“Release the sights and sounds of Heaven!”
In June 2021, as I was preparing a message to share with the worship and media team I lead, I felt God drop two words into my spirit: “sight” and “sound.” As recorded in Genesis, we initially meet God in a creative expression of sight and sound.
Genesis 1:1-3 NKJV
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
First God speaks—He releases a sound—and at the sound of His voice, everything changes! His sound gives brith to life in the universe. And guess what. He’s given you that same ability to release a sound! You have a mouth and a tongue and vocal cords, and when you use them, you have the capacity to co-create with God.
One SOUND from Heaven can change everything. Scripture declares the power of life and death is in the power of the tongue — your tongue! (Proverbs 18:21). You can decree a thing and it will be established. The Israelites saw the walls of Jericho come down at the sound of a shout! And when you release the sound of praise and worship… I don’t think there’s any limit on what God can do!
The capacity to create is in your sound. It’s the first thing God does, and as His sound goes forth, suddenly light fills the universe. Light is the capacity to see. Without light, there would be no vision. In our eyeballs, we have these things called "photoreceptors," which capture light and send signals to our brain that then get translated as the images we see. "Photo" is Latin for "light." (As in "photo-graphy," which literally means "light writing.")
One SIGHT from Heaven can change everything. In Numbers 21, the disobedient Israelites were being bitten by poisonous snakes. God instructed Moses to craft a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, and lift it up over the people. Anyone who looked at it would be healed. Later in Scripture, we learn that this image is a prophetic foreshadowing of the Savior who would be lifted up on the cross. A sight that when seen and believed by faith, brings salvation.
There is so much more to be said about sight and sound as they are present in powerful ways throughout all of Scripture… like Gideon and his 300 men charging into battle with a sight (torches of fire) and a sound (trumpets and a shout)… I just love that one… or Saul meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus with a a sight (a flashing light from Heaven) and a sound (the voice of the Lord)… but for now, back to Genesis 1. From God’s sound, the celestial sights were born and the world took shape. The earth and everything in it came to be as He created with sights and sounds.
On the final day of creation, God formed man and woman, and gave them the capacity to see and hear. Adam and Eve, just like you and me, had both natural and spiritual senses. They could see and hear their natural surroundings and they could also see and hear into their spiritual surroundings. Adam and Eve would walk and talk with God face-to-face. They were fully alive! They could experience the sights and sounds of earth and Heaven! They could live out their created purpose: to worship God freely and steward all He had given them!
Soon after, however, Adam and Eve chose to partner with a lie by eating the forbidden fruit and suddenly death entered the world. As darkness cast its shadow on God’s perfect creation, humanity’s spiritual senses began to dim and the world was in a free-fall.
From this state, one bad choice lead to another. Humanity’s sin and rebellion grew. Their hearts strayed from God. No longer did people worship the one true God, but their dull spiritual senses caused them to start worshiping idols. They exchanged life with a living God for bondage to a dead idol.
Psalms 115:4-6, 8 explains it well: “Their idols are merely things of silver and gold, shaped by human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear… And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them.” (NLT)
The Passion Translation of verse 8 says that “everyone who trusts in these powerless dead things will be just like what they worship—powerless and dead.”
And here’s the thing: An idol isn’t limited to a little golden statue. Idols are anything that pulls your attention and affection away from God. Idol worship, or idolatry, happens anytime you worship something other than God. The Apostle Paul lists idolatry as one of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. We can make idols out of our jobs, our ministries, our hobbies, or even ourselves.
Simply put, worshiping idols leads to becoming spiritually blind and deaf. No longer can you clearly see and hear what God is saying and doing. This is not the life God intended for us. In fact, it’s not life at all. We’re like dead men walking. But we don’t have to stay in this state!
There’s a story 1 Samuel 5 that illustrates it best. The Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant, which represented God’s Presence, and they put the Ark right next to an idol of their pagan god, “Dagon.” The next morning, Dagon was lying flat on the ground before the Ark. The Philistines set the idol back up, but the following morning, Dagon had fallen over again and this time its head and hands were broken off! What dismantles the idols in our lives? Returning to the presence of God with fully surrendered and submitted hearts.
Which brings us back to the two words: SIGHT and SOUND. God’s presence is released through expressions of sight and sound. It’s worship. It’s singing. It’s lifting up our hands. It’s Acts 2 when the sound of Heaven filled the room like a mighty wind and the sights of Heaven appeared like tongues of fire.
We live in a world full of spiritually blind and deaf people. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all speak about this. People with eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear. Jesus Himself says it too in Matthew 13:13: "while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."
People need to have their spiritual eyes and ears opened by an encounter with Jesus! And we get to create space for those kinds of encounters… by releasing the sights and sounds of Heaven.
I believe creatives have a unique role in this. Virtually all of our artistic mediums are comprised of the building blocks of sight and sound. As we co-create with Holy Spirit through these sights and sounds, He can use it to open spiritual eyes and ears, allowing for the transformation of hearts and lives in His presence!
Heaven is all around us. The goodness of the Lord fills the land of the living. May we have the eyes and ears to see and hear it! And as we do, may we create space for a lost world to find hope and life in the Savior.