Your Master's Voice

Back before the days of MP3s and iTunes, people used these things called "CDs." They were these little round discs made of plastic and you could buy them at stores. They usually had ten or twelve songs on them, and you put them in a device called a CD player and you got music. 

And before CDs, people used to listen to these things called "cassette tapes." They were about the size of a tin of Altoids and they actually contained magnetic tape---that's what the music was recorded onto. Most tapes had a full album's worth of music on them, but you had to flip the tape over halfway through the album if you wanted to hear all the songs.

Before cassettes, people listened to vinyl records. They were about the size of a Frisbee and they were made of vinyl, and you had to use a record player to play them. Most vinyl albums weren't very long---you usually only got a song or two per side.

Back when vinyl was cool and dinosaurs walked the earth, one of the biggest manufacturers of records was a company by the name of RCA-Victor. Just about everything that RCA-Victor sold had a picture something like this stuck on it:

If you're cool and retro like I am, you've probably seen a picture of Nipper (that's the dog's name) listening to an RCA-Victor record player before. And if you're really cool, you might even have a Nipper coffee mug (like me). Even if you're not the oldies type, I wouldn't be surprised if you've seen an ad like the one above before. Like the Jolly Green Giant and Tony the Tiger, Nipper is one of the most iconic figures in American advertising.

If you've never seen a picture of Nipper before, well . . .  maybe you should consider becoming cool and retro. Like me. Just a thought . . .

Anyway, there's a fairly interesting story behind the advertisement, and I just thought I'd share it with you. Nipper was actually a real dog. He was born in 1884 in England and died in 1895, and he was named "Nipper" because he liked biting peoples' legs. When Mark Barraud, Nipper's original owner, died in 1887, Mark's brother Philip began taking care of Nipper. Three years after Nipper died, Philip painted a picture of Nipper listening to a record player.

He tried selling the picture to the Edison Bell Company as an advertisement, but was turned down on the basis that "dogs don't listen to phonographs." When Edison Bell refused his offer, Philip took the picture to the Gramophone Company instead. They were impressed with his picture and offered to buy it on the condition that he repaint the picture so that it displayed a Gramophone, and not an Edison Bell phonograph. Philip sold the painting to the Gramophone Company and entitled it "His Master's Voice."

The Gramophone Company and the Nipper logo was eventually acquired by the Victor Talking Machine Company. Victor then merged with RCA to form RCA-Victor, and the now famous RCA-Victor/Nipper advertising campaign was born.

Now that you've had your daily dose of pop culture history, let's talk about something a little more meaningful.

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While no RCA-Victor ad ever actually explained the significance of the "His Master's Voice" slogan, the meaning was clear. The ads suggested that RCA-Victor records and record players were so good that they could fool the keen ears of a dog. If Nipper couldn't tell the difference between his master's actual voice and a recording of his master, then the sound quality of the recording must've been good.

Like Nipper, I think that we as Christians can have a hard time deciding whether or not the voice we're hearing is our Master's real voice. We don't really give it much thought, but there are lots of scammers and shysters in our world today, and they all claim to have the truth about God.

In John 14:6, Jesus says that He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and John 1:14 tells us that Jesus was full of truth. Jesus was literally the embodiment of truth, and He should be our standard for determining whether or not something is really true.

Sometimes, it's easy to spot the lies and inconsistencies in the stuff that people try to pawn off as the "truth." As Christians, we know (or at least, we should know) some basic things about God. Like the fact that God is the only true God. If someone who says they have the truth insists that oak trees, pigeons, and rosebushes are all gods, then it's not hard to realize that they don't have the truth after all.

Oftentimes, though, the distinction between what's true and what's not isn't easy to make. The devil is a liar (John 8:44) and after being in the business for thousands of years, he's gotten quite good at his craft. He knows full well that it's difficult to pass off obvious lies as the truth, so he looks for subtler ways to deceive people.

Consider the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Instead of telling Jesus a bunch of obvious lies, the devil did something a little bit more creative--he tempted Jesus by quoting the Old Testament. The verses the devil used are really in the Bible, but he purposely misinterpreted them so that they fit his purposes. Isn't it interesting that even the devil reads the Bible?

We have to be constantly on the lookout for the devil's trickery. He knows that being obvious won't work, so he tries to deceive us subtly. Jesus knew this, and He gave His disciples this warning:

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?"

Matthew 7:15-16 (ESV)

One of the ways we can spot a false prophet is by the way he or she lives. If they claim to have the truth, but they live like they're not saved, then there's a good chance that they're probably not teaching the truth after all. Just as a bad tree produces bad fruit, a false teacher will produce false teachings. And just as you can identify a bad tree by it's rotten fruit, you can identify a false prophet by his lies.

Like Nipper, we can often have a hard time determining whether or not the voice we're hearing is that of our Master. I think one of the main reasons we encounter this difficulty is because we're not really sure what our Master's voice sounds like. Jesus once made this analogy:

"He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep . . .The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."

John 10:2-5, 16 (ESV)

If we claim to be Jesus' followers, we should be intimately familiar with His voice. Just as sheep know the voice of their shepherd, we should know the voice of our Good Shepherd. Notice how the verse says that sheep won't follow a stranger because they don't recognize his voice. That's how we as Christians should live; we should be so in tune with Jesus we simply can't follow anyone else.

Don't be like Nipper. Know your Master's voice and follow Him only; don't fall for any imitations.