You have your Bible. You can turn to 1 Samuel 3 today. Many of you are World War II history buffs. I am not one, but I do enjoy a little bit of history. And I was, one of the things I was aware of, and I did a little bit of reading about this week, which is fascinating. During World War II, there was a radio effort called the Voice of America, where people would broadcast shortwave radio into enemy territory. The voice of the people of truth going into a dark place where there would be only propaganda. Nations like Germany and all of the areas around there would only speak only glowingly about their own efforts and disparaging of the United States that continued into the Cold War era, even. And there were some times when we were broadcasting into Eastern Bloc countries, et cetera. The voice is a powerful thing. The words are incredibly powerful. Words are incredibly powerful. There's a power of truth as well. In fact, Jesus knows this often. One of the things that Jesus says as He's speaking is, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And I think the problem is a lot of us, it's not that we're not hearing, it's that we're not listening. The word hearing and listening in the Bible are connected and often we hear all kinds of things. In fact, I can't tell you how many times we're at my house, and the kids are saying something, and my wife says, honey, are you getting that? Are you listening? And it turns out I'm not. I'm on my phone, or I'm tuned out for some reason, and somebody's saying something to me, even though they're calling my name, I don't hear them. I'm not listening, even though it's definitely going one ear, because I know there's noise. I know there's something going on, but it's definitely not registering in my brain. I don't know if you've ever had that happen to you before. Probably not. I might be the only person, apparently, that happens to. We are also people who love to talk, but don't like to listen. We are. We are people who love to talk and don't like to listen. You know how I know this? Well, I mean, have you gone on social media and seen how people love to talk? Very few people love to listen. Very few people say, well, I just love sitting down and listening to someone. It takes patience. It takes time. And we are not a people who generally like to listen because that means putting our program on the back shelf for someone else listening. Now today, we're going to dive into this passage. We're going to talk about the voice of God and the power of God's voice. And friends, if we're going to be changed and radically transformed by God, we've got to learn to listen for God and listen for his voice. Dear Lord, today we ask for your Holy Spirit to create a quiet in our hearts as we hear your word, that we would understand your truth, that our hearts would be picking up what you are speaking to us. We would not be like those who are calloused, hardened, but rather we would be receptive and soft, listening to your truth as it's spoken. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Simple story this morning. Title of the message is Listening to the Voice of God. We're in 1 Samuel chapter 3, and I want to see us as we begin here, I want us to talk about, I want us to see from the scripture how we should be preparing to hear God's voice preparing to hear God's voice. The first portion of this actually kind of goes back into chapter 2, and we don't have to turn there. It probably is right there close to where you are right now in your Bible if you're in 1 Samuel 3. And we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on this point, but I think it should at least be mentioned at the beginning that last week when we saw chapter 2, we saw a great contrast of the fools Eli's sons were and their debauchery they were involved in, and Samuel's following after God. And Samuel was living before the face of God while Eli's sons were living in their own lusts. They were stealing food. These sons were. They were stealing food from the people. They were committing immorality with the daughters of Israel. Their lusts became so widely known in the whole land. Everyone knew about their immoralities. So that God sent this prophet to Eli to tell him that they would not live to their old age because they despised God's offerings. And we have, in contrast to that debauchery, we have Samuel, this young boy who grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. He did what was right. And he knew the Lord well. He lived before the face of God. We see in verse 18 of chapter 2, it says, Samuel ministered before the Lord as a child wearing a linen ephod. Moreover, his mother used to make him a little robe and bring it to him year by year. And we see the blessings of God. And then verse 26 jumped down as I just quoted. There's a reason God's voice was not coming to the sons of Eli. God's voice was coming to Samuel because he had evaluated his walk with God and he was walking with God. In fact, we know in Psalm 66, 18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. I believe the inverse is true as well. If we regard iniquity in our heart, we will have a hard time hearing from God. Our heart has to be receptive. We're playing baseball right now, or Nelson's playing baseball. And we're having a great time playing baseball, coach pitch, eight and under baseball. It's a lot of fun. And one of the things you have to teach the boys how to do is when they catch the ball to open their glove. They have to open their glove to catch the ball. If you have your glove closed, no matter how hard or how close you come to getting that ball, the ball will not go inside the glove. Friends, our hearts are similar. If we close our hearts off to God, we will not receive the truth of God. We have to have our hearts open to God's truth. And that begins with us living a life of righteousness and living a life of purity. Now, a lot of us, we fail all the time. The blessing of God is that he gives us forgiveness. We don't have to be perfect. We have to be walking in repentance and walking in truth. 