The Sound of Unity

Sound of Heaven, Symphony of Earth by Ray Hughes

The Sound of Unity (Chapter 6)

The sound of heaven was heard in the temple during its dedication and during the night of King Jesus' birth. When was the next time we experienced this sound? In Acts 2, the disciples went to the upper room and did just as was done in the Old Testament. In 2 Chronicles 5, they lifted up their voice "as one" with the trumpet. In Acts when the sound of heaven suddenly visits them again "they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1).

The sound came when that true unity - real unity - was there. The real unity. Unity for unity's sake isn't worth a flip. We keep trying to have unity meetings, but it's not going to happen. There's only one thing that will unite the body of Christ: When the center of the church is no longer the pulpit, but the center of the church is the throne of God. The definition of unity is corporate humility. That means none of us have any agendas, and none of us are trying to be responsible for just our little half-acre on the side of a mountain. God wants us to take the nations for Him, and we're just wanting to control our little half-acre!

Unity for unity's sake is just another form of religious humanism, because somewhere in the midst of that unity, people begin rallying around a person, an idea or a teaching. Though it might have started out of a pure heart, it becomes just another buzz. Gradually people begin desiring the anointing more than the presence of God. Then whoever is most anointed or whatever teaching is most powerful and moving becomes the thing that unites everyone. It's a seasonal thing. We're conditioned to believe there is power in numbers, and in some ways that's true. But there can only be fruit in numbers when God has the individuals' heart - individuals who are seeing and hearing what He's saying and doing, and uniting around that. God wants us to unite around His kingdom purposes rather than just kingdom exercises. Kingdom exercises are the things we do, programs we establish and systems we build all in the name of furthering the kingdom. We turn our focus to those exercises so much that they become our little kingdoms. It becomes a noble thing to unite around secondary purposes because we present them in such a noble fashion. But if our unity is not solely around His throne, at best all those things can do is pacify us until He occupies us.

The disciples are in unity, and what happens? All of a sudden there is a sound as a mighty rushing wind coming through. I used to think, boy, all of a sudden, this wind comes through, everybody's ears are pinned back, their hair's waving back and forth, there's quivering tongues of fire, shutters rattling around the sides of the upper room... what a scene! Boy, Holy Ghost comes in style, doesn't He? But that's not at all what happened. The Bible says it was a sound as a rushing mighty wind. It was not a mighty rushing wind. This sound of heaven came rushing into that room and the church was born. The sound of heaven visited the earth the night Jesus was born and the night the church was born. As the sound of heaven becomes the sound of earth, it won't just be an experience, but a birthing that takes place in the people of God.

There are prophetic connections between the sound visiting Solomon's temple, the upper room, and the continual worshiping assembly in heaven. The matching numbers aren't by coincidence. God's plan is always perfect, and when we slowly discover the intricacies involved in it, we're continually blown away. Notice the temple dedication. There were 24 choruses of musicians gathered, representing the 24 elders in Revelation worshiping before the throne of God, constantly falling on their face. At the temple dedication, there were also 120 trumpeters. There were 120 gathered in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. In Luke 24:50-53, we see that the group had returned to Jerusalem and were continually in the temple praising and worshiping God until the day He would send His promised Holy Spirit. Notice 500 people were initially invited, but only 120 showed up. Any time the Lord calls, He calls all. The majority reacts and the remnant responds. So the 120 were gathered in one accord, in one place - just like the assembly in 2 Chronicles - and suddenly there came a sound from heaven. The precursor was that they had to be in a position to hear the sound before they could actually hear it.

Does this now mean we have a formula for bringing the sound of many waters to earth? Sure, as much as we can move God with our flesh. The last person that tried that (or at least the most famous) was Uzza in 1 Chronicles 13:9. As I recall, he was fried on the highway in front of his friends and family. My point? There is nothing we can do to make God pour out the sounds of heaven on us but to obey Him. "To obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:22). Through obedience we soon find ourselves sanctified as the priests on the day of dedication. Only now, on the other side of the cross, we are sanctified by the blood of Jesus and dressed in white robes not of ceremony but of radiant glory.

Every time the sound of many waters visits the earth, the entire generation is impacted by that release of God. I believe with my whole heart - and this is not just motivational writing or making a good point in a sermonette to "Christianettes" - that God wants to do something so dynamic that the entire next generation is going to experience it. "The high praises of God" are in our mouth and the "two-edged sword" is in our hand (see Psalm 149:6). The high praises take place when heaven touches earth and earth touches heaven. Then the execution of God's vengeance takes place (see Psalm 149:6-9).

When the sound of heaven is magnified by the creative force of God releasing His authority to the Earth, the sound of corporate worship is heard. It is the sound of many waters and the sound of mighty thunder. In Revelation 14:2, John even heard these sounds of heaven combined with the "sound of harpists playing their harps." Every time that sound visited the Earth something phenomenal took place. When the sound that resonates out of the heart of God's people come into agreement with the sound resonating out of God's heart, we find worship on earth as it is in heaven. To experience the worship of heaven is God's greatest desire for our lives.