what I needed to hear. I heard it that night as a young boy of 18 years of age listening to Robert Orr preach the gospel.
Two shall be in the bed, the one shall be taken and the other left. Two shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall be taken and the other left. Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.
And I was stirred. Two sets of grandparents, they were ready for heaven. Uncles and aunts were ready for heaven. I wasn't. Surrounded in this garden. And I wasn't ready. And I began to understand that this world is a two-faced place.
I had friends as long as my car was moving. But when that was broke down, I had nobody. And they didn't bother and they didn't mind telling me either. One night, sitting all alone in that same automobile.
Sitting all alone, I heard, I heard the voice of salvation. Oh, tonight take it, dear girl. The voice of salvation, the voice of salvation. Verily, verily, I say unto you, says the Savior. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
The voice of salvation that came to me was Luke 19 and 10. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. I discovered that night I was lost. I discovered that I can't understand this.
I didn't know how that others knew. And perhaps, maybe, that is your difficulty. You don't know how others know that you can be saved. Well, friend, the same book, the same Bible, the same book that tells me I'm lost is the same book that tells me that the Son of Man has died for the lost.
And if he has died for the lost, well, friend, if he's died for the lost, what does that mean? That simply means that if I would take my place as sinner and at mercy's footstool lay, Christ will take his place as Savior and immediately wash all my sins away.
What a happy day that was. What a happy night that was. I remember starting up that automobile and going home, taking those four or five steps. I made good use of my long legs that night. And I took a hop, skip, and a jump in the back door of that old house there near Heightsville.
And I says, Dad, I just got saved. Oh, what a blow that was to him. You see, tonight, dear girl, dear boy, what a marvelous thing if you could hear the voice of salvation tonight. If you could just simply understand that I don't need to make myself more lost.
I am not in a condition you don't have to make yourself more lost. Because, friend, you are lost. And you don't have to go out and commit any more sins. You are born in sin and shaped in iniquity. Did your mother conceive you?
And there is a finality about sin. But this evening in this schoolhouse, you could understand I'm lost. I need to hear the voice of salvation. Well, then turn by faith and listen to what the Savior says.
Because in Matthew chapter 27, the Lord Jesus, he cried with a loud voice. He cried with a loud voice. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And upon that shameful, dreadful, cruel tree, silent in his agony, dying, crushed beneath the load of the curse and wrath of God, my blessed Savior took the wrath of God like a funnel.
And almighty vengeance was poured upon him, enough to sink a world to hell. Dear girl, would you understand tonight that when he cried with a loud voice in John 19 and said, it is finished, that if he said it just for you and discover that I don't have to be punished for my sins, I don't have to be punished.
For the Savior was punished for me. And he is not going to be punished again. Because the Lord Jesus has entered into death, burial, and resurrection. And one day up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes.
God was satisfied with what Jesus did. Why can't you be? Why can't you be? If God is satisfied, you can be satisfied also. The voice of salvation. I don't know how many people we have here tonight. It doesn't matter.
Everyone that's saved, they remember when this voice came home to them. They remember. And they go back with joy that they sense the voice of salvation. But I have to, before I sit down, mention the voice of anticipation.
The voice of anticipation. Do you know what Donna Miller's mother said this past week? Mrs. Knowles in Winnipeg. A lovely woman. She said, I get to see Jesus this decade. She's 92. I don't know how much longer she'll live.
You know what that dear woman's looking forward to? The first sight of her Lord. Amidst the darkness, storm, and sorrow, one bright gleam we see. While we know the blessed morrow, Christ will come for me.
Will he come for you? Will he come for you? Because we are looking for and expecting to hear his shout. The voice of anticipation. May God help you, dear child, dear boy or girl. May God help you tonight to look away by faith to dark Calvary.
And understand, yes, it was for me. Yes, all for me. Oh, love of God, so great, so free. Oh, wondrous love, I'll shout and sing. He died for me. Can you say it? I know you can say it. But isn't it true?
He died for me. My Lord and King. May God help you to trust him. For his name's sake.