1 Corinthians 2 makes it clear the Spirit of God reveals the truth of God. So don't allow your heart to become calloused, to become hard, to become closed by sin. I believe that Samuel's heart was opened because he had evaluated his walk with God and he was walking with God as he should. Now as we get into chapter 3, I want you to see that we should be available and we should listen for God. At the time before the written word of God, we have the voice of God being very treasured. Look at verse 1 of chapter 3. It says, Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And it says, The word of the Lord was rare. It was precious in those days. There was no widespread revelation. It says here that at one time the Lord speaking had been very common. It was something that had been expected but now for some reason there had been no widespread revelation. The voice of God was nowhere. The voice of God was very rare. And even though this was the case, It tells us that Samuel was sensitive to his truth because he was listening while the others were sleeping. I don't want to make too much of this, but I want you to notice how the writer of this passage gives us clues to the spiritual condition of the people besides Samuel. It says in verse 2, it came to pass that at the time Eli was lying down at his place, notice the description, his eyes had begun to grow so dim that he could not see. That's not a mistake. He is physically going blind and spiritually he's going blind as well. Verse 3, "...before the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle of the Lord where the ark of God was kept." It's just before the lamp of God is going out. Again, things are going dim and hope is looking very low for the house of God. You look at the man who's supposed to be representing God to the people and he's a failure. His sons are failures, morally. It looks like a bad situation. And it says, verse four, that the Lord called Samuel and he answered, here am I. So Eli was lying down. Eli is described as being so close to blind, he is almost completely, can't see a thing. And spiritually it's the same way. Yet Samuel was in his place lying down and God calls to him and Samuel's response is, here I am. He's available and he's listening. This is Samuel's response of availability. Here I am. And we must be available. We must be listening for God. We cannot be so busy and so preoccupied with our world that we do not hear the voice of God speaking. When we can't sleep at night, what do you turn to? I know what a lot of us turn to. I hate to keep harping on this. We turn to our phones. We roll over in our bed and we start working on our phone or whatever we might do and we scroll through Facebook or you read the news. Why don't you pray to the Lord and be willing to listen to God speak to you? We must be available. And listen, I'm not saying that God's going to come talk to you audibly like he did to Samuel because now we have the word of God, but we need to be quieting our hearts. So often we turn away from God rather than being available and listening for God while others are not available. And then Samuel started learning what the voice of the Lord sounded like in verses 5 to 7. It says he ran to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. And he, Eli, said, I did not call. Lie down again. So he went and lay down. And the Lord called again, Samuel. So Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here I am, you called me. And he answered, I did not call you. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor the word of the Lord yet revealed to him. So twice Samuel goes to Eli waking him up. He did not walk. It says that he ran with urgency to Eli. He was concerned. He wanted to be of service. Each time Samuel was told by the old man that he had called Samuel to his bed, that he had not been the one who called Samuel to his bed. And I wonder at this time if Eli is starting to wonder if he's going a little bit crazy. Wait a second, did I? Did I call you? I don't think I called you. Go back to bed. He comes again. Now, wait a second. Second time, I don't think this is right. He's starting to maybe be worried about Samuel. What's this boy hearing? What have I been feeding this boy? Has he been getting into the drink from my sons? I don't know what's going on. What is he hearing? What is he seeing? Eli had become, pay close attention here, Eli had become so detached from the voice of God that he did not expect to hear God's voice at all. He did not know what was going on. Friends, when we get to the point when we're so detached from God's word that we don't expect God to speak truth to us, we're in a dangerous place. We