“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts,” “Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls,” “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts,” “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your waterfalls.”
These are the words of the first phrase of Psalm 42:7 found in the King James Authorized, NASB, NRSV and ESV translations of the Bible respectively. I have long known and remembered the phrase “deep calls to deep,” it has been profoundly meaningful to me.
I remember a good friend; a prophetic preacher of very genial disposition and these words were often on his lips. To him (he was a King James Version man) they implied that the deeps of his being responded to the deeps of God as he heard and sensed God’s presence and voice like the up-springing of waterspouts from the deep places of the earth. Whether this particular phrase can bear the weight of that interpretation some may choose to question but, as to human experience we can embrace the sentiment expressed here; that it is the calling of God as it sounded to the soul of a man, and correspondingly, the deep of the soul of the man responding to the deep of God. That we are made for this there can be no doubt. That the enemy of our souls, by whatever mechanism can be used, attempts to drown out from our hearing the ‘noise’ (KJV), ‘sound’ (NASB), ‘thunder’ (NRSV & ESV) of God’s voice is also assuredly true. Perhaps this is the major reason superficiality appears to reign supreme in the materialistic world in which we live.
“Deep calls,” but do we hear? Vocation is another word for calling and it is not by chance that “vocation,” “voice” and “vocal” all have the same linguistic root. The thunder, noise and sound of God’s drawing voice is ever present. Blessed are those who have ears to hear and who give attention to His voice as He calls us to our true vocation as human beings made in His image. His chords of love draw us to see and live in the greater reality that lies at back of all things.
The secret of unity lies in being sensitive to and hearing that Voice of God and walking in obedience to that higher calling. But where is the voice of God to be heard? The poet of Psalm 29 gives us part of the answer at least. On seven occasions he specifically points to the voice of the Lord (Psalm 29:3,4,5,7,8,9). He speaks of where it sounds and the impression we gain is that it can be heard everywhere, he says first that it is over the waters, (Psalm 29:3) and if we bear in mind that waters in the Bible signify the place of the deep from which the enemy emerges to do his work there is much to ponder on in that thought. No matter where we might be, in whatever troubles and dark dismaying times, the voice of the Lord is OVER the waters and every deep where the mysterious Leviathan lurks.
Indeed, the voice of the Lord is powerful and full of majesty (Psalm 29:4). It is a commanding sound, not to be trifled with, majestic in tone and it breaks (Psalm 29:5), kindles (Psalm 29:7) and shakes (Psalm 29:8) yet prompts to birth the fawn of the deer (Psalm 29:9). It is mighty and yet tender, all at the same time. Seven times the psalmist extols the Lord and His voice in particular and no wonder he closes by saying that He sits on the flood, is king forever and is ready to give strength to His people and bless them with peace! Oh that we may be hearers of His voice in the midst of the clamor of noise with which we are surrounded and alas, often even surround ourselves.
I have pointed out that the writer of Psalm 29 mentions the voice of the Lord on seven occasions. I wonder if John, when writing the book of the Revelation had this
psalm in mind when he tells us of the voice of Christ, or it may be of Christ’s special angel roaring loudly and the response to His cry was seven thunders sounding. John evidently heard the voice of these but was commanded not to write what was said but to seal it up (Revelation 10:1-4). Surely this implies that the church must live in the midst of that which is both revealed and that which remains unrevealed. Majesty and mystery, the seen AND the unseen are the habitat of the saints, but the enemy dulls our spiritual heart and overwhelms it with that which is seen with the physical ear and heard with the natural ear. Another psalm helps us and directs us to realize that the extraordinary is to be seen and heard in the ordinary. Then again, are the heavens ordinary? Yet, we see them every day, if we bother to look, the sky, the stars, the sun and the moon! They utter God’s speech, His voice is to be heard in them and there is nowhere this word is not proclaimed (Psalm 19:1-6). “Day to day,” “night to night,” “pours out speech” and “reveals knowledge.” There is a voice to be heard, a sound to be attended to, creation is God’s handiwork and is His first word to us but not His only one. Second comes the scriptures, the Bible has a sound at back of every word it contains. In it He discloses Himself (for every voice discloses the heart of the speaker) as not only Creator of all things but their sustainer and keeper and He Who is in covenant with all He has made. He is not the distant God who made the clock, set it ticking and then left it to run on till its mechanism wears out. Read the Bible, what a gift it is, read it with a humble, teachable and reachable heart and it shall yield the treasures of God to you and point you to that Greater Word, Jesus, God’s final word to mankind.
