God’s Voice Was Loud and Clear!

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17)

Scripture records two people who uttered those words: John the Baptist in Matthew 3 and Jesus in Matthew 4. But I heard someone else say it 21 years ago, and it changed my life forever.

I was deep in despair. The consequences of some very bad choices had brought me to a new low in my life. Suicide seemed like the only way out for me. So, there I leaned against the rail on a wooden deck outside my friend’s home along an old country road when I heard, “Repent, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

“What did I just hear?” I thought. “Was I having a nervous breakdown?” That voice was not in my mind. It came from the woods just thirty or forty yards away!

Again I heard it: “Repent, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

I was frightened because I knew I had not imagined that voice. I heard it! It was as audible and clear as if my friend next to me was speaking to me. What’s more frightening is she heard it, too!

That was on a Friday night. My friend told me after hearing that voice that she thought I was demon oppressed. I thought she was crazy. “Demon oppressed?” “What in the world did she mean by that?”

The next day, we drove by a church on our way to lunch and a church marquee read: “The Lord will deliver those who are demon oppressed.” I was startled.

I now realize that Friday night was the beginning of my journey to salvation, which we call “conviction”. But it was that Saturday, and the words on that marquee that really got my attention. “What else does the Lord have to do to get your attention?” my friend asked me.

I struggled with my decision for another day before I gave my life to the Lord. Interesting, isn’t it? Jesus gave his life on a Friday and rose three days later on Sunday. I wouldn’t give my life on a Friday, but struggled with it for three days before deciding on Sunday to trade in my old life in for a new one.

But where did that voice come from? I KNEW I heard it. It was not imagined. I later learned that two teen-aged boys went to their pastor at a small country church nearby and told him the Lord had instructed them to put a speaker in the back of a pickup truck and ride down that lone country road repeating, “Repent, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” They told the pastor, “There is someone out there preacher who needs to hear that voice!”

Perhaps more miraculous is the fact that the pastor believed those teen agers and instructed one of his adult members to drive them around while they sat in the back of truck proclaiming what both John the Baptist and Jesus said over 2,000 years ago. Those words are as true today as they were then!

Thank God that pastor believed what those two young boys told him they heard and thank God I listened. My life has never been – and never will be – the same again!