must be available and listen to God. Secondly, we must also be a willing servant for God. Look in verse eight. So only after the third time did it occur to Eli that something more was going on here. The Lord called Samuel again the third time. So he arose and went to Eli and said, here I am, for you did call me. Eli perceived that the Lord had called the boy. Therefore, Eli said to Samuel, go, lie down, and it shall be if he calls you, you must say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and laid down in his place. Eli is a good example of someone who's become so callous to the presence of God that it never occurred to him that God might be working. What a tragedy. And any one of us could fall into that same tragedy. You stay away from God's truth, you stay away from God's revealing himself to you, long enough you begin to forget the truth of God. Many of us are the same way. When's the last time you picked up the word of God and expected to hear God speak to you? Once something good happens, do you pass it off as good luck or inevitable, or do you recognize the hand of God? I think this happens a lot. Something great happens. We're like, man, that was awesome. I barely escaped a traffic accident. Man, you won't believe, I got his raise at work. That's awesome. Man, I'm doing a great job. You forget to credit God. You forget to think how God has had an impact as soon as something happens. How often does that happen to so many of us? Yet what Samuel does is he obeys Eli's advice, and guess what the Lord does? He speaks. Look at verse 10. The Lord came and stood and called as at other times, Samuel. Samuel, and Samuel answered, speak for your servant hears. He calls himself your servant, and he asks God to speak. He places himself in complete submission to the voice of God. So after we prepare ourselves to hear the voice of God, we must then listen to God's voice. Listening to God's voice. Let's look at verse 11. We'll see the two aspects here of this. First, what Samuel does is he listens to understand God's message. And this is a message of judgment on Eli that was given to Samuel. This is not the kind of message you want to hear, not the kind of message you're excited to hear, but it's a message from God, therefore it must be taken seriously. Verse 11, the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I will do something in Israel at which the ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. God begins by warning Samuel. He says, look, I'm going to do something that is going to be, it's going to upend the natural order. It's going to surprise people. Be warned, it's going to get messy. And he says, I'm going to punish Eli for his wickedness. And that day, he says, verse 12, I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. Eli and his sons had flaunted their sins before the people of Israel. And because of this, they were going to face the judgment of God. And God is telling Samuel this is going to happen. And he warns him. He says, look, I've already told Eli this is going to happen. Verse 13. I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile and he did not restrain them." This punishment was not going to be a random punishment. Sometimes things happen and they seem kind of random and you wonder what was going on there, what was happening. God says, I don't want there to be any mistaking what's going on here. I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, you're going to see what's going to happen, and it's going to be a direct result of your behavior. The Lord wants them to know that their behavior, the reason for their punishment was that they had disgraced the Lord. Their sin, he says, is so egregious that it cannot be atoned for. Verse 14, therefore, I have sworn to the house of Eli. The iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for, shall not be covered by sacrifice or offering forever. Their sin would not be covered. Of course, I believe that the Lord is telling Samuel not that Eli and his sons would pursue forgiveness and God would not give it to them, but that they were so rebellious that even though they had been told about their coming judgment, they would still refuse to repent. I mean, think about how God warns us. Friends, He says, do not go there. There is danger there and we still go. And you think about whole nations like Jonah goes and preaches in Nineveh. In seven days Nineveh shall be overthrown. In 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown and Nineveh repents and turns. You think about this, the fact that God had told them this danger is coming and they did not do anything to change course. We must listen to understand God's message. I'm sure that Samuel, when he heard this message, was not very excited about hearing this message. I'm sure he was very discouraged in this. We see that we must also listen, not only so we can understand God's message, but so we may repeat God's message. I want to really focus on this for a second. So many of us are like sponges. You sit here on Sunday, and I'll preach, or you'll read, or you'll listen to Sunday school, and you'll take in God's truth. But how many of you are willing to squeeze out the truth that you've taken in? Right? We take it all in, and we become saturated with God's truth. But we're not willing, we don't have an outlet. You've got to find an outlet to relay what