Jesus is God’s last word to man, the One in Whom the voice of His heart most clearly sounds, and He is the foundation of all too. “In the beginning was the Word,” (John 1:1) writes the apostle John, and “without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). It was and is He Who is the WORD who is the foundation and beginning of everything. We must ask ourselves where we stand in relation to Him and His voice sounding ceaselessly in creation, scriptures and finally and completely in Christ. Are we tuned and attentive to this deep of God in Christ calling to our own deeps and bidding us rise up, follow and become the authentic human being we were made to be. His voice sounds constantly and we can hear it if we get quiet enough to do so and as we do we shall find strength to follow the vocation unto which we are called. Alternatively we will become brain dead because of the unrelenting banality of the voices that spew out of the mouth of the false prophet John saw (Revelation 16:13). True Christians, growing in the grace of God live by His voice. They live like fish in the sea, but in their case, swim submerged in the voices of God, hearing Him in creation and providence, in the scriptures and most of all in His Son. His voice is sounding, and in the context of its tone and sound other voices are discerned aright. We will begin to hear the often-unuttered cry of the lost souls around about, those in our workplace, neighbors to left and right. Hearing His voice will liberate us from the thrall of the idiot celebrity culture that constantly lures to mindless materialism and its passing superficial beauty. Multitudes succumb to this and expend the energies of their being to obtain that which is not bread.
For many years, in this regard, I have thought of Abraham and Moses. They seem to have exemplified so poignantly the life of those who heard the voice and mysterious call of God. Abraham was a pagan idolater (Joshua 24:15). He lived in Ur and served the gods of that city until “the God of glory appeared” to him, “when he dwelt in Mesopotamia.” (Acts 7:2). How did this God of glory appear to him? We
have no details, voice, sound, vision or dream, the actual mechanism does not seem important. Was it sudden or was it gradual, like a flash of lightening illuminating his soul or a gradual dawning upon the darkness of his idolatrous heart? What is central is contained in the phrase “the God of glory.” That was it, every other god in his Mesopotamian city and its environs was found out, empty and false and bearing no resemblance at all to this God Who now called him to the pathway of a pilgrim. The story is beautiful indeed, obedience to this mysterious call led him on a journey, from city through desert land, and places of pasture too whilst all the while, God disclosed Himself to him steadily. He went forth hearing that Voice, the sound from the Deep to his own deep and straightway began to find rest to his soul. This is part of the wonder of hearing and giving attention to God’s voice, immediately there is a sense of rest and place, purpose and belonging. True, it is not complete, we are not ‘there’ yet, but we know that we are on track. We certainly err along the way and cause complications thereby, not only to ourselves but to others also, yet we will always discover that the cause of the wandering was inattentiveness to the sound of His voice.
It is hard to drown out that Voice and the sound of His eternity entirely. Perhaps the life of Moses exemplifies this, he whose life can be divided up so easily into three periods of forty years. God’s voice at his birth and infanthood (Hebrews 11:23), God’s voice that could not be silenced by the wealth and wisdom of Egypt and the strong shaping of forty years in the palace (Hebrews 11:24-27). And that Voice of the God Who had not forgotten his man but had been forming him all the while and spoke to him on the mount in the bush saying, “I AM” (Exodus 3:15). Moses, the man who dwelt in city and palace and tasted all it had to offer but found it to be dust in his mouth and Moses, the man of the desert quietness who met God there and found that He had not forsaken him.
How civilization seems to contain within it the cancer of distraction. Our lives are busy; the rush of ceaseless movement is everywhere. Noise, noise and more noise, “whatever you do, do not get quiet enough to think, silence is unbearable.” “You may have to face up to some serious issues if you get quiet enough to truly listen,” this is the subtle voice of the gods of our day. Shabby, tawdry, decaying gods that always need some facelift or other to keep our interest, what a contrast to the God of Glory who appeared to Abram. They were in Mesopotamia and in Egypt in the time of Moses and they are visible on every side where ever we live in our so-called enlightened day. They call us to activity and self-pleasing. Perhaps the greatest characteristic of these gods is that they call us to individualism and enforce the false notion that I am the center of the my universe! To go to a desert place, where all is still and quiet will pierce that balloon very quickly. To gaze for five minutes into the starry sky at night will also disabuse us of that lie. We are a dot, a nothing, of no account, all flesh is as grass and its glory like the flower of the field which today is and tomorrow fades away. Yet, listen again, for God’s voice sounds to those who get quiet enough to hear, in skies and all that is made, in scriptures more wonderfully unfolded, and in Christ crucified and risen for us most clearly of all, God speaks and says “he that has ears to hear, hear and live.” To those of us who first heard that Wondrous Voice years ago He speaks again today and says, “continue to hear me, draw aside and listen and be changed” and let those others who are afraid to stand quiet and present themselves understand that opportunities to be still and listen shall be granted them and the beginning of wisdom will be found in being attentive to Him
Who speaks from heaven.