God's truth, always throughout the scripture, we receive God's truth and we communicate God's truth. It's not just that you receive it. The point of coming to church is not just to be a dead end. We all know what happens to water when it becomes a dead end. When it becomes a pond that just everything dumps into it, it becomes nasty. It becomes gross. Because it's a place where all the mosquitoes and all the nasty algae and things like that, because there's no outlet. We've got to become the outlet for God. We've got to not only listen and understand God's message, we must listen so we can repeat God's message and Samuel does just that. Verse 15, Samuel laid down in the morning and he opened his doors to the house of the Lord and Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision. He was the first to rise up and he goes into the house of God. He was the one who opens the doors of the house so Eli calls him. Samuel says and he says Samuel my son and he answered here. I am he said what is the word that the Lord has spoken to you? Please do not hide it from me God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me that all the things he has said to you Now so Samuel Knows the message is not good. I think Eli knows the message is not good, too So it says in verse 18 that Samuel told him everything that he, and he hid nothing from him. And he said, is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him. So it's not Samuel's job to decide what parts of the message are important for Eli to hear. It's not Samuel's job to say, you know what, I like this part of the message, I'm gonna talk about this part, and I'm not really crazy about this part, we're gonna ignore this part. Samuel's job is to repeat to him what God has told him. And friends, that's what our job as Christians, if you're a believer in Christ, your job is to take the truth that God has given you in his word and to repeat it to someone else, to tell them the truth. Not to edit it, not to change it, not to do it according to your liking, but to speak the truth as God has given it to us. Our job is to be an ambassador for God. And Samuel was just that, he was a mouthpiece for God. And he did it. Eli accepted the truth. The Lord would do what was good. Again, even from Eli, we have submission to the truth of God. And lastly, we'll see here the blessings come upon those who hear the voice of God. Some blessings that hear the voice of God. First, I want you to see in verse 19 that Samuel's actions, they demonstrated that God was with him. It says, so Samuel grew and the Lord was with him. This is the third time so far that we've heard this phrase used, that Samuel grew. We have it in verse 21 of chapter 2. It says the Lord visited Hannah and she conceived and she bore three sons. Meanwhile the Lord, the child Samuel, grew before the Lord. And then in verse 26 of chapter 2 it says the child Samuel grew in stature and in favor with the Lord and man. This is not just saying that he got taller. This is telling us that Samuel is a developing individual. He is growing in his walk with God. And now in verse 19 of chapter 3, the Lord is obviously with Samuel. Samuel grew and God was with him. Do people know that God is with you? People should notice a difference in the way that we act. Samuel's actions demonstrated that God was with him. Also, Samuel's words demonstrated this growth. It says, God let none of his words fall to the ground. What a beautiful picture. It's an allegory, a picture, a metaphor for what's going on. God says all the things that Samuel said hit their mark. None of them fell to the ground. None of them missed. What Samuel said happened. What Samuel said hit the mark. And the words of Samuel were powerful. Samuel was no wimp. He was no coward. He spoke exactly what needed to be said. And God blessed him for it. And Samuel's reputation validated his relationship with God. Verse 20 says, All of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, that's from the north to the south, knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the Lord. When you make it a habit to listen to God, to speak the truth of God, people are going to take notice of you, and your reputation will go before you, just like it did for Samuel. Some of you know this. Some of you have been believers in a workplace, and because of your situation in your workplace, you are known as the Christian. And then people come to you, and they start talking, or people are talking about certain things, and you walk in the door, they know that's not, they're really not supposed to talk about that anymore. They know that, what you'll say about something. That's a great testimony to have. Don't ever be shy of that. We're supposed to have our reputation go before us just like Samuel did. If you listen to God, if you speak the truth of God, people are going to take notice. There's nothing wrong with that. They noticed that he had been established as one who speaks for God. And we see that God's voice continued to come to him. In verse 21, it says, The Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. And the word of Samuel came to all of Israel. God was working through Samuel time and time again because he had learned to listen. Now, as we get to the end of this passage, I want to spend a few moments in our remaining time talking about what it is to listen for the voice of the Lord. question, how do we hear the voice of God today? Maybe you know a friend or a relative or a co-worker who's told you that they were shaving in the mirror one morning and God showed up next to them and spoke a word to them. Or maybe you've been walking down the street and a person tells you they have a word from the Lord for you. It's kind of an interesting situation, speaking for God directly to you. Is that reasonable? What do you do in that kind of situation? Are you supposed to run away? The Bible tells us all about God's voice. So we're going to take a moment and talk about the word of God and how it describes the voice of God. The voice of God appears throughout the scripture. I mean, from the first page all the way to the last. I'm going to run through some of these. I want you to just kind of follow where we're going with this. I want you to think about God's voice at creation. He's the most powerful force ever known. By His voice, God creates the entire universe. He spoke and light exists. Now, you think your voice is powerful. Try to do that. Try to command things to happen, and they just don't. I try it at my house all the time. Things don't clean up if I just ask them to be clean. Things don't happen if I just... I expect, as a father, for my voice to carry some profound impact, and sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. God's voice is powerful. He speaks and everything that is comes into existence. God's voice is a creative force. His voice resonates through all the entire creation. His voice in the Garden of Eden. Think of the contrast here. It's tender. He's calling for the sin-stricken soul to come to Him in repentance. He's calling to Adam and Eve. He's asking, where are you? Why are you hiding yourself? And the voice to Hagar in the wilderness, this woman who was cast out of her home unjustly by Abraham's wife, Sarah, and the voice of God comes to her and tells her, don't fear. Fear not. He gives her a promise of life and blessing for her son, and she finds comfort in this. God's voice to Moses in the wilderness, in the burning bush, calls to him to be a leader for his people and to bring them out of this bondage. It's a commissioning voice, God's voice coming out and saying, I have a job for you to do. His voice on Mount Sinai coming down, resonating for all the people, God's voice is powerful, and the people, the ground shakes and the storm clouds gather, and the voice gives us the law, and then Elijah the prophet who hears the voice of God on Mount Carmel and then it has this amazing story in chapter 19 where Elijah is depressed and he's facing all kinds of anxiety because of this and he goes into a cave and it says he went to a cave and God spoke to him and he spent the night in that place and behold the word of the Lord came to him and said to him where are you going or what are you doing here Elijah he said I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant. They've torn down your altars, they've killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. Elijah is depressed. He thinks I'm the only person around here, God. Have you forgotten about me? Have you forgotten about everything going on? Why do you ask, am I here? Why am I running away? It's because I'm the only person left. And then in verse 11, he said, And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake. but the Lord was not in an earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice." God's great and powerful presence overwhelms us, but he calls us to listen for the whisper, the still small voice that isn't shouting but is quietly speaking truth. In the New Testament, we have one of the first things Jesus does is be baptized publicly by John the Baptist. He's baptized in the river, and when he's baptized, the Holy Spirit, as a dove, descends on Jesus' head, and then what happens? A voice comes from heaven and says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Later on the Mount of Transfiguration, a voice comes out of heaven and says, this is my beloved son, hear him. The voice is proving that Jesus is who he says he is. The voice of Jesus Christ, follow me, heals when he says things like rise up and walk, and it declares people righteous when he says your faith has made you well, go in peace. The power of the voice of God and the voice of Christ that created light out of darkness calls the dead out of the tomb. Lazarus, come forth, he says, and the tomb bursts open and a man who was dead four days walks out of a tomb wrapped in burial clothes. Jesus, what he does sends chills down my spine now and I'm sure does for those who were there could not believe what Jesus had done. But Jesus' voice in scripture is not only powerful, it's gentle, it's a healing voice as he kneels to this blind man on the side of the road and makes mud with his fingers and puts it on his eyes and says, go and wash and your eyes will be restored and you'll be able to see. And the gentle and guiding voice of Christ becomes this loud and strong voice declaring in Revelation chapter 1 when it says, Revelation 1.10, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice and a trumpet. saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. And he said, what you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia. Jesus' voice in Revelation 1 is described as a trumpet. a loud trumpet. And just as with Samuel, when we hear the voice of God, we must communicate the truth that he says in verse 12. John writes, I turned to see the voice that spoke to me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. In the midst of the seven golden lampstands, one like the son of man, clothed with a garment, down to his feet, and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as refined like a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters." Have you ever been to a waterfall and heard the overwhelming presence of sound, to shout to be heard? That's the voice of Christ. I want to finish with this. You might be thinking, I really wish I could hear the voice of God like this today. I really wish that God would speak to me like He spoke to to Elijah, how he spoke to Moses, how he spoke to John, but the Bible tells us that you can hear the voice of God. We can hear it in the Word of God through the person of Jesus Christ. It is no accident that in John 1, verse 1, the Bible tells us, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word of God being Jesus Christ. I want you to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews 1. New Testament, Hebrews 1. Christ is the ultimate revelation. I want to read the first few verses of Hebrews 1 and I want us to notice what he's saying and the power that we have today through the Word of God, Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1 says, God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he himself purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of majesty on high." God, in past, spoke to the prophets, now has spoken to us clearly through Jesus Christ. He has spoken to us through his son, because Jesus is the culmination of God's communication to you and to me. When Christ came as the man, he came and was born in a stall and nowhere, and lived a life of purity and righteousness, then he goes to the cross for you and for me, and he dies on that cross a perfect man, a sinless man, and he dies like a common criminal, because you and I are sinners. And Christ could take all of our sin, being the perfect Son of God, and place it on his shoulders and pay for it once and for all. And that's God's communication to you. He is our communication, all the glory of God, it says. He is God. And He has all the authority of God because He is God. And He has all the power of God because He can uphold everything by the word of His power, word of His voice. He has purged, He has forgiven, He has removed our sins from us. If you will trust in Christ, you can have forgiveness of your sins. All the guilt, all the burdens, all the pain will be gone because you have forgiveness in Jesus Christ because he has finished his work. You sit down when you're done. Jesus is finished with his work on the cross. Amen to that. You don't have to do anything to be saved. That work has been done already. Jesus did it. Besides, you couldn't accomplish that anyway if you wanted to. Jesus is the one who did it. God's powerful voice is spoken throughout the Bible, but his most powerful words were on the cross. When Jesus spoke volumes, he says, I came to die for you. I came to take away your sins. I came to make peace with God and I came to give eternal life. My question is, will you listen to God? Will you listen to him today? The voice of God, the message of God is simple. His message has come. There's a blank at the bottom of your page. The message Jesus says, the overwhelming theme, is this. And I say that God's voice is from the first page to the last. I want you to see something. The very end of your Bible, Revelation 22, it says this. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. Let him who hears say, Come. And let him who thirsts, Come. Whoever desires, let him take of the water of life freely. God's message to you today, friend, is come to Him. Will you come to Jesus? Now, in just a moment, we're gonna have something we never, don't really do very often. I don't think we've ever done this here. But last week, as the choir was singing, they sang the song Gentle Voice. Far above the noise of strife, there's a voice that is gently calling. Leave behind your cares and strife. Come to me, I will give you rest. Leave your cares and leave your burdens. Leave your pain and leave your worry. Do you hear the voice of Jesus gently calling? Come unto me. I'm gonna ask the choir. I've talked to Eric about this. It's not a surprise. I would like the choir to go ahead and make your way up here. What I want you as a congregation to do, you can come on up, just ignore them as they move. I want us as a congregation to think and meditate on these words as they sing. We're going to stay seated as they sing this song. Gentle voice of God. The voice of God is powerful, yes, but he's so gentle. It's like a powerful voice of someone who has the control to be gentle with his voice as well. and God's voice is calling us, come unto me. Maybe you need to come to Christ because you have been walking away from him for a long time and God promises to forgive you if you'll come back. First John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we come to Christ, maybe for the first time, you've never been saved, you need to come to him for forgiveness of sins, maybe now's the time. I'm gonna step down and the choir's gonna sing and then I'll come up and close